A year's weather. 193 



green peas were in the market, and new potatoes were i^d. a pound. 

 Clover hay was cut on the 7th, and on the i ith it came in seriously- 

 cold, hail storms, ice upon the pools, the grass began to decay in 

 the pastures and meadows, apples dropped off the trees ; the straw- 

 berries were very poor, as the leaves and stems were shrivelled up 

 by the storms. They had 17 days of wet, and one day, the 3rd, 

 when it was 1 20 degrees in the sun. 



1 have dwelt at some length on the natural aspects of June, as 

 the reader would do well to note and make for himself observa- 

 tions which may not be presented so favourably again for years. 



July 8th, 1 89 1. 



Although rain fell here on seventeen days, the amounts were 

 so small that the monthly total of i ■62-inches shows the same 

 general tendency to dryness which has characterised every month 

 except March this year. The mean of the rainfall of July during 

 the last ten years is 3'o6-inches, of the previous forty years 2-60 

 inches. The rainfall this month is one inch below the most favour- 

 able of these averages. During these ten years we have had the 

 second driest July for the last fifty years — 1885, o-40-inch3 1869, 

 o"3j;-inch3 and the second wettest July for the same period, 1888, 

 6-45-inch 5 1867, 6* 71 -inches of rain. In 1888 it rained E-3o-inches 

 on the i^thj and in 1880 i"46-inches on the 16th.; these are the 

 heaviest day's rainfall in July on our registers. 



Though the month's rainfall was so little the total numberof days 

 on which rain fell was quite up to the average of a wet July, and 

 even on some of the rainless days nimbus (rain) clouds gathered and 

 absorbed in their watery curtain the heat the earth would gladly 

 have had, hence the month was not so sunshiny and hot as one 

 would have expected, the daily and nightly temperatures being a 

 little below the average. The prevailing winds, too, were northerly. 

 The highest reading of the thermometer was on the 15th, 79 

 degrees ; the lowest, 40 degrees, on the night of the 13th; this differ- 

 ence of 39 degrees strikingly shows how the temperature ranged 

 during the month. The mean temperature of air for the month, got 

 by taking the means of the maximum, minimum, and dry-bulb 

 thermometers, was 6^'^ degrees. The range of the barometer was 

 a little over half-an-inch {'^6), the highest reading being on the 



