STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 401 



We find from an inspection of rainfall statistics of the United 

 States census for 1880 that our annual fall is very near the average 

 of the whole United States. That report gives the average for the 

 United States, exclusive of Alaska, as 29 inches, very nearly, 

 while a record kept by Wm. Cheney, at Minneapolis, for the 

 last eighteen years, gives 28.27 inches as the average. 



The north and west portions of the state, however, show a fall 

 somewhat less than this, according to the census report above 

 referred to. An inspection of the tables arranged by Mr. Schott 

 and published in the Smithsonian Contributions, vol. 18, discloses 

 some other interesting facts, among them that the least amount of 

 precipitation for any year was in 1864, with but 12.06 inches at 

 Fort Ripley, and 14.86 inches at St. Paul, while the wettest year was 

 in 1849, with 49.64 inches at St. Paul. The next great annual pre- 

 cipitation was in 1881, with 38.76 inches. The extremes are 57.63 

 inches apart. 



If we turn to Iowa we find that within the same period the dryest 

 year was 1882, with but 18.58 inches of rainfall at Sioux City, and 

 the wettest 1858 with 65.90 inches at Fairfield, while but 19.81 

 inches fell at Fort Ripley in that year. 



Passing toward the gulf we find the average to be, at 



Davenport 39 . 5 inches . 



St. Louis 42 



Memphis 49 " 



Vicksburg 55 " 



New Orleans 60 " 



These figures show that the nearer the Gulf the greater the rain- 

 fall, and prove that where no disturbing influences are present, pre- 

 cipitation is most frequent where evaporation is most abundant — 

 one of Nature's grand laws of compensation. 



Let us carry the comparison a step further, this time toward the 

 east, and into the great fruit raising state of Michigan. The high- 

 est authentic record was in 1858, of 52.42 inches, at New Buffalo, 

 preceded by 52.06 inches, at Grand Rapids, in 1855, while the 

 minimum measure was 11.70 inches at Fort Mackinac, in 1851, and 

 an average of 26 inches in the " Fruit Belt," so called, which 

 gives a showing to the effect that fruit culture does not depend 

 upon excessive precipitation. 



Of the two feet four inches and more of water, which year after 



year falls in this state, in a vast sheet over our 54,000,000 acres 



of land, giving over 21,600 barrels of water to every acre, an 



average of 16,250 or more than seventy-five per cent, sinks 



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