, 1907-03-28
CHANGE OF

How frequently we hear people say
ing that the climate is changing and
that @ conditions may bring better
crop conditions, etc. From the best
obtainable testimony. this impression
on the part of the general public is u n
true. The climate does not change and
there is no evidence that there is any
material difference between climatic
conditions o and at the time of
Christ. A few years & the people of
Wyoming thought their hard winters
were a thing OF the past and then came
the terrible winter of 1889, the most
severe in a quarter of a century. Be-
cause we. have had a few delightful
winters is no reason why hard ones
| will not come. This should be borne in
mind more particularly by our stock
men, who should aver be prepared for
the protection of their flocks and herds.
Individual recollection is unreliable
in the matter Of weather. Unusual
| "ihtOio uic iSAhNlioSASu ny SoiiC AIN
other winters are remembered because
of some personal happening which add
ed to the intensity of the weather. 1t
Is always best to depend upon the
weather bureau records, n they give
no evidence of climatic change, when
a long series of years are taken into
the consideration. A writer in the
Boston Transcript says:
Prof. Moore, chief of the national
weather bureau, proclaims himself as
highly gratifed by the recent heavy
burden and wide distribution of snow
precipitation. 1t helps to dispel illu-
sions which bother him in his official
business. He finds a widespread be-
lief in the idea of changing conditions,
and not a few put SO much faith in
them that they think a readjustment Of
business plans and agricultural opera
tons necessary to conform to them.
Year in and a out, he maintains,
the weather now is what 1t used to be,
but the came comparisons Of the pres.
ent with the past and the same deduc-
lions therefrom have been going on
ever since the country was settled.
Even Thomas Jefferson caught the pre-
vailing impression, since among his
papers at the state department appears
this: 1T is evident that the climate of
Virginia is changing. The old inhabi-
tants here tell me that they remember
when the snow lay on the ground four
months every year. and they rode in
sleighs. Now it is rare that We get
enough snow to have a sleigh-ride. 1t
has changed since 1907, when the set
tiers came into Jamestown
prof. Moore's explanation of the pre-
vailing impression is that the man OF
middle age Or more remembers the abb
normal and in his mind brings 1t down
to the present day and compares it
with the average which is not a fair
comparison. Fifty years ago this win
ter, We have been told, the snow was
SO deep along fremont street that two
men walking on opposite sides of it
could not see each other. In those days
the snow was piled in the middle and
not carried OF by the street railway
people and the city department; yet
only nineteen years ago next month
larger stories than that could have
been told of New York and many an
other city, buried in the memorable
March blizzard.
at is about thirty-seven years since
the official records began to be taken
by the wealth bureau. There has been
close and continuous study of data dur.
ing all that time, and IL these careless
ly assumed notifications of climate
were taking place it would have been
discovered before this. The latest en-
cyclopedias tell us that there Is no
well-authenticated a Of a change of
climate within the last two thousand
years. Neither is it possible that any
change on the surface of the earth, due
to man-such as deforestation, %refores-
tation, agriculture, canals. railroads,
or telegraphs-can have had anything
more than the slightest local eject, II
any, on climatic phenomena that de-
pend upon the action of the whole at
mosphere.' So the calculations that
have served us in the past continue to
be reasonably dependable. Seed-time
and harvest shall not fail, or at least
the shortage of one year shall be bal
anced by the abundance Of another"