T^he Ohio ^J^aturalist, 



PUBLISHED BY 



The Biological Club of the Ohio State University, 

 Volume XII. NOVEMBER. 1911. No. 1. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Fink and Lantis— Climatic Conditions and Plant Growth in Southwestern Ohio 385 



Metcalf— Life-Histories of Syrphidiie II 397 



■GoETZ— Fluctuating Characteristics of Apples 406 



CLIMATIC CONDITIONS AND PLANT GROWTH IN 

 SOUTHWESTERN OHIO IN 1908 AND 1909. 



Bruce Fink and Verxon Laxtis. 



The spring of 190S was cold, wet and backward, and it was 

 almost impossible to plant eariy in fields or gardens. It rained 

 or snowed nearly every da}^ in April. The sky cleared before 

 noon on the second day of May, and there was no further precip- 

 itation of moisture at Oxford, Ohio, where the observations given 

 in this paper were made, until the twentieth of June, except two 

 showers that barely laid the dust. July second, third and fourth 

 gave showers, which altogether wet loose soil down one to two 

 inches. vSimilar showers came on the fourth and fifth of August 

 and again on the twelfth and seventeenth of the month, but at 

 no time was loose soil wet down more than two inches. A rain 

 on the twenty-eighth of September wet down one inch, and another 

 like it came during the last week of October. From the middle 

 to the last of November, we had several light showers that set 

 the grass growing. The soil of cultivated fields was watched for 

 three days after each shower or series of showers, and for six 

 months, from the second of May to the middle of November, it 

 was at no time wet by rain to a depth greater than two inches. 

 The total number of light rains during the six months was nine. 

 The drought that occurred during these six months was probably 

 the most severe and disastrous known in this locality since its 

 settlement. 



The precipitation for March and April, 1908, was excessive, 

 and the government Monthly Weather Review for both months 

 put us in the area of four to six inches. We were also put in the 

 area of four to six inches precipitation for May, 190S; but this is 

 very likely an error of compilation from few stations for a large 

 .area, since so much precipitation probably did not occur before 



^Contributions from the Botanical Laboratory of Miami University. VII. 



385 



