XVI. Seasons. Weather. Time

1. SEASONS

There are four seasons in the year – spring, summer, autumn and winter. Spring is the season of hope and happiness. It is the season when nature awakens from her winter sleep – the ice is broken, the grass is beginning to shoot, here buds are showing, there the trees are already bursting into leaf, fresh, green and lovely. Spring has come!
Summer is the hottest season in the year. The bright sunshine scorches the earth. Not a single cloud is in the sky. It is pleasant to get out of town where one is so oppressed with the heat and ramble through woods, among hills and valleys, following winding paths that are hardly seen to the naked eye in the thick green grass. The fields are green and shorn – here and there big stacks of hay are seen. The days are long in summer.
But on moves the earth in its race round the sun. The days are becoming shorter, the sun rays are losing their glittering force – autumn is approaching. The beautiful nature has thanked the laborious farmer for his toil in the fields, meadows and orchards. The trees that not long ago bloomed with flowers are laden with ripening fruit. But the beautiful "Indian summer" is over – it is deep autumn now. We don't hear any more the sweet melody of birds in the woods and forests – they have flown away to far distant warm countries. Everything is beginning to take a different colour and garment in the lonely quiet of the countryside – the trees look bare, for they have cast off their leaves, the fragrant flowers have-faded away. The sky is overcast with low, black, heavy clouds – the period of rains has set in. It is unpleasant to be out in the drizzling piercing rain that is accompanied by a cold wind.
December is approaching. There is a breath of winter in the autumn air. It is getting colder day by day. The cold makes the hands cold and stiff. It is on a morning in December that you get up and look out of the window, and lo!.. the ground, the roofs of the houses are thick with snow. In the woods the branches of the trees are also feathered with snow. Everything around looks so beautiful! Winter has set in.

2. ON ENGLISH CLIMATE

The climate of England is milder than that of other countries. English people are apt to complain of it as being damp and rainy, and foreigners laugh at it and say, that the English summer is made up of three fine days and a thunderstorm.
It is hard to say that England has typical weather because of the sudden changes that occur – showers from what was only a few hours before a clear blue sky; sunshine that makes you want to leave off most of your clothes followed by winds that set you wishing for two overcoats.
The winter fogs of London are, indeed, awful; they surpass all imagination. In a fog the air is hardly fit for breathing; it is grey, yellow, of deep orange, and even black because of the smoke of many thousands of chimneys. In a dense fog all traffic is stopped, no vehicle can move from fear of dreadful accidents.
The three things that chiefly determine the climate of England are: (1) the position of the island in the temperate belt; (2) the fact that the prevailing winds blow from the west and south-west; (3) the warm current – the Gulf Stream that flows from the Gulf of Mexico along the western shores of England.
All this combined makes the climate more moderate – that is, the winters warmer and the summer cooler. The winters are never cold enough to freeze the rivers and the summers are seldom hot.
The plentiful rainfall enables agriculture and the rearing of cows, sheep, etc., to be carried on successfully whenever the soil is suitable. In wet, warm regions grass grows best, and we find most of the cattle-rearing and dairy-farming in the rich pastures of the plain lands of South-West England, the cities of which are noted for their cheese, cream, and butter.
Sheep can be reared where grass is not good enough for cattle and so we find them on the steep hillsides of the west. Pigs are bred in most parts of England, especially in the eastern countries of England.
But while the moist lands of the west are most suitable for grass, the drier east with its hot summers is better for the growing of cereals generally, and wheat in particular, which needs a hot summer and a dry autumn to ripen.
The principal cereal crop, however, is oats. Oats are used for feeding horses and for making oatmeal for porridge. After cereals root and green crops are the most important cultivated plants, the principal of which are potatoes.
Large quantities, too, of turnips, carrots, cabbages, etc., are grown, and a considerable sugar-beet industry has been developed, especially in East Anglia and Scotland.
We must not forget, too, the growing of fruit. There are few leveller sights than the cherry orchards of Kent or the apple, pear and plum blossom of Hereford, Devon and Somerset in early spring. There are, too, valuable quantities of  "soft" fruits, raspberries, strawberries, etc., grown, and the jam-making and fruit-preserving industries that have grown up in these districts are important.
Finally, in discussing the harvests of the country we must not forget "the silver harvest of the sea," its fisheries. The east coast fisheries are the most valuable, and three quarters of the fish landed in England come from there.
Adapted from "Essential English for Foreign Students "by G. E. Eckersley.

3. TIME
°