Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1878-09-11
The British Climate.

The climate of the greater part OF
| England is never seriously cold nor
uncomfortably hot-barely cold enough
in winter to be thoroughly disagreea-
bic, and not warm enough in summer
to give a good variety of vegetable pro-
ducts. Snow seldom falls to depth of
more than two or three inches, and
rarely lies upon the ground twenty
four hours after 1t has fallen. Ice,
thick enough for skating is luxury
that may be enjoyed once or twice in
the course of a whole winter, and even
then it must be promptly made use of,
for it never tarries long. The sound of
the merry sleigh bells is quite un-
known, and Juvenile England finds
sleds and skates not very useful prop
erty.
In the fall, frOsts come early, and
deciduOus trees soon drop their leaves,
vet the English landscape never looks
dreary in winter. The meadows look
green and fresh, even in January and
February, and holly, English ivy, box,
and other evergreens are so abundant,
that midwinter is anything but a dull
and cherries season. The English ivy
seems almost omnipresent. Old chur-
ches and walls are covered with it; the
hedge rows are alive with it, and even
the trees are often green TO their very
tops with dense masses of the clinging
ivy. The average daily temperature of
the month of January for fifty years
past, at Greenwich, has been about 81
deg, and the thermometer rarely sinks
as low as 20 deg. \ temperature, in
the locality of London, of zero, or even
of ten degrees above that points some
thing that is known only to the ''oldest
inhabitant." During the whole of last
winter no ice formed of sufficient thick
ness to bear the weight of boy of II
years, and snow at no time fell TO the
depth of as much as two inches. That
was an unusually moderate winter,
however.
When spring approaches, the trees
begin to bud early, but their advance
ment is very slow, and, though the new
leaves give the trees faint color of
green, even in March, it is fully as late
as in our own climate before they are
in full leaf. This slow growth of vege-
tatiOn is one of the remarkable circum-
stances connected with this peculiar
climate. Wheat looks green and thrift
fx-i. March in ha narlt- ~ of
July still shows no signs of ripening.
The wheat harvest in the south and
central parts of England rarely begins
before the first weeks of August, in the
north, September finds them taking in
their grain, and in Scotland large
part of the wheat is not harvested I'M
til the e; rly part of October. Potatoes,
which. in the United States come up in
three weeks after planting, here take
seven or eight weeks in getting above
the ground. There is wonderful diff
ference in the approach of spring iu the
United States and in England. In the
former, when the cold weather is over,
the forces of nature, which have been
chained for a season, burst forth almost
impetuously, and everything rapidly
takes on new life. Vegetation advdn-
ces by leaps, as it were. In England,
plant life creeps toward maturity. Win
ter is protracted season of our March
weather, and when March really comes
the change is not great one. April is
raw and disagreeable; May is cool, but
pleasant; and June is merely warm
no more. In every summer-there are
numerous days in July, the warmest
month in Great Britaln-when over
coats are positively comfortable, and
there are very few days when fires are
not needed at morning and evening.