15 
the greatest and least fall of rain took place were not, with 
one exception, those whose mean quantity of rain was greatest 
or least. February and March have the lowest mean, and yet 
neither was ever the dryest month in the year. August and 
“October have the highest mean, and yet each was only once the 
wettest month in the year. See Table No. 3. 
«It would be very interesting to extend these inquiries 
over the whole country. The Academy has the rain tables 
kept in Athlone by order of the Board of Works, and I hope 
to classify them in a similar manner as soon as they are pub- 
lished. 
‘Tf it should appear that the climate of Ireland is liable to 
such great vicissitudes, it might be of importance to call the 
attention of agriculturalists to the fact, lest, by the occurrence 
of one or two favourable seasons, they might be induced to cul- 
tivate crops which are dependent on dry warm weather at any 
period of their progress to maturity. The following remark 
occurs in Captain Larcom’s Report to His Excellency the Lord 
Lieutenant, which is prefixed to his Returns of the Agricultu- 
ral Produce of Ireland in the year 1849, p. vi. :—‘ The success 
of any crop must necessarily depend in a great degree on the 
natural fitness of the soil and on the character of the climate ; 
and in a country like this, the wheat crop must, from the lat- 
ter cause, be always a hazardous one.’ 
** Captain Larcom states, in the same Report, that the 
average acreable produce of wheat in Ireland, in the year 1847, 
was 6,5, barrels; in 1848, was 4,5,; and in 1849, was 5,5; bar- 
rels. It is remarkable that the fall of rain in those years in 
Dublin varied very nearly inversely in the same proportion ; 
in 1847, the fall of rain was twenty-one and a half inches ; in 
1848, it was thirty-one inches; and in 1849, it was twenty- 
seven three-quarter inches. Oats and barley seem to have been 
but little affected.” 
