Farming of Cwmherland. 



213 



Observations have not, however, been long enough continued 

 to enable an opinion to be formed whether, as many suppose, the 

 climate of Cumberland be gradually growing colder. The mean 

 temperature of Whitehaven has been ascertained by Mr. Miller 

 to be 49^ 2' for the last 18 years, and for the last 6 years 

 49^ 22', which indicates a contrary conclusion. It is not gene- 

 rally from the great degree of cold or the excessive fall of rain at 

 any single period that the agriculture of this county suffers — it is 

 more from the effects of cold at unseasonable times, the sudden 

 changes of temperature, the occasional deluges of rain, and the 

 long continuance of either cold or rain at periods when the crops 

 require a different condition of the atmosphere, that they are 

 injured, and the hopes of the husbandman disappointed. 



A slight fall below the freezing point when the vegetation is 

 full of sap does much more harm than a far lower degree at a 

 period when the sap is at rest. But as regards the degree of 

 moisture in the soil, such amelioration may be effected by drain- 

 age as may sensibly affect the crops, and probably the climate 

 also. The absorption and radiation of heat is much more active 

 and powerful in drained soils than in those which are suffused 

 with moisture. Rain-gauges are probably better constructed 

 now than formerly ; there has been considerably less frost in late 

 years to disturb their action, and far less snow ;* they may there- 

 fore afford more accurate results. Yet, taking the journals, as 

 chance has placed them in the writer's hands, and assuming that 

 all have been correctly kept, the average of the seven years at 

 Keswick, beginning with 1799, registers 70*55 inches, and the 

 average of the seven years ending with 1850 only 57-64 inches. 



At Wigton, the seven years commencing with 1833 average 

 40*69 inches, whilst the seven years ending with 1851 average 

 only 33*85 inches. The Whitehaven register, beginning and 

 ending as the last, gives 49*92 and 44*45 inches as the respective 

 averages. These examples are not given for the purpose of 

 working out a theory (for seven years may be too short a period 

 for a criterion), but because they happen to be the only registers 

 furnished by the author's friends which extend so far back^ and 

 they seem so far to bear out the idea that the fall of rain is 

 actually diminishing. Mr. Miller is of opinion \ he has dis- 

 covered a place at the top of Styhead Pass, between Borrowdalej 



* Before much draining was done, the snowstorms were more frequent, far 

 heavier, and lay longer on the ground. Thirty to fifty years ago, and before, the 

 roads were often to cut in snow (in April, in 1799), and but very seldom now. 

 This may have arisen from other causes than draining. 



+ Philosophical Transactions, 1851, part ii., p. 631. 



X Previous to a storm coming on, a Avhite cloud forms about half way down the 

 mountain, and settles there for several hours, and sometimes a day or two, till the 

 rain begins, when it disperses. This is called the Borrowdale " sop." 



