16 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, 



gress has been made in this direction. The difficulties of the 

 plant recorder in ascertaining and entering the disappearance 

 of each species dropped, were indicated in the last general 

 summary;* but they have never proved so misleading as 

 during this last period of merely apparent progress notwith- 

 standing unusual efforts to increase the collection. 



THE WEATHER. 



Gardening is so closely governed by and dependent on 

 cUmatic conditions that success or failure, either general or 

 partial, is often distinctly in relation with the meteorology 

 of a given year. Though hardly a season passes without a 

 serious thunder-storm or hail or sleet storm, which leaves 

 in its wake washed walks, broken or riven trees, or other 

 ruined plants, the Garden has suffered from few really serious 

 storms since its care was assumed by the Board. One cloud- 

 burst, in July 1893, brought so heavy and rapid a downpour 

 as to fill the parterre with water and convert the grounds at 

 the north of it into a pond that became nearly waist-deep 

 where dammed by the east and north walls of the Garden, 

 notwithstanding the existence of drains which quickly remove 

 the water of ordinary storms; yet little harm was done aside 

 from denudation of the steeper walksf. Two hail storms of 

 unusual severity, one in 1896t and the other in 1902, did 

 serious damage to plants and glass houses. The only really 

 notable storm, however, was the tornado of May, 1896, § which 

 in addition to injuring some of the buildings, wrecked a very 

 large part of the trees of the Garden, destroying an effect of 

 maturity that can be reproduced only in part and after the 

 lapse of many years. 



The ordinary facts of temperature and precipitation, which 

 have been graphically presented year by year, are epitomized 

 in the accompanying diagrams (B and C); those of the 

 year 1908 being shown in separate diagrams (D and E). 

 The data used for these are derived from the records of the St. 

 Louis office of the Government Weather Bureau, with which the 



* Rept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 15 : 17. t I- c. S : 18. 

 t Rept. Mo. Bot. Gard. 5 ; 14. § I. c. 14 : 14. 



