Seasons of High Produce. 65 



crops, and the summer brilliantly fine till the last week in 

 June. At the end of June heavy rains and high winds laid 

 the crops ; but bright breezy weather in July stayed the 

 damage, though much did not ripen well. The rest of the 

 season was fine, and the wheat crops were got in in excellent 

 order ; but, though bulky, they were decidedly inferior in 

 both yield and quality to those of 1834. Generally, then, 

 these four consecutive seasons of abundant wheat crops were 

 characterised by mild and open winters, upon the whole mild 

 springs, and average, or warmer than average, summers, 

 especially the last two of the four. In each season there were 

 individual months of considerably more than average fall of 

 rain, sometimes earlier and sometimes later, and accordingly 

 influencing the bulk of the crop. But each season was 

 characterised by less than the average fall of rain during 

 several months of the growing period, and this was 

 particularly the case in the season of 1834, the one of the 

 most extraordinary productiveness. 



Passing now to those seasons of high productiveness which 

 have occurred during the progress of the Rothamsted 

 experiments, the season of 1854 comes first in chronological 

 order. The crop, which was very abundant both in corn and 

 straw, was, after a severe winter period, grown under higher 

 than average temperatures during the earlier, but lower 

 during the later, periods of growth, and with much less than 

 the average fall of rain in every month from seed-time to 

 harvest, excepting in May and August. The heavy corn, but 

 not heavy straw, crop of 1857 was obtained under the influence 

 of about average winter and early spring, but high summer, 

 temperatures, and, as in other cases of high productiveness, 

 there was here again much less than the average fall of rain 

 from seed-time to harvest, the only months of any excess 

 being January, June, and August. The wheat crop of 1863 

 gave probably the highest average produce per acre over the 

 country at large since 1834 ; its season of growth was marked 

 by an extremely mild winter and early spring, with much less 



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