188 
Our Climate and our Wlieat-Croj)s. 
of 1816. The Latter suffered more from low temperature, but 
less from excess of rain during the summer. Both crops were, 
however, very late, and, for getting in the crop, the season of 
1816 was much worse than that of 1879. 
Having now pointed out the prominent characters as to 
temperature and rainfall of each of the fourteen seasons selected 
for illustration separately, it will be of interest, disregarding as 
much as possible the specialities of individual seasons, to con- 
sider the average character of classes of seasons, arranged accord- 
ing to the general character of their wheat crops. Accordingly, 
in Tables IV. V. and VI. the fourteen seasons are classified 
as stated below. There are given the average monthly mean 
temperatures and rainfall for each class, the difference between 
the result for each class and the average for a number of years, 
and the difference between the result for one class and another. 
The classes are as follows: — 
Six years of high produce of both corn and straw ; namelv, 
1832, 1834, 1835, 1854, 1863, and 1864. 
Four years of high produce of corn, but not of straw ; namely, 
1833, 1857, 1868, and 1870. 
Four years of very low produce ; namely, 1816, 1853, 1860, 
and 1879. 
Of course, the essential character of all averages is to eliminate 
extremes, and as the class of six seasons of high produce of both 
corn and straw includes individual seasons differing more 
widely from one another, both as to temperature and rainfall, 
than those within either of the other classes, the averages 
given in the table for that class cannot be taken as showing 
the character of the class without more of qualification than in 
the other cases. Admitting this, it will still be found that, 
taking considerable periods of the seasons — from seed-time to 
the end of April, and from the beginning of May to harvest, for 
example — the averages do clearly bear out the general conclusions 
to which the consideration of the individual seasons has led, in 
regard to the main characteristics of those periods. 
The first class includes the six seasons out of the fourteen 
which gave the heaviest total produce, corn and straw together ; 
and it is to be observed that it is those seasons of greatest 
luxuriance of growth, which have also given the most corn per 
acre. 
Confining attention, in the first place, to the period of six 
months, from November to April inclusive, in only one of the 
six seasons which go to make the average, were there two 
months, and in four others there was only one month of the six, 
of in any material degree lower than average temperature, and 
