Our Climate and our Wlieat-Crops. 
195 
•have been developed under the influence of considerably higher 
than average summer temperature, with, at the same time, 
deficiency of rain almost throughout, and a considerable 
deficiency during the summer months. 
The seasons of unusually deficient wheat-crops, on the other 
hand, have been characterised by severe, or at any rate very 
changeable, winter and spring conditions, with, at the same 
time, generally an excess of rain during those periods, frequently 
saturating the soil, causing much drainage, and discouraging 
root-development, and early growth in spring. But the more 
striking characteristic of the bad seasons is a great deficiency of 
average temperature, and especially a great excess of rain, from 
the period of active above-ground growth until harvest. The 
season which gave the extremely deficient crop of 181 G was 
characterised much more by unusually low temperatures through- 
out, and especially during the summer months, than by any 
marked excess of rain excepting during those summer months, 
and afterwards. The probably even still worse season of 1878-9, 
though very cold in the winter, was by no means so defective in 
temperature throughout the spring and summer months as 1816, 
but there was a great excess of rain, almost throughout the 
winter, spring, and summer, and a greater excess in the summer 
than in 1816, though much less afterwards. In a word, the crop 
of 1816 suffered more from low temperature than excess of rain, 
and that of 1879 much more from an excess of rain than from 
low temperature, until the middle of the autumn, after which 
1816 continued wet and 1879 became dry. 
Lastly, it would appear that any defect of our climate in 
appropriateness for the production of full and well-matured 
wheat-crops is more connected with an excess of rain, and con- 
sequent wetness of soil and humidity of atmosphere, than with 
any deficiency of average summer temperature. 
11. — The Season of 1878-79, and the Experimental 
Wheat-Crops at Rothamsted. 
Having illustrated the characters of a number of seasons of 
high and of low productiveness, and especially of the wretched 
one of 1878-9, by reference to independent records, we now 
turn to a consideration of the characters of that season at 
Rothamsted, and of its effect upon the continuous wheat-crops 
there. 
For twenty-seven years (1853-79 inclusive) the rainfall at 
Rothamsted has been measured by means of a gauge of one- 
thousandth of an acre area (6 feet x 7 feet 3 inches), and also 
O 2 
