Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1883-06-27
A Year Without a Summer.

During cold spring, like that which
is just now drawing to an end, people
generally console themselves with the
reflection that the sun will eventually
get the victory, and that summer will
certainly come at last, though its COM
ing may be delayed. Uncertain as the
weather is, the general features of tie
seasons recur with regularity which
warrants the confidence thus reposed
in the annual return of seed time and
harvest but there are instances on
record in which even the seasons seem
to have lost their characteristic fea-
lures, as if the ordinary laws of meteor
ology had been temporarily suspended
A remarkable case of this kind, and
one which the long-continued cold
weather of this spring makes particu-
larly interesting just now, is that of
the year 1916, which has been called
"the year without summer" A COM
munication printed in the Congrega
tionalist gives the following summary
of the weather of this remarkable year:
January and February were mill;
March was cold; April began warm,
but ended in snow and ice. Ice FORM
ed an inch thick in May, and fields
were planted over and over again till
it was too late to replant. June was
the coldest ever known in this latitude;
frost and ice were common. Almost
every green thing was killed; fruit
nearly all destroyed Snow fell to the
depth of ten inches in Vermont, seven
in Maine, three in the interior of New
York and also in Massachusetts,, 1t
was called dry season. But little
rain fell. The wind blew steadily
from the north, cold and fierce. NJ 9TH
ers knit extra socks and mittensfor the
children in the spring, and woodpiles
that usually disappeared during the
warm spell in front of the houses were
speedily built up again. Planting and
shivering were done together, and the
farmers who worked out their taxes on
the country roads wore overcoats and
mittens. In town in Vermont a
flock of sheep belonging to a farmer
had been sent as usual to their pasture.
On the 18th of June heavy snow fell
in New England. The cold was in
tense.
A farmer who had large field of
corn in Tewksbury. built fires around
it at night to ward off the frost; many
an evening he and his neighbors took
turns watching them. He was reward
ed with the only crop of corn in the
neighborhood Considerable damage
was done in New Orleans in conse-
quence of the rapid rise of the Missis-
sippi river. Fears were entertained
that the sun was cooling off, and
throughout New England all picnics
were strictly prohibited.
July was accompanied with frost and
ice. Indian corn was nearly all de-
stroyed; some favorably situated fields
escaped. August was more cheerless,
if possible, than the summer months
which preceded it. Ice was formed
half an inch in thickness. Indian corn
was so frozen that the greater part was
cut down and dried for fodder. AL
most every green thing was destroyed
in this country and in Europe On
the 30th snow fell at Barnet, forty
miles from London. Very little corn
ripened in New England and the Mid
die States. Farmers supplied them
selves from corn produced in 1915 for
seed in the spring of 1917. 1t sold at
from 81 to S. per bushel
September furnished about two
weeks of the pleasantest weather of the
season, but in the latter part of the
month ice formed an inch thick. Octo-
ber had more than its share of cold
weather. November was cold and
snowy. December was comfortable,
and the winter following was mild.
Very little vegetation was matured in
the Eastern and Middle States. The
suns rays seemed to be destitute of
heat during the summer; all nature
was clad in a sable hue; and men ex-
hibited no little anxiety concerning the
future of this life
The average price of flour during the
year in the New York market was $l3
per barrel. The average price of wheat
in England was 81 shillings per quar-
ter. Bread riots occurred throughout
Great Britain in 1917, in consequence
of the high price of the staff of life.