New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-12-16
CURIOUS HEATHER CONTRASTS.

picnics and other summer diversions in which
the people of the Northwest have been boast
fully indulging for the last six weeks have been
interrupted no doubt by the recent cold wave;
and momentary boom may have been gwen
TO the coal traffic and oyercoat trade. But no
revival in the demand for galoshes is reported
hand-sled runners still wear the accumulated
rust of a year; and the wheat grower wonders
whether the crops, already backward for lack
of rain, are going TO get snow blanket in time
TO save them from being winter killed
One of the most striking pecularities of the
weather in this country this year-and they are
by no means few-is the drouth that has pre-
vailed most of the summer and fall over region
extending from Kansas and NewMeMco up to, II
not across. the Canadian border. Last year
and the year before there was no end OF stories
of the suffering endured By adventurous farm
ers on new lands in Northern Texas, through the
lack of rain. In that State, the present sea-
son. there has been less complaint. But through
Kansas. Eastern Colorado, parts of Nebraska,
Western Missouri and Western Iowa. the trouble
appears to have been widespread and serious
Scores Of farmers have been banl1rupted and made
heartsiclz by the failure of their crops; pro-
fcssional and amateur scientists have discussed
with greater ardor than ever the unsettled cues
ward over the arid zone; learned disduisitions
have filed the newspapers Of that region on the
hot winds which have parched the summers
feeble vegetation; and systems of irrigation, with
water derived from mountain streams or arteslan
wells. have likewise been much mooted. The
Denver Republican reported, October 2 that
ihe years precipitation in that city, which to
date should have been eleven twelve inches, was
then four and one-half inches short. In Septem-
iber. according to The Kansas City Times the
rainfall in Kansas for September was the smallest
since a record had been kept And the Signal
Service, up to last Friday, had reported only 3
inch az Dodge City, Kan, in the eleven weeks
which had elapsed since October l ; whereas the
normal precipitation there for that period is
about $50 inches Dakota and Minnesota have
been somewhat better off; but even there rain
and snow are sadly needed
This warm dry weather beyond the Mississippi
has been in marked contrast with the autumnal
conditions further east. During September the
rainfall in the Atlantic States was abnormally
large the excess for the month, in q few isolated
cases, being from to IL inches; and along the
Great Lakes and St Lawrence it was unusually
cold Rochester Pittsburg and other points IN
Western New-YorlI and Pennsylvania reported n
mean temperature for the month fully degrees
below the normal-a great deviation In this re-
gard. October in some places made worse record
In this city, for instance, on twenty-sX days out
of thlrty-one, the temperature was below the
normal. on three at par and on only two above thF
standard. As whole. it was the coolest October
here since the Signal Service began observations
in 1870. November, however. made conspicuous
if not satisfactory, amends; and 20 the weather
for the first half of December the worst that we
can Justly impute is discomfort and Inconvenience
not comparable with The industrial peril and ruin
to which farmers in the far West have been sub
ieced.
Such departures. in opposite directions, and al
most simultaneously, from the average weather OF
season. serve as a warning against conclusions
drawn from too limited premises regarding as
Economical other causes affecting the meteoro
logical conditions of the world.