286 a year's weather. 



going to the bad as regards the amount of rain which has fallen this 

 year and last, January ist to April 30th, 1 888, total rainfall here 9/71 ; 

 same period this year ] 2 -45 -inches, a difference of about 276 tons to 

 the acre. We had a tremendous downpour of rain on the evening 

 of the 6th, when o*o8-inch fell in ten minutes. The number of 

 plants seen in bloom to the end of April was 65 species. In places 

 the horse-chestnut, sycamore, beech, and hazel were in leaf. Bibio 

 MarcM, the two-winged fly the meteorologist welcomes in the spring, 

 we saw on the ^th, the swallow at Falmouth on Easter Monday, 22nd, 

 at Truro on the 28th, and the swift on the 30th. We have not 

 heard the cuckoo yet, but it was heard at Cuckoo Bottom, below 

 Besore, Kenwyn, on the 23rd ; locally this place, named after our 

 spring harbinger, is notorious for being the place where it is first 

 heard in this part of Cornwall, and so periodically, that many visitors 

 frequent the valley on one set day every year for the purpose of 

 hearing the bird's proclamation of "summer is coming," and are 

 rarely disappointed. 



May 8th, 1889. 



During May we had 1 8 days on which rain fell, the total rainfall 

 for the month being 3"6i-inches, the heaviest May rainfall here for 

 eleven years 5 indeed, during the last 40 years there have only been 

 six wetter Mays, the average rainfall for the same period of the 

 same month being 2 ^-inches. May, last year, was unusually 

 dry throughout Britain, being only "64-inch (under three-quarters 

 of an inch), the average British rainfall for May being i'78-inches. 

 Locally, nearly one and a half inches more rain fell during that 

 month than in April). Our total rainfall from January ist to 

 May 31st is i6 - o6-inches, the total rainfall for the same period in 

 1888 being 1 1 '3 2, or four inches and three-quarters more rain this 

 year than last. 



We had no frost, our maximum heat in the shade being 63-6 

 degrees, our minimum 47'° degrees. We had more or less sunshine 

 on 25 days. Perhaps one may add best here that the country looks 

 in splendid condition, and the grass is long and healthy. The hay 

 harvest begins in this neighbourhood to-day on Newham Farm, 

 near Truro. 



