238 
E. HAWLEY-PHENOLOGICAL PHENOMENA 
average quantity for any two winter months taken together. At 
Berkhamsted the sun shone for about half an hour a day short of 
its seasonable duration, making this the most gloomy Winter I have 
yet recorded. 
It is seldom that farmers have had to contend against such 
trying conditions in regard to weather as those which prevailed 
during this Winter. In the first place the autumn rains had left 
the land in a sodden condition, and the early part of December 
being also wet, it was with the greatest difficulty, and under by 
no means favourable circumstances, that any corn could he got in 
at all during that month. Even so late as the third week in 
December comparatively little wheat had been sown in some parts 
of the county, owing to the saturated condition of the ground. 
Indeed, the only period which was at all suitable was for a short 
time in the middle of November; so that the total area planted 
with winter corn last year must have been one of the smallest on 
record. Then in January and February the rain was so persistent 
that little progress could be made with ploughing the land for 
spring corn. It can therefore be imagined how considerable must 
have become the arrears of seasonable work on the farm at the end 
of the Winter we are now reviewing. 
To the horticulturist the season was almost equally unpropitious. 
For the planting of fruit and other trees and shrubs the soil was 
for the most part in as unsuitable condition as it well could he, 
while the preparation of the land for seed-sowing and other 
purposes was at the termination of the quarter nearly as backward 
as on the farms. Trees of all kinds were benefited by the plentiful 
supply of moisture at their roots after so many dry seasons. Fruit- 
trees, owing to the coldness of the previous Summer, had not made, 
much growth, hut the new shoots were sturdy and well nourished. 
The mild and wet weather also suited the supply of green vege¬ 
tables, but there were fewer survivals than usual in the way of 
flowers early in the season, owing to the frosts and drenching rains 
at the end of the Autumn and the beginning of December. 
In my garden at Berkhamsted the winter aconite first showed 
an open flower on the 13th of January, or a week earlier than its 
average date in the previous fifteen years. As showing the general 
mildness of the first half of the Winter, it may be stated that the 
last rose bloom of the season, growing on a plant in the open 
ground, was not destroyed by frost until the 17th of that month, 
which is thirty-seven days later than the average date of its 
destruction in the preceding eighteen years, and eleven days later 
than in any of those years. 
Taking the county as a whole, the first fertile flowers appeared 
on the hazel thirteen days later than their average date for the 
previous twenty-eight years. The song-thrush was first heard after 
the beginning of the year seven days in advance of its mean date, 
while the honey-bee was first seen to visit flowers twenty-seven 
days later than usual. 
