156 Effects of the Winter of 1878-9, by James Hardy. 



frost, and the repeated heavy snow-storms been so hurtful as the shorter but 

 more intense frosts of such winters as that of 1860-1. StUl, gardens aixd 

 shrubberies have suffered a good deal, and the Club may find interest in some 

 facts which I have either observed myself, or gleaned from a pretty general 

 inquiry among persons likely to give accurate information. 



The first shower of snow fell here on October 29th, followed at an interval 

 of a few days by a regular snow-storm ; the last snow, as far as I observed, 

 fell on the 9th of May. Thus we had fuUy six months of winter ; and the 

 period between these dates was characterised here as elsewhere, not by short 

 sudden dips into intense cold, but by a uniform low reading of the ther- 

 mometer, bringing the average maxima and minima much below what is 

 generally observed. At Bowhill (elevation 595 ft.), one of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society's Stations, the average monthly readings were as 

 follows : — 



1878. 



MAX. 



MIN. 



1879. 



MAX. 



MIN. 



October 



. 53.19 



43.26 



January , 



. 34.25 



23.58 



November . 



. 41. 1 



32. 6 



February . 



. 36.96 



28.57 



December .. 



, 34.09 



25.82 



March 



. 42.30 



31.23 









April 



. 47.10 



33. 8 



The lowest readings were— in November, 29th, 24° ; in December, 14th, 

 10°, 24th and 25th, 19°, and 26th, 17°; in January, 20th, 6°, 24th, 7°, and 

 27th, 10° ; in February, 25th, 18°, and 20th, 19° ; and in March, 14th, 12°. 

 In April there was a sudden fall on the 19th to 23°. 



Down to the end of February evergreen shrubs seemed to suffer little, a 

 fortunate result to be ascribed, perhaps, to the unusual stillness of the 

 weather ; but when March arrived with its bitter N. and N.E. frosty blasts, 

 they visibly yielded- to the fierce assault. But for the unusually severe 

 March and April, I think we should not have found more injury done than 

 in an ordinary winter. As things are, however, what I have noted is, that 

 in flower gardens herbaceous plants have come through much as usual, and 

 the freezing of the ground for a long period to the depth of 18 or 20 inches, 

 does not seem to have affected hardy bulbs. Roses have been a good deal 

 disfigured, — cut down but not destroyed, — the only Rose in my garden quite 

 dead being an Austrian Briar. In the kitchen -garden there has been no 

 little havoc, the whole Cabbage tribe having been well nigh annihilated, so 

 that there is a dearth of spring vegetables. Broccoli, which never promised 

 better in the end of autumn, was reduced to pulp ; Brussels Sprouts stood 

 longer, but became useless ere the end of winter ; and autumn-planted Cab - 

 bage (Macewen's) proved but a ragged regiment when the snow melted — 

 most of the plants killed, and such as survived proving so weak that they 

 never "hearted," but shot up into feeble flower stems. 



Among the shrubs about the Manse (530 feet above sea), the common 

 Laurel [Prunus Lauro-Cerasus) and Evergreen Oak [Quercus Bex) have 

 suffered most, none being killed, but the foliage much damaged, indeed 

 stripped from large portions of the bushes, so that we must wait for the 

 young leaves, which are growing vigorously, to clothe them again. Portugal 

 Laurel, Solly, Aucuba, Mahonia, Weigelia rosea, Berberis duleis, and B. 

 Darwinii, &c., are untouched. 



