134 JOUENAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCLETY. 
total supply had been unusually bountiful, whereas a gardener would 
naturally describe the season as up to that time extremely diy. No ; for 
all practical purposes it is the winter rainfall alone which goes to nourish 
the springs and maintain our supply of underground water, while the 
summer rainfall alone is of any substantial benefit to plant life. Let 
this, then, be our second lesson. 
Regarded from this, the horticulturist's, point of view, I was sur- 
prised to find on tabulating the results what a number of dry summers 
(Apl.-Sept. I we have had in recentyears. At Berkhamsted, and no doubt the 
same holds good for many other places in the home coimties and else- 
where, in the last seventeen years there have been only two of these 
summers (those of 1889 and 1^92 » when the total rainfall for the six 
Fig. o2. 
Ps;n/s// atScrk/ramsteda^ur//?^ tAeSu/nmer -/id/f of C/re year s/zrae £J?d(: 
1 
Aver age 
J^/nfd//aC 5erk/}a/ns!:ed c/arm^ t/!s Wj/rter Aa/rafC/7e yedrs/rrceC/isC of /d 56-7 
Fig. 53. 
months ending September has been in excess of the average for that 
period, and even in those two years, as will be seen from Fig. ."2, the 
difierence was very shght. Taking these seventeen dry summers together, 
the total deficiency of rain on each square yard of surface in my garden 
has been 185 gallcns, or an average deficiency of rather less than 
half a gallon a week. 
Table to convert gallons per square yard into inches of rainfall. 
\ gallons = -05 in?. 
^ „ =-11 .. 
\ =-i.; .. 
1 .. =-21 .. 
•2 .. =-43 .. 
3 .. = 04 ., 
•5 gallons = 1-07 ins. 
6 
. = 1-2S 
7 
,s 
= 1-71 
. =i;«3 
10 . 
. =214 
