Of course, the weather forecasts are important, requiring the year-round efforts of solar scientist Dr. Richard Head and meteorologist Michael Steinberg. Many people think of us as a gardening book. A recent survey of our 13.1 million readers revealed that 5.8 million of them are active gardeners. So, indeed, gardening represents a major portion of our editorial fare.
Food represents another.
I wish all of you could have been here at our office in Dublin, New Hampshire, on the day last April when 50 cakes, all made from reader recipes, were brought in for the Almanac staff to taste. For all its fun and information, its basic purpose is to show future generations what life was like here in North America during the year of publication. Like a time capsule. The answer is that none of the above descriptions represent the core reason for this publication's existence. These are the pages that truly make an almanac an almanac.