322 THE CEREAL AND OTHEE CROPS OF SCOTLAND FOR 1879. 



south, and the ramfall during these months and August was 

 peculiarly heavy, and as regards the country lying from Greenock 

 to near Stirling, also in September. These results are mainly to 

 be attributed to the lowering of the watershed in this part of 

 Scotland, the results of which were on the one hand the exten- 

 sion down the Clyde of the wet cloudy weather brought by the 

 east winds, and on the other the extension far to eastward of 

 the wet cloudy weather brought by the south-westerly winds 

 from the Atlantic — results which do not occur farther to south 

 and north owing to the high mountainous ridges which there 

 separate the east from the west. 



Excepting in the north-west, the turnip crop was everywhere 

 a miserable failure. The deficiency was nowhere less than a 

 third below the average, being, however, in the great majority 

 of cases a half, and in some three-fourths or four-fifths. 



Potatoes w^ere also under the average everywhere except in 

 the north of Shetland, but the failure generally was not so great 

 as in the case of the turnip crop. The failure was greatest in 

 East Lothian, where the crop was only a fourth of the average 

 and in Berwickshire the deficiency was nearly as great. In other 

 words, where the summer rains were the heaviest, the sky most 

 clouded, and sunshine the least, the failure of the potato croj) 

 was most complete. 



