Climate 151 



Winter comes and checks it, and it is obliged to put off 

 bearing fruit till the following summer. Plants grown in 

 this, the natural way, are generally the stronger, if they 

 manage to survive the winter. But they are exposed to 

 more perils than when the seed is sown in spring, and of 

 course they are much longer in coming to perfection. 



Barley sown early in August and September, as soon 

 as it is ripe, has been found to take two hundred, and 

 two hundred and forty days, to come to perfection, which 

 is just eight times as long as it often does in Egypt, where 

 it is sown and ripened not only the same year, but quite 

 early in the year. 



Provided, however, the seed be not sown too late, the 

 crop seems to be equally good whether the seed be sown 

 in autumn or spring. Barley sown for experiment on the 

 2 1 St of April came to perfection in eighty-eight days, 

 that is, by the i8th of July; whereas that sown five weeks 

 later ripened, indeed, in an equal number of days, but 

 prematurely, before the grain was properly developed, 

 because it had been over-stimulated — too much hurried, 

 in fact, during the long, light, warm days of June. 



Of all the influences by which the plant is surrounded, 

 none affect it so powerfully, for good or evil, as light, 

 temperature, and moisture, or, in one word, climate. 

 Where the climate is favorable, the quality and quantity 

 of the soil are of comparatively little im.portance, for the 

 plant manages, to make the very utmost of what it has. 

 But where the climate is unfavorable, no soil, however 

 good and abundant, can make up for it, though it may do 

 something to lessen the evil consequences. 



As we have already seen, the richest soil is unable to 

 supply the place of water: while in Guiana, on the other 



