254 The Weather at Florence. 



prayers to be offered up on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of 

 January. Rain followed in sufficient quantity to dissipate all 

 fear for the wheat and herbaceous crops, but by no means to 

 moisten the earth to any great depth; and, though rain fell on 

 ten days of February, it was so scanty in quantity that serious 

 apprehensions began to be felt that the whole spring might 

 pass without any moisture reaching the lower roots of the 

 vines, olives, and other trees. At length, however, on the 

 11th of March, the peasants were gladdened by the grateful 

 sight, for the first time in ten months, of twenty hours of 

 pouring and unceasing rain, and frequent and heavy showers, 

 continued, with some interruptions, for nearly ten days ; at last 

 once more filling the bed of the Arno (which had been a 

 mere brook till the middle of February, and then only in- 

 creased so as to be barely navigable) with a broad and rapid 

 stream, and soaking the powdery soil for a considerable 

 depth, though perhaps still not completely ; for, even on the 

 20th of March, a peasant said that a full foot of the dry 

 earth still remained to be moistened. 



Effect of the Drought on Grass Turf. — Among the numerous 

 errors repeated in books respecting the Continent, of which a 

 visit thither enables one to detect the fallacy, is that of the 

 impracticability of having there even tolerable grass plots, on 

 account of the dryness of the summers. Of the incorrectness 

 of this opinion I have seen in the last four years proofs innu- 

 merable, but none so striking as that now exhibited (March 

 25th) at Florence, in the Cascine (or public garden), where 

 the extensive pastures, and especially that used for the 

 English races, present, though after having been just exposed 

 to a ten months* drought (during the first five of which, a 

 friend assures me, it did not rain, in the whole, twenty-five 

 hours), one uninterrupted surface of fine green and short 

 turf, without the slightest appearance of bald patches ; thus 

 showing that, with suitable subsoil and species of grass, and 

 the same attention in mowing and rolling, it would be pos- 

 sible to have grass plots on the Continent very little inferior 

 to those of England, except temporarily during the greatest 

 heats of summer, when they may look more brown and 

 burnt ; but which defect, if they were well managed, would be 

 repaired after the first rains. 



General Remarks. — No snow during the whole winter. 

 Three periods of sharp and continued frost; viz., from the 

 10th to the 18th, and from the 23d to the 29th of December, 

 and from the 19th to the 26th of January; during which, 

 sometimes, the thermometer as low as 24°. Two thunder 

 showers on the 16th and 18th of March. Blackthorn in 

 blossom 20th of March. First swallow observed 26th of March. 



