Seasons of Low Produce. 67 



harvest, there being in no case an excess in more than two 

 out of the nine months from November to July inclusive. 

 The other three seasons of high productiveness (1857, 1868, 

 and 1870), though they gave less corn than the foregoing, 

 and very much less straw, were, nevertheless, seasons of 

 considerably more than average produce of corn, and of high 

 quality of grain. These crops were grown under much more 

 variable winter conditions as to temperature, but under much 

 higher both spring and summer temperatures, especially those 

 of 1868 and 1870 ; whilst, with the higher temperature there 

 was, as in the cases with lower temperature and more 

 abundant crops, much less than the average fall of rain from 

 seed-time to harvest, one or two months only showing an 

 excess. 



Turning to the seasons of unusually low productiveness, in 

 that of 1853 the early winter had been unseasonably wet and 

 warm, the land being generally saturated with water, and in 

 many cases flooded ; the spring was unseasonably cold, and also 

 wet, and the summer was, upon the whole, colder than the 

 average, and very wet. The characteristics of the season of 

 1860, yielding a crop both late and much below the average 

 both in quantity and quality, were a winter alternately very 

 cold and very mild, and upon the whole wet, followed by a 

 spring, summer, and autumn generally stormy, cold, wet, 

 sunless, and unseasonable. In the season of 1879 there was, 

 from seed-time to harvest, a considerable deficiency of tem- 

 perature, compared with the average, in every month except- 

 ing March. It is remarkable, however, that there was even 

 a lower mean temperature in June, 1854 a season of very 

 great abundance than in June, 1879, the season of the 

 worst crop known within the century. But it was by the 

 continuity and excessive amount of the rainfall that the 

 season of 1878-9 was especially characterised, the excess 

 during the eleven months, from November to September 

 inclusive, being more than eleven inches over the average, 

 and the total amount was more than double that over the 



F 2 



