WINTER 1879-80 UPOX TREES AND SHRUBS. 75 



given of this remarkable night are furnished by careful observers, 

 but from the readings of thermometers under different circum- 

 stances, some being in a "louvre" bo?c, usually arranged for 

 meteorological instruments, others being the lowest registers by 

 thermometers in the open air, in exposed situations ; so that while 

 mathematical accuracy cannot be claimed for the figures given, 

 the whole presents a very popularly correct idea of the intensity 

 of the storm in the various localities indicated. 



Having thus shown that the exceptionally cold night of 4th 

 December 1879 culminated, as it may be said to have done, in 

 destructive agency, by recording the lowest falls in the thermo- 

 meter within the memorv of " the oldest inhabitant," we must 

 proceed to sketch the supervening and subsequent course of the 

 winter and early spring temperatures and general weather over 

 the country, for it has yet to be observed that to the condition 

 of the atmosphere and temperature during the early months of 

 the year, vegetation owes much of its future luxuriance or re- 

 tardation during the future season ; and it is also found that to 

 the effects produced in that critical period of the year, after 

 so intense a frost, much of the damage upon trees and shrubs 

 observed at a later stage is to be fairly attributed. Many plants 

 may have out-lived the severe chilling frost-bite of December, 

 but which, debilitated thereby, are unable to resist frosty nights 

 and damp foggy mists of evenings in the early spring months, 

 accompanied as these invariably are in our climate by cold 

 easterly winds extending even into May, and frequently accom- 

 panied by days of cloudless sunshine, a combination of circum- 

 stances, we feel quite assured, far more detrimental to the life 

 of all trees and shrubs than the mere intensitv of extreme frost 

 alone. 



Eesuming then the general narrative of the course of this 

 severe winter, we find that from the ni^ht of the 4th December 

 so memorable, there was uninterrupted frost of various degrees 

 till the 27th January 1880, the average being about 8° nightly. 

 During this interval the night of the 13th-14th December had 

 again been remarkable for a very severe fall in the thermo- 

 meter over nearly all the various districts, resembling somewhat, 

 although not witli tlie same degree of intensity, tlie frost of the 

 4th December. Again several degrees below zero were at some 

 stations recorded, the tliermometer rising thereafter with the 

 same severe and telling rapidity, fartlier contirming the damage 

 done to many plants in the h^w-lying situations. We have 

 records of as hjw as 4° below zero in some localities near 

 streams, at this date in the south and cast of Scotland, and again 

 also low readings were recorded on the 2t)th December, some 

 situations returning 12° of frost which on the previous night had 

 only noted 35°, or 3° above freezing-point as the lowest register. 



