15 



the greatest and least fall of rain took place were not, with 

 one exception, those whose mean quantity of rain was greatest 

 or least. February and March have the lowest mean, and yet 

 neither was ever the dryest month in the year. August and 

 October have the highest mean, and yet each was only once the 

 wettest month in the year. See Table No. 3. 



" It would be very interesting to extend these inquiries 

 over the whole country. The Academy has the rain tables 

 kept in Athlone by order of the Board of Works, and I hope 

 to classify them in a similar manner as soon as they are pub- 

 lished. 



" If it should appear that the climate of Ireland is liable to 

 such great vicissitudes, it might be of importance to call the 

 attention of agriculturalists to the fact, lest, by the occurrence 

 of one or two favourable seasons, they might be induced to cid- 

 tivate crops which are dependent on dry warm weather at any 

 period of their progress to maturity. The following remark 

 occurs in Captain Larcom's Report to His Excellency the Lord 

 Lieutenant, which is prefixed to his Returns of the Agricultu- 

 ral Produce of Ireland in the year 1 849, p. vi. : — ' The success 

 of any crop must necessarily depend in a great degree on the 

 natural fitness of the soil and on the character of the climate ; 

 and in a country like this, the wheat crop must, from the lat- 

 ter cause, be always a hazardous one.' 



" Captain Larcom states, in the same Report, that the 

 average acreable produce of wheat in Ireland, in the year 1847, 

 was 6 T 6 y barrels ; in 1848, was 4 T 5 g- ; and in 1849, was 5^- 6 bar- 

 rels. It is remarkable that the fall of rain in those years in 

 Dublin varied very nearly inversely in the same proportion ; 

 in 1847, the fall of rain was twenty- one and a half inches; in 

 1848, it was thirty-one inches ; and in 1849, it was twenty- 

 seven three-quarter inches. Oats and barley seem to have been 

 but little affected. " 



