94 
E. MAWLEY—I* PI ENOLOGICAL PHENOMENA 
The Summer. 
An exceptionally cold, wet, and sunless season. Of the months 
composing it June was the coldest and wettest, and July the least 
unseasonably cold and rainy of the three. Although the tempera¬ 
ture was, as a rule, low, and the rainfall excessive, there occurred 
during the course of this Summer a warm, dry, and sunny period, 
lasting very nearly a month. 
Seldom is the hay-crop so favoured by the weather as it was in 
1903. First came the wet period at the end of April and beginning 
of May, and when the ground was completely saturated this was 
followed by ten warm days at the close of the latter month, 
which caused the grass to start rapidly into growth. Finally, 
the drenching rains in the middle of June were fortunately suc¬ 
ceeded by a month of warm and dry weather, which enabled the 
bulk of this crop to be gathered in with little trouble and in 
excellent condition. This warm and dry period, the only genial 
weather of the Summer, also helped forward all the other farm- 
crops. And yet before it came to an end rain was becoming much 
wanted for the late-sown corn and also for the roots, which had had 
no opportunity of obtaining a firm root-hold of the ground. The 
fact is, the heavy June rains had so beaten down the soil that it 
had become caked and hard on the surface, and was therefore little 
able to resist anything like continued dry weather. The harvest 
was late and began under very unfavourable circumstances, owing 
to the continued rains which again set in at the end of July, and 
which lasted with but little interruption until the end of the 
Summer. 
In the gardens everything remained very backward until the 
warm and dry period, before mentioned, set in about Midsummer 
Day, when considerable advance was made. This was the one 
drought of the year, and a very remarkable drought it was, as it 
occurred in the middle of an exceptionally wet Summer and 
continued for twenty-six days. For fifteen days no rain fell at 
Berkhamsted, and during the twenty-six days the drought lasted 
less than a quarter of a gallon of rain was deposited on each square 
yard of surface in my garden. Over the greater part of the county 
the drought was still more prolonged, no rain falling at most of 
our rainfall-stations for at least twenty-two days. 
Mr. Willis gives June 21st as the date when the first ear of 
wheat was observed out of the sheath, which is later than in any 
of the previous eleven years. He further states that the harvest 
at Harpenden was not general until the third week in August. 
Our observer at Harefield gives June 22nd for the commencement 
of the hay-harvest and August 9th as the date when the first wheat 
was cut. 
The plants on the list which flower during the summer months 
were, as a rule, late in coming into blossom. The dog-rose was 
three days early, the black knapweed nineteen days late, the hare¬ 
bell fourteen days late, and the greater bindweed eleven days late. 
