increase in the amount of cloud, and consequent decrease in the amount
of sunshine, in all parts of our country. It is an undoubted fact that
in the Middle Ages England was a wine-producing country, and this
implies more sunshine than we have now. Sunshine has a double effect, in
heating the surface soil and thus causing more rapid growth, besides its
direct effect in ripening the fruit. This is well seen in Canada, where,
notwithstanding a six months' winter of extreme severity, vines are
grown as bushes in the open ground, and produce fruit equal to that of
our ordinary greenhouses. Some years back one of our gardening
periodicals obtained from gardeners of forty or fifty years' experience
a body of facts clearly indicating a comparatively recent change of
climate. It was stated that in many parts of the country, especially in
the north, fruits were formerly grown successfully and of good quality
in gardens where they cannot be grown now; and this occurred in places
sufficiently removed from manufacturing centres to be unaffected by any
direct deleterious influence of smoke. But an increase of cloud, and
consequent diminution of sunshine, would produce just such a result; and
this increase is almost certain to have occurred owing to the enormously
increased amount of dust thrown into the atmosphere as our country has
become more densely populated, and especially owing to the vast increase
of our smoke-producing manufactories. It seems highly probable,
therefore, that to increase the wealth of our capitalist-manufacturers
we are allowing the climate of our whole country to be greatly
deteriorated in a way which diminishes both its productiveness and its
beauty, thus injuriously affecting the enjoyment and the health of the
whole population, since sunshine is itself an essential condition of
healthy life. When this fact is thoroughly realised we shall surely put
a stop to such a reckless and wholly unnecessary production of injurious
smoke and dust.