187 
twice a day ; & i feel great pleasure in the work. You remember 
Evelyn’s 4 story of tho Emperor Maximilian II. asking an old man* 
why he planted Dates, which would require an hundred years to 
make them produce fruit? lie answered i have children, and i 
hopo they will have children. But having children or none, the 
work to mo is pleasing. Dec. 21. I am interrupted by the 
friend that dirocts this, & can only add that i am always, with 
great esteem, your obliged & obedient servant, R: Marsham. 
[This letter was franked by “ Suffield.” — 21st December.] 
LETTER XVIII. 
Dear Sir, 
RAIN IN 
1792. 
Jan. 
Inch. Huml. 
... 6—7 
Feb. 
... 1-68 
Mar. 
... G-70 
Apr. 
... 4-8 
May 
... 3-0 
Ju. 
... 2-78 
July 
... 5-16 
Aug. 
... 4-25 
Sep. 
... 5-53 
Oct. 
... 5-55 
Nov. 
... 1-65 
Dec. 
... 2-11 
48-56 
warmth and sun 
4 Vol. ii. p. 206. 
[White to Marsham.] 
Seeboune. Jan. 2. 
1793. 
My best thanks are due for your kind letter 
of Decm r 21, to which I shall pay proper attention 
presently. But I shall first speak of the margin 
of this, which contains the rain of last year, which 
was so remarkably wet, that You may be perhaps 
glad to see what proportion the fall of water bears 
to that of other uncomfortable, unkindly years. 
The rain in 1782, as you see in my book, was 
52 inches; in 1780, 42 inches; & in 1791, 44 
inches : yet these wet seasons had not the bad 
influence of last year, which much injured our 
harvest ; damaged our fallows ; prevented the 
poor from getting in their peat & turf, which 
lies rotting in the Forest ; washed & soaked my 
cleft beechen wood, so that it will not burn ; it 
prevented our fruits from ripening. The truth is, 
we have had as wet years, but more intervals of 
shine. 
Hunter’s edition (u t supra). — A.N. 
