MR. LLOYD MORGAN (Carmarthenshire, W.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, seeing that requests have frequently been made by farmers' clubs and associations interested in agriculture for the daily publication at sub-post offices in agricultural districts of the forecast of the weather, whether, in order to assist farmers during the harvest, he will consider the question of having every evening until the end of September the forecast of the weather for the following day telegraphed to those sub-post offices in agricultural districts to which there is telegraphic communication.
§ *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. HANBURY, Preston)In 1893 arrangements were made by the Board of Agriculture for exhibiting, by way of experiment, at telegraph stations in Northumberland and Essex, the daily weather forecasts issued during the hay and corn harvests by the Meteorological Council. In the following year a similar experiment was tried in the counties of Somerset, Carnarvon, Ayr, Cambridge, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and Haddington. Residents in the counties were invited to record their observations of the weather during the period, and the reports were carefully tabulated and examined. The areas to which the forecasts apply were found to be too 561 wide and varied to allow of anything like close accuracy as regards the weather to be expected at any given place, and it did not appear that the assistance rendered to agriculturists was sufficient to justify the Board in asking the Treasury to sanction the continuance of the experiment or its application to the country generally.