Climate

Great Britain enjoys the humid and mild marine West-Coast climate with warm winters and cool summers and a lot of rainfall throughout the year.

The prevailing winds blow from the south-west. As these winds blow from the ocean, they are mild in winter and cool in summer, and are heavily charged with moisture at all times. As they approach the mountainous areas near the west coasts, they rise up the mountain slopes. Their temperature drops, which causes condensation of moisture in the form of rain. Therefore the wettest parts of Britain are those areas where high mountains lie near the west coast: the western Highlands of Scotland, the Lake District and North Wales. The eastern part of Britain is said to be in the rain-shadow, as the winds lose most of their moisture in their passage over the highlands of the west.

All parts of the British Isles receive rain at any time of the year. Still autumn and winter are the wettest seasons, except in the Thames district, where most rain falls in the summer half of the year. Oxford, for example, has 29 per cent of its rain in summer and only 22 per cent in winter.

As to temperature, Great Britain has warmer winters than any other district in the same latitude. It is due in large measure to the prevalence of south-west winds. Another factor is Gulf Stream, which flows from the Gulf of Mexico and brings much warmth from the equatorial regions to north-western Europe.

 

Agriculture

The South of England has a lot of gardens and orchards. People grow apples, pears, cherries, plums and other fruits and different berries there. But many parts of highland Britain have only thin, poor soils. In most of these areas the farmers have cultivated only valley lands and the plains where the soils are deeper and richer.

Farming land is divided into fields by hedges or stone walls. Most of countryside England is agricultural land, about a third of which is arable and the rest is pasture.

Sheep-, cattle- and dairy-farming are also important branches of Great Britain’s economy. Chicken farms produce a great number of chickens and eggs for the population. Great Britain produces a lot of wool. Woollen industry is developed in Yorkshire. British woollen products are exported to other countries.

Примечание: подробнее о развитии животноводства в США читайте текст “Farms in the USA” (ex. 12, стр. 23 – 24, Lesson 5, «Методические разработки на английском языке по курсу «Животноводство», часть 1).

 

The United States of America