The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-05-25
rain PREDICTED FOR TO-DAY
Many Years Since Weather Has
Been This Dry During Spring
Total Rainfall for the Months of April
and May Only 2.1S Inches-StOrm
Slowy Travelling Up the Coast
Crops Have Been Badly Damaged
By the Drought-Some Farmers Es-
innate That Certain Crops Have
Been Damaged at Least Fifty Per
Cent.

The drought throughout the eastern
part OF this state has damaged many of
the ruck crops and a large trucker
stated last night to a representative of
The Messenger that crops, in his opin-
ion, had been damaged at least so per
cent. and unless there was rain within
the next few days that the damage
would be far greater. 1t has been
some years since there has been such
a drought during the spring months
and it is to be doubted if it has been
this dry during April and May since
the ruck growing industry attained
large proportions. In 1891 the rainfall
for April and May was only about two
inches. Thus far these months it has
been 2.18 inches. e.
The normal rainfall for the month of
April is about 2.78 inches and for May
3.9S inches. 1t can be seen by this how
small the rainfall has been this spring
compared to what it generally is. Dur
ing April the rainfall was 40. 100 of an
inch. All the rain during May came
early in the month.
The dust is something awful and the
people who travel say it is with a feel
ing Of dread that they start out to take
a trip.
For the past few days the farmers
have been anxiously expecting rain but
SO far the storm which has prevailed
along the Atlantic coast has been
nothing but wind. There have been
heavy rains in Florida and Georgia and
1t was reported yesterday that there
was a little rain off the South Caro-
lima coast. The storm is slowly travel
ing ~northward and the weather man
stated yesterday that this section
would probably get some rain this
morning. In Jacksonville, Florida,
from Tuesday morning from 8 a. m. to
8 a. m. Wednesday the rainfall was
COS inches.
All day yesterday there was a high
wind and it also prevailed on Tues
day night. At 2:30 yesterday af-
rIernoon the wind attained a velocity
of SO miles an hour but. of course. it
lasted for only a few minutes, being
a sudden squall. Along the coast the
wind has been quite high but SO far
NO disasters to shipping have been
heard of. The wind during the present
storm has beer from the northeast and
this has caused the tides to be very
high.
Farmers in this section Of the state
are very much discouraged and say
they are moi going to come out at all
well on their truck crops. They made
very little on lettuce but hoped to re-
coup On the later crops but it looks like
the dry weather is going to- cause them
to lose out all around. The acreage i'm
Irish potatoes this year is much less
han last season and if the crop is cut
short fifty per cent the crop will be ex-
tremely short. This IS a crop from
which the farmers generally derive a
nice sum. Beets rave been greatly
damaged by the drought and SO have
beans.
A good rain at this time would save
the farmers thousands of dollars all
over eastern North Carolina. The
farmers are very much afraid that
when it does start to rain that there
will be too smuch of it which would be
about as bad as the dry weather. This
was the case last spring.