Section 84 The English Climate
The air is generally very moist, most1 so near the western coast, and less so2 as3 we go eastward.
It4 is to the abundant moisture of the air that the beautiful foliage of our trees and the rich verdure of our fields and gardens, so much praised by foreigners who visit England, are chiefly owing. Moisture is one of the two things5 most necessary to6 vegetation, and hence7 our fields, trees, and woods possess during the greater part of the year a continuous richness of8 verdure, which9 cannot be found under10 the sunny skies of the shores of the Mediterranean.
The weather is at11 times liable to very sudden changes, depending (S. 16, N. 4) mainly on the changes of the wind12.—Hewitt, Physical Geography of England and Wales.
Notes
1 most so near, und zwar am feuchtesten an.
2 so = moist.
3 je mehr.
4 Say ‘To the great moisture of the air owe (verdanken) our trees chiefly their beautiful foliage and our fields and gardens their rich verdure, which by foreigners, who visit England, is praised so much’.
5 The words ‘most (höchst) necessary’, qualifying the noun ‘things’, must precede it. Things = conditions.
6 für.
7 daher, adverbial conjunction, see App. § 24, B.
8 an.
9 Say ’as (wie) one cannot find it (ihn)’.
10 under — shores, an den sonnigen Küstenstrichen.
11 mitunter.
12 Windeswechsel, m.