122 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AT WISLEY, 1915. 
By R. H. Curtis, Hon. F.R.H.S. 
The Climatological Observatory at Wisley has been efficiently main- 
tained throughout the year, and the daily readings of the instruments 
have been made by the Observer, Mr. Cartwright, without a break. 
Some time ago three recording thermographs were added to the 
instrumental equipment, and set up at heights of one, two, and four 
feet respectively above the ground without shelter of any kind, in 
order to obtain some information as to the range of temperature to 
which plants growing to those heights in the open are subject. After 
they had been for some time at work it was found that, owing to a 
small defect in construction, some of the records were doubtful, and 
the instruments were therefore returned to the makers for alteration. 
They were reinstated early in the past year and have since been work- 
ing satisfactorily, and it is hoped some useful information may now 
be derived from their records. In no other respect has any change 
been made in the equipment of the Observatory. 
The weather of the year now under review presented one or two 
outstanding features of interest. Regarded as a whole the year was a 
cool one ; in seven individual months the mean temperature was below 
the average, and in four other months it was only slightly above it. 
December was relatively the warmest month of the year, the normal 
temperature being exceeded by two degrees ; whilst in November, 
which was relatively the coldest month, the average temperature was 
five degrees below it. The spring was cool throughout ; and July, the 
middle month of summer, had a mean temperature two degrees colder 
than is usual. Three or four months were abnormally wet, especially 
the first two and the last months of the year ; in February the average 
rainfall was more than trebled, and in July also it was doubled ; on the 
other hand March was extremely dry, with less than three-quarters 
of an inch of rain. There was very little snow, the only fall of note 
occurring in January and disappearing very quickly. As is not very 
unusual, there were floods in the Thames Valley and in the river Wey, 
but this year they were of quite exceptional volume, and covered a 
greater area than any during the preceding twenty years. 
On the whole, from a gardener's point of view, the year may be 
regarded as an ordinary one ; and although the characteristic vagaries 
and fickleness of our English weather were sometimes perhaps more 
than usually evident, yet, as generally happens, they seemed to balance 
each other fairly well as the months passed on, and in the general 
