Tlie Past Agricultural Year. 
211 
'trasted and compared it with that of two previous noteworthy 
years, 1860 and 1868 : then two reports of personal experience 
by Mr. Charles Randell and Mr. Charles Whitehead, respectively, 
members of the Council : and lastly, with but little comment, 
a large body of evidence, the several witnesses being arranged 
from north to south according to their several counties. 
The following is Mr. Symons' report of the weather of the 
twelve months ending September 30, 1879 : — 
The Weather of 1879. — " In order to realise the full force 
of meteorological statistics, it is indispensable that we have 
somewhat wlaerewith to compare them. Sometimes this is 
best done hy determining the average of a long series of 
years, and then comparing the facts for a given year with that 
average. At other times it is best to seek for an analogous 
period, and also for one possessing exactly opposite character- 
istics, for by that course the variations to which the climate 
is liable become readily evident. In preparing the present 
paper I have used both methods, as sometimes the one and 
sometimes the other appeared the more expedient. 
" The first set of tables give the leading meteorological data 
for two stations, — Cardington, near Bedford, one of the driest 
places in England, and Stonyhurst, near Clitheroe, Lancashire, 
a place having a fall of rain about the average of the west 
coast of England and Wales. I have selected these stations 
partly on account of their widely different climate, partly in con- 
sequence of their position, partly because observations have been 
uninterruptedly made at each for nearly a quarter of a century, 
and partly because I believe the observations to be of better than 
the average quality. For these two stations I give identical data 
for three agricultural years — 1859-60 (wet and cold), 1867-68 
fdry and hot), and 1878-79 (wet and cold). (See Tables I. and 
11., pp. 213, 214) The general resemblance of 1860 and 1879 is 
very striking, but, as regards both temperature and rainfall, 1879 
was the worse of the two. This is very clearly shown by diagrams 
Figs. 1 and 2, which represent the mean temperature and the 
monthly rainfall at the two stations for the three selected years. 
" The effect of a given quantity of rain depends materially on 
the manner in which and the period at which it falls ; and I 
have before me tables, constructed for the illustration of this 
point, representing the daily fall at three widely-separated 
stations, London, Bury St. Edmunds, and Worcestershire, for 
which room is wanting here. From these it is, however, seen 
I that March was the only dry whole month of last year, but that 
, the latter part of January was also dry, and in some parts of 
j England the early parts of August were also nearly rainless. 
' P 2 
