The Climate of Japan.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 26 June 1914, Page 8

The Climate of Japan.

Except for certain delicious periods of the year, one cannot honestly praise the climate ; but it has certainly divine caprices, and when the sunshine does unexpectedly come, during the chilly and moist months, the light is very splendid, and of a peculiar silvery tone, and the summer days are golden.

For this the tea-plant, the young bamboo-shoots, and the other subTropical vegetation- wait patiently underneath the snows ; indeed, all the sun-loving plants of the land have lurked, like the inhabitants, to "wait till the clouds roll by." Some of the most beautiful know howl to defy the worst weather with a curious hardihood. You will see the camellias blossoming with the ice thick about their roots, and the early plum-blooms covered with a fall of| snow which is not more white and delicate than the petals with which it thus mingles.

The landscape in Japan takes a double character from her sub-Tro-pical latitude and her Siberian vicinity. The zones and kingdoms of the North and South meet a.s on a border region in the beautiful islands. You might think yourself in Mexico or India on many a July or August day, for the strong sun and the palms and bamboos.

On the whole, though a fairly healthy climate, and excellent, apparently, for children, it must not be greatly praised. Autumn and spring are the best seasons. The June rains are followed by six sultry weeks, called do-yo, which prove very, "muggy" and trying, and from November to March the cold is extremely bitter, and the winds ofttimes savagely bleak.

Tokio has f>B.3oin. of yearly rainfall, against 24.76 in. at Greenwich. Grass lawns, for all that, do not turn green until May. By an unhappy arrangement of nature, north winds blow steadily in the winter, and the southerly winds, pretty constantly all the summer.