and Subterranean Water Storage. 85 



almost entirely due to this cause and to drainage; and as clear- 

 ing and draining must ever be the first operations of civilised 

 men in a new country already covered witli forest, the change 

 must begin at once, and go on uninterruptedly until a balance 

 has been attained. We do not know whether this is yet the case 

 in Western Europe. It may be considered certain that it is not 

 the case in North America, and that the tendency therefore may 

 still be to produce a more average climate in both cases. In the 

 northern states of the Union, and in Canada, the climate is still 

 excessive, and will probably always continue so. In our own 

 country it probably never has been excessive in recent times, at 

 any rate since the introduction of civilisation ; but it has been 

 favourably modified, and may admit of improvement yet further, 

 so far as it is improvement to equalise the temperature of summer 

 and winter, and distribute the rainfall equally throughout the 

 year. An extreme instance of such a climate may be found in 

 some parts of New Zealand ; and by the removal of forests that 

 country may some day resemble England even more than it does 

 at present. Cosmical causes, or causes affecting the eartli as a 

 planet, in its relation with the other planets of our solar system 

 and the sun, may also have acted to some extent ; and if so, they 

 may still act, and produce further changes quite independent 

 of human agency ; but with these, or modifications of the surface 

 arising from physical causes, we are not here concerned. 



We must, I think, assume that as drainage has only recently 

 been carried out systematically over large areas of country ; as 

 the modern style of cultivation and the removal of hedge-rows 

 and trees wherever important farm-work is undertaken, is still 

 imperfectly acted on ; and as high-farming is still limited, the 

 progressive alteration of climate, whatever it has been, will not 

 cease or be checked, but rather it will increase and become more 

 manifest. We must look forward to the seasons running yet 

 more into one another than they now do ; to the winters being 

 more rarely extremely cold and the summers hot, and, perhaps, 

 also to the rainfall diminishing by degrees, more or less per- 

 ceptible. And this may be the case, although now and then old 

 people may recognise and welcome a winter or a summer of 

 the kind they remember to have been common when they were 

 voung. It is not that each particular year will be more like the 

 average, but that the seasons will, on the whole and generally, 

 be more moderate. What is done is done ; but the effects, 

 perhaps, are only beginning to manifest themselves ; and it 

 behoves the agriculturist to prepare for the change, and to 

 consider how, on the whole, he can best adapt himself and his 

 culture to it. Crops that can best grow and ripen in our cool 

 summers and doubtful autumns should take the place of those 



