STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Ill 



per cent, above the mean. Supposing some weather prophet had, 

 in 1837 — a notably dry year — taken the records of the preceding 

 five years as a basis of reckoning, how long would it have taken him 

 to count up the time when the world would have been in a fit state 

 for the final torch by which all things are to pass away? How dif- 

 ferent the conclusion, however, of the same prophet had he happened 

 to have used the figures of the ten years preceding 1847 ! Here is 

 an average gain of three per cent, each year, and thirty for the 

 ten years. 



With such examples as these, we should not be too ready to 

 accept some petty agency of man in moving the mighty machinery 

 of the world. I do by no means wish to belittle the power for good 

 or evil in the human brain and hand; but do insist that we take care 

 how we generalize upon insufficient and perhaps irrelative facts. 

 We are not yet able to confidently assert that the changes wrought 

 by man in America have perceptibly modified the total annual 

 amount of aqueous precipitation, however much these changes are 

 in many respects. 



A second question as important as the first has reference to the 

 time of the year in which the precipitation occurs. At first thought, 

 the most of us would probably say that the heaviest rainfall came 

 in early spring. We are certain that the water-level in the earth is 

 highest then. If springs and tile drains ever run it is during this 

 season. If one wants a permanent well of water, any other time 

 than the spring is the time to dig it. 



Turning again to these Smithsonian tables, and computing the 

 monthly averages for the entire number of years, we find the 

 monthly fluctuations extend from thirty per cent, below to forty- 

 four per cent, above the average amount. January has the lowest 

 record; June has the highest, and May next. In Illinois the aver- 

 age June precipitation from 1878 to 1887, inclusive, is 4.68 inches; 

 that for May is 4.18 inches — the only months averaging up to four 

 inches. The average amounts for the ten years is as follows: 



What becomes of this water ? Comparatively little of that 

 precipitated in winter is evaporated, and this is why the earth be- 



