92 MARCH 



A recent expert on the weather, writing in America 

 for Americans, noted how we associate particular coun 

 tries with particular types of weather: England, for 

 example, with rain. This instance seemed especially to 

 impress him. I should like to take him to Shotover, the 

 lovely hillock overlooking the lovely city of Oxford. 

 We should find acres of black ruin, floored with the 

 crumpled leaves of bluebells. The forest fire si parva 

 licet componere magnis was bred and brought on by 

 mere dryness. February Filldyke for we also libel our 

 selves produced just one millimetre of dampness in its 

 extended 29 days, and that was in the form of hard snow. 

 The railway banks are black. Many broad acres flame 

 and smoke with fires intentionally lit. The grass fields 

 burn as freely as a pine forest in Oregon. The wells are 

 low in the clay-founded villages of the Midlands. The 

 subaqueous holes of the voles in southern counties are 

 no longer beneficently hidden. The tilths are dusty; 

 and if dust were any longer permitted on our too perfect 

 roads the yellow-hammers would enjoy delicious (lusting 

 baths. England wet ? 



Now wide spaces in America that were almost desert 

 for want of rain were made to blossom like the rose by 

 the art known as dry-farming* It consisted chiefly in a 

 skilful scratching of the top inch or so of surface and 

 preventing evaporation in the manner of a low cloud. 

 Every garden in England, every tilth, has been dry- 

 farmed, not by the difficult labour of man, but by the 

 beneficence of our climate. Morning frosts have 

 crumbled the surface almost to the whiteness of a dusty 

 road ; and beneath the nap of this blanket the earth 

 remains as moist as if our country s reputation for rain 

 had been justified to the hilt. 



The prognosticates, the phenologists, the oldest 



