The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-21

weather" or this is good time for
 snow" were entered In the regular por- tions of the book devoted to the winter predictions. those used for chronicling the pleasanter months had no such alarming warnings.
 January was mild, so much SO that for days the people allowed their fires to go out. as artificial heat made the buildings uncomfortably warm. This pleasant weather was broken by a se- we're cold snap in February, but the low pressure passed in Q few days and &
 warmer condition. similar to the month previous set in. March "came in like a lion but went out like a lamb." There was nothing unusual in the climate conditions of the month which differed from those generally found in the windy season. April was the advance guard of this strange freak in tempera- ture. The early days were warm and bright. but as the month drew to a close the cold increased until it ended in ice and snow and a very low tenn perature. To those who delighted in balmy May days and loved to watch the budding flowers the May of 1916 was a bitter disappointment. True. the buds came but so did the frost, and one night laid all vegetation a blackened waste. Corn was killed and the field had to be made ready for another planting, but the peoples astonish- ment was complete when they found
 ice formed to the thickness of half an inch in pools. June. the month of
 roses" was this year a month of ice and desolation. The oldest inhabit-
 ant was surprised. for never before
 had the mercury sunk so low in the tube in these attitudes in the last
 month of spring. Frost. ice and snow were common. Almost every green thing that had taken advantage of a few warm days to develop, was killed and various kinds of fruit were nearly all destroyed. One day the beautiful
 snow fell to a depth of ten inches in Vermont. seven inches in Maine, and three inches in Massachusetts and Central New York. Matters were be- ginning to be interesting. People were
 undecided whether to spend the winter in the South or at the seashore and mountains. One day the latter resorts were desirable and the next would de- eide in favor of the former, but on the
 whole the Southern climate was prefer red.
 July was accompanied by frost and ice,. and those who celebrated the glor- ious Fourth mot wisely but too welf'
 
 immediate use the next morning. 1t
 was not very thick. not more than one sixteenth of an inch, but 1t was ice, and it caused the good people of New England, New York and some sections of Pennsylvania, to look grave. That month Indian corn was destroyed in all but the most favored locations. and
 but a small quantity escaped.
 Surely August would put an end to such cold weather, but the farmers as
 well as hotel proprietors were doomed month was. if possible more cheerless than the days already passed. Ice formed even thicker than it had done the month before and corn was so bad ly frozen that 1t was cut for fodder, and almost every green plant in this | country as well as Europe was frozen. Papers received from England stated
 that the year 181S would be remembered by the generation then living as the year in which there was no summer. What little corn ripened in the unex- posed States was worth almost its weight in silver, and farmers were compelled to provide themselves with | corn grown in 1915 for the seed they | used in the spring of 1877. This seed never cost so much. being difficult to get even at $5 per bushel.
 The last month of summer was ush- | cred in bright and warm, and for two
 weeks the now almost frozen people began to thaw out. It was the mildest
 weather of the year, and just as the in- | habitants got fairly to appreciate 1t old Borecs and Jack Frost came along and
 whittned and hardened everything in | their path. On the sixteenth ice form ed a quarter of an inch thick and win
 ter clothing that had been laid away | for few days was again brought forth and wrapped around shivering hu-
 manity. By this time people had given | up all hopes of again seeing the flowers | bloom or hearing the birds sing, and | began to prepare for hard winter. October kept up the reputation of it's predecessors. as there was scarcely a
 day that the thermometer registered | higher than 30 degrees. November was | also extremely cold and sleighing was good the first week of the month, but strange to relate December was the | mildest month of the entire year, a condition which led many to believe | that the seasons had changed about. Of course. the cold spell sent bread stuffs to an unheard-of price. and 1t | was impossible to obtain for table use many of the common vegetables, as | they were required for seed. Flour sold | in 1877 in the cities for SIS per barrel. and the average price for wheat in England was 97 shillings per quarter.