CHAPTER III 

 THE RELATION BETWEEN PRECIPITATION AND VEGETATION 



DROUGHT AND DESERTS. From the consideration of heavy 

 rainfalls one would pass next to that of drought, and this again 

 requires to be treated in some detail, for the condition is so foreign 

 to our experience that the realisation of its importance over the 

 greater part of the globe is excessively difficult for the child. The 

 author has repeatedly found that even students capable of giving 

 clear and precise accounts of the geography of, for instance, the 

 Sahara desert, will every now and then show by some casual 

 phrase that they find it impossible to realise the meaning in daily 

 life of rainlessness. 



Drought is so important a subject, if any real progress is to be 

 made with geography later, that many methods of approach may 

 be profitably tried. For example, we water the school garden in 

 summer-time, but does the farmer water his fields ? The very 

 suggestion will probably raise a smile, so foreign is it to our 

 experience. Why does he not water his fields ? Two answers 

 would probably be forthcoming because it costs too much, and 

 because generally it is not necessary, there is rain enough. Does 

 he never lose money then because his crops do not get sufficient 

 rain ? If the school is one in a country district, or where the chil- 

 dren have knowledge of country conditions, one may get at such 

 facts as that where the climate is relatively dry, as in the east of , 

 England, the farmer grows a large amount of wheat which does not 

 need much summer rain ; that where it is wet he grows crops like 

 turnips or grass which need more rain ; that, our climate being 

 somewhat uncertain over the greater part of the agricultural regions, 

 he discounts the possibility of drought by a variety of crops. If 

 his wheat fail because of excessive rain he has still his root crops, 

 which have been favoured by the wet summer. If the summer 

 has been exceptionally dry his grain crops will at least in part 



