Anniversary Address. 165 



ancient Border History, such as does not exist in any other 

 district that I know of. 



As I remarked before, the Club has indeed been fortunate 

 as to weather on the days of meeting, for we have passed, or 

 perhaps more properly, are passing through one of the 

 strangest seasons possible. Last summer, you will remem- 

 ber, was remarkable for heat and a drought so intense as to 

 cause in many places a serious want of water and consider- 

 able danger of the drying up of springs. The winter, as far 

 at least as North Northumberland is concerned, was for the 

 most part singularly mild, so much so that in February 

 water-flies came out in great abundance on the Glen, and 

 the trout rose freety at them. In consequence the trout, 

 when I began to fish for them at an unusually early period, 

 rose quite freely at the artificial fly, and were fat, bright- 

 coloured, and good to eat, which is seldom the case in our 

 smaller streams before May. In March there was a dreadful 

 snowstorm, reminding one of the blockade in March 1886 — . 

 fortunately it did not last so long. Then followed a spring 

 and summer the coldest, bleakest, and most sunless that I 

 should think any of us almost ever saw. May and June 

 were dry as well as cold, and vegetation was almost at a 

 stand-still. July was very wet, and so was part of August. 

 Fortunately we were spared the inundations that prevailed 

 in many other parts of England and did great damage, but 

 in spite of the cold the rain produced the most extraordinary 

 growth in almost every kind of vegetation. Grass which 

 was scarcely above the ground in June yielded an unusually 

 abundant crop of hay in August, and corn, which in June 

 looked as if it would never struggle into ear at all, is now 

 in many places the largest crop that has been seen for 

 years, and as you all know the difficulty now is, what must 

 always attend a late harvest, the difficulty of getting it 

 housed. However, we may be heartily thankful for this 

 growth, late as it is, for it could scarcely have been ex- 

 pected ; and we may be thankful for the rain too, for had it 

 not come, the consequences of last year's drought would 

 have been serious in many places. The growth of trees and 



