308 ON THE SUPPOSED CHANGES OF THE CLIMATE OF ENGLAND. 



his predecessors, and the expediency of creating, or selecting, such 

 varieties of different species of fruits as are well adapted to the present 

 state of his climate. 



As the chief object of this communication is to direct the attention of 

 the gardener to the subject of fruit trees, I shall begin my observations 

 upon that part of the year in which the blossom- buds of the succeeding 

 year are generally formed and closed up (though much change of struc- 

 ture within them subsequently takes place), that is, in the latter end of 

 May. Within the last fifty years very extensive tracts of ground, which 

 were previously covered with trees, have been cleared, and much waste 

 land has been inclosed and cultivated ; and by means of trenches and 

 ditches, and other improvements in agriculture and covered drains, the 

 water which falls from the clouds, and that which arises in excess out of 

 the ground, has been more rapidly and more efficiently carried off than 

 at previous periods. The quantity of water which our rivers contain 

 and carry to the sea in summer and autumn is, in consequence, as I have 

 witnessed in many instances, greatly diminished ; and upon the estate 

 where I was born, and which I now possess, my title-deeds, and the form 

 of the ground, prove a mill to have stood, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 

 and probably at a good deal later period, in a situation to which sufficient 

 water to turn a mill-wheel one day in a month cannot now be obtained 

 in the latter part of the summer and autumn. Under these circum- 

 stances the ground must necessarily become much more dry in the end 

 of May than it could have been previously to its having been inclosed 

 and drained and cultivated ; and it must consequently absorb and retain 

 much more of the warm summer rain (for but little usually flows off) 

 than it did in an uncultivated state ; and as water in cooling is known 

 to give out much heat to surrounding bodies, much warmth must be 

 communicated to the ground ; and this cannot fail to affect the tempera- 

 ture of the following autumn. The warm autumnal rains, in conjunction 

 with those of the summer, must necessarily operate powerfully upon the 

 temperature of the succeeding winter ; and, consistently with this hypo- 

 thesis, I have observed that during the last forty years, when the weather 

 of the summer and autumn has been very wet, the succeeding winter has 

 been in the climate of this vicinity generally mild. And that when 

 north-east winds have prevailed after such wet seasons the weather in 

 the winter has been cold and cloudy, but without severe frost, probably 

 in part owing to the ground upon the opposite shores of the Continent 

 being in a state similar to that on this side the Channel. 



I was first led to notice the preceding effects by having observed, many 



