A. tear's weather. 191 



Perhaps the best explanation of the discomfiture so much 

 complained of in May, was in the sudden change of the weather. 

 We were unusually buoyed up by the fine hot week preceding 

 Whitsuntide. The hottest day of the month was then, when the 

 heat in the shade was 73 degrees, and the night temperature was 

 50 ; a week afterwards (Whitsuntide) the highest day temperature 

 was 50 degrees in shade, the minimum temperature of the previous 

 week, and the night thermometers registered 2 degrees of frost, a fall 

 of 20 degrees of heat, accompanied by northerly winds, heavy rains, 

 and a little hail. In many parts there were heavy falls of snow ; 

 Rugby 7-inches, in London blinding shov/ers of sleet and snow, 

 accompanied by thunder. 



On the 1st of May, ijgi (100 years ago) grass was so luxuriant 

 that many people had their cattle out a fortnight earlier than usual. 

 A week afterwards, on the 8th, wheat changed colour and appeared 

 yellow, and potatoes above ground were nipped by the frost and 

 their branches turned black 3 grass was making no progress. About 

 the date of our Whitsuntide this year there were cold, raw, gusty 

 winds, and eventually a piercing gale. In that year (1791) the 

 hawthorn blossomed, and the corncrake was heard on the 25th ; 

 this year (1891) we saw and heard the same on the i8th. 



After all, in the matter of weather, we are living under very 

 much the same conditions as in the "good old times." 



June 8th, 1891. 



" Leafy June !" Perhaps the ordinary mind cannot recall a 

 June so leafy as the last one. The cold weather, prolonged into the 

 lap of May, relaxed its severity when plant life could scarcely tolerate 

 the bondage longer. And then we saw nature robed in primary 

 and secondary growths, untouched by insect or fungoid parasites. 

 Throughout Cornwall the heavy foliage, casting a deep shade 

 beneath the trees, was marvellously developed and wonderfully free 

 from ravage. As the trees clothed some of the valleys, where one 

 got an extended sight of them, they presented, perhaps a more 

 sombre picture than usual with June leaves, but this sombreness 

 disappeared on nearer approach, and the newer growth was seen to 

 overtop, to cover up, and to merge into the older tree growth. This- 

 new growth was a revelation to the observer ; a holly bush over which 

 he may run his hand at will and touch or grasp nothing but soft 

 non-pricking leaves, is what June does not always bring to us. 



