Rainfall.
| Rainy Days. | Clear Days. | Cloudy and Partly. Cloudy Days. | |
| January, | 5 | 19 | 12 |
| February, | 3 | 24 | 5 |
| March, | 3 | 24 | 7 |
| April, | 1 | 29 | 1 |
| May, | 12 | 4 | 27 |
| June, | 18 | 8 | 22 |
| July, | 12 | 6 | 25 |
| August, | 18 | 8 | 23 |
| September, | 13 | 15 | 15 |
| October, | 10 | 19 | 12 |
| November, | 3 | 15 | 15 |
| December, | 6 | 17 | 14 |
| Total, | 104 | 188 | 177 |
Rainfall during year, 69½ inches.
At least one-half the days classed as “cloudy and partly cloudy” were clear one-half of the day, and a majority of the “rainy days” were clear three-fourths of the day. During the gale on the 29th and 30th of last August, which was so destructive on the Atlantic coast of the State, rain fell here almost uninterruptedly for nearly forty-eight hours, but the wind did little or no damage. The rainfall during the two days was six and one-half inches, the heaviest of the season. I have resided here during the past fourteen months, and, up to this time (January 7th, 1881), there has been no frost, and my tropical fruits and plants have grown luxuriantly every month of the year. The year just closed, in its dying throes, kicked the mercury in the thermometer down to 38°, and a slight frost occurred on the opposite side of the Manatee River, and also in the hammock four or five miles south-east of Braidentown. The water protection—being surrounded on three sides by the aqueous fluid—has rendered Braidentown exempt from frost.
Although the rainfall of 1880 has been some nine inches in excess of the average rainfall in this State, I have passed one of the most agreeable summers of my life. While the denizens of the St. Johns and Atlantic coast are shivering in the chilling blasts of winter, we on the Gulf coast of South Florida are basking in the sun, with a temperature of 65° at 6 o’clock A. M., 75° at 12 o’clock M. and 70° at 6 o’clock P. M. If any locality north of latitude 27½° can present a more favorable record, Braidentown will yield the palm.
Nous verrons.
S. C. Upham.
Sunnyside Cottage,
Braidentown, Fla., Jan. 7th, 1881.
BRAIDENTOWN, SOUTH FLORIDA.
Editor of the Florida Agriculturist:
Several of your Northern and Western subscribers who read the communication I published in the Agriculturist in January last, giving a synopsis of the climate of the Manatee region during the year 1880, and which was reproduced in my recently published book, “Notes from Sunland,” have requested me to publish in your journal a statement of the thermometer, rainfall etc., in Braidentown for the year 1881. I have furnished the desired information as briefly as possible:
TEMPERATURE.
| Average temperature at 6 o’clock A. M., | 711/8° |
| Average temperature at 12 o’clock M., | 83° |
| Average temperature at 6 o’clock P. M., | 78¾° |
| Highest temperature at 12 o’clock M., July 7th and August 4th, | 96° |
| Lowest temperature at 6 o’clock, A. M., January 26th and November 25th, | 44° |
| Rainfall. | Days on which Rain Fell. | Cloudy and Partially Cloudy Days. | Clear Days. | |
| January, | 51/8 in. | 12 | 17 | 14 |
| February, | 2½ in. | 4 | 6 | 22 |
| March, | 2½ in. | 5 | 8 | 23 |
| April, | 2¼ in. | 3 | 5 | 25 |
| May, | 2¾ in. | 5 | 9 | 22 |
| June, | 6¼ in. | 8 | 12 | 18 |
| July, | 4½ in. | 17 | 22 | 9 |
| August, | 5½ in. | 11 | 22 | 9 |
| September, | 4¾ in. | 12 | 19 | 12 |
| October, | 1½ in. | 5 | 7 | 24 |
| November, | 2¼ in. | 5 | 11 | 19 |
| December, | 2¼ in. | 8 | 18 | 12 |
| Total, | 421/8 | 95 | 156 | 209 |
When the difference of rainfall for the years 1880 and ‘81 is taken into consideration, the equability of the temperature for the two years is a surprising and strange coincidence, there being less than one degree Fahrenheit in the average temperature of the two years. The rainfall for the year 1881 was 18 inches below the average on the Gulf coast, which is 60 inches, the difference between the years 1880 and ‘81 being 27½ inches; that of 1880 being 9½ inches in excess of the average rainfall. Although we had, comparatively speaking, no “rainy season” last year, vegetation and crops have not suffered from drouth. The vegetable gardeners hereabout were never more sanguine of large crops. Cucumbers, squashes, and turnips have already been shipped by them to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and tomatoes in abundance will follow next month. Several truckmen from Fairbanks and other places on the Transit Railroad are this year engaged in raising early vegetables in the hammocks bordering the Manatee.
The mercury in the thermometer reached 96 degrees only twice the past year; and the lowest point indicated was 44 degrees on the morning of the 26th of January and 25th of November—12 degrees above the freezing point. We had no frost during the year. My alligator pears, cherimoyas, custard apples, sapodillas, sour sops, pine-apples, cocoanut trees, and other tropical fruits are growing luxuriantly; and my wife’s camelia japonicas, hibiscus, and rose bushes in the open air, are in full bloom. In conclusion, allow me to reiterate what I said last year: “If any locality north of latitude 27½ degrees can present a more favorable record, Braidentown will yield the palm.”
S. C. Upham.