ON THE DESMIDIE.E OF NORTH WALES. 70 



I now add figures of seven rare species not hitherto figured in 

 English works, all drawn from my own specimens, and to a uniform 

 amplification of 400 diameters, in addition to the three new species 

 described above. 

 March loth, 1881. A. W. Wills. 



[Erratum. — By a printer's error, on page 43, an asterisk was 

 prefixed to Xanthidium armatum, which our readers are requested to 

 efface in their copies. — Eds. M. N.] 



FARMING AND NATURAL HISTORY NOTES FOR THE 

 YEAR 1880. 



BY THE REV. T. A. PRESTON, M.A. 



The district to which the following remarks principally apply is 

 roughly that part of England south of a line drawn between the mouths 

 of the Yorkshire Ouse and the Severn, though even in this limited area 

 some counties are not represented. It may, however, be considered 

 as descriptive of the state of the midland and southern districts during 

 the year 1880. 



As regards farm crops, it was at one time a most promising year. 

 Seldom before had such cold and dryness served so favourably for 

 breaking up and cleaning the land as after the terrible season of 1879. 

 The rain of February came at the x-ight time for the seed, and good 

 crops both of hay and grain were looked forward to. May, however, 

 was a very dry month, and, especially towards the end, the country 

 was suffering from drought, and the hay crop threatened to be a 

 failure. Still what there was would have been good, serviceable food, 

 not like the unopened rank growth of the previous year, but the 

 heavy rains of July frequently not only destroyed the hay so as to 

 render it not even worth the trouble of taking off the land, but in the 

 low-lying districts carried it bodily away. These rains also affected 

 the corn, which till then looked very promising, and had it not been 

 for a fins August and September, another bad harvest would have 

 followed. Some of the damage caused by the rain was repaired, but, 

 especially in the eastern counties, the coru was very poor. At Grant- 

 ham, in Lincolnshire, " harvest commenced on the 23rd August, and 

 the first fortnight was splendid. Then came a week of heavy rain 

 and a hailstorm of five minutes duration, which saturated the 

 uuthatched stacks from top to bottom. Some stacks, when thrashed 

 out, only realised from one quarter to eight or nine per acre, utterly 

 spoiled, and others when opened were like manure heaps. Farmers 

 cannot remember such a year, and are far worse off than they were in 

 1879 in this part of the country." Root crops, as a rule, appear to 

 have done well, and this is, perhaps, the redeeming feature of the year. 

 The second growth of grass was most luxuriant, especially in Shrop- 

 shire, but there was but little mown, and no second crop was secured. 



