Norwich bulletin., 1909-05-29
A FARMERS TALK TO FARMERS
This Uncertain Spring Weather Predictions and What They Amount to-Why Seeds Have to be Repanted III he Weather Bureau Methods-They Should be Improved or Abandoned

(Written Specially for The Bullettn.)
 A year or so ago, remember talking a little about the weather, and the ap- parent impossibilhy of our getting any dependable warnings, beforehand, or what 1t was likely to be-
 This spring has certainly been striking illustration of that condition. It is now the last week in May. Dur ing the whole of the month have watched daily the newspaper weather reports sent out from Washington. l have. also a daily telephone forecast at noon, wired from the nearest city which has a weather bureau station. "catch-y" and the difficulty of get ting in crops so great, that l have turned to these ''straws" with almost feverish anxiety Would there be any chance of getting in that corn tomor- row? Was thre any likelihood of the bean field drying off enough to work Was that low-lying patch in the South Meadow never going to get so I could blow it? And so kept running to the 7weather corner" of my paper, and listening each noon to the telephone Forecast, in the hope of getting some- thing encouraging
 In that desire l was not often dis appointed. There have been plenty of pleasant reports ana pTOBnOSIlCdtlODS. And there have been several really pleasant days. The trouble has veen that the few workable days have come when bad weather was forecast, while every single day in this month, thus far, on which good weather has been predicted has turned out stormyi When a fellow has "a clear day to dry up the mud on a certain field, and he works till dark in narrowing and fit- ting it. trusting to the forecast that next day will be fair so he can plant then he is apt to grow a gTouch if he wakes up next morning to face driz- zhng all-day rain.. At least, that's the way 1t affects me.
 don't know that the weather has been much different this May from average Mays Perhaps it has; per haps it has not I have no adequate records to tell me. But it surely has been. with me, a very uncertain wealth er seldom holding the same mind for a whole day, and mixed up with so much rain and mud that getting in seeds has been a mighty vexatious bus mess. I've got tomorrow to re-sow half my parsnip bed, not because the seed sown a month ago was poor, but because I had to finish sowing the bed fin a rain which muddSed the loose soil, clogged the seed-drill and made 1t skip, DOillcl4lUES d L6W IC6ly a IOu or more, sometimes whole row And yet I fitted and began sowing that bed on day when the Washington wealth CT report and the telephone forecast both advised me to expect flair wealth CT; no marked change in tempera- ture."
 The other day Neiahbor Hos<ins said to me: I've got that East Medder piece narrowed and marked, and we'll put in corn tomorrow" Looks and feels like another rain" I said. "N-no, guess not" he responded; telephone this noon said clear tonight and cooler tomorrow" Then I retorted with some bitterness, that makes it sure 1t will rain" And 1t did. It has rain ed, more or less. every day since. His narrowed and marked field is already | green with weeds. He has had no | chance to plant it, and will have to | harrow and mark all over again before | he doess
 Another neighbor, who began work l with two teams on fifteen acre po- l tato field the first week in May hadn't | finished it Saturday, the 22d. I plant | ed a few rows of extra early corn May | 4th, and it was up on the 11th; some | of the same sort planted on the 10th | isn't pricking yet Difference in the | weather at planting. The first was put Tn warm, dry ground the Otner | dropped into cold wet dirt, because the land was fitted and we wanted to get the job out of the way.
 In Everybodys Magazine for May, two writers, Emerson Hough and Prof. E. B. Dunn, discuss with some vigor and a little disappointment the doings of the weather bureau. Mir. Hough makes six definite and specific charges against the service, asserting, among other things, that it Is unduly expen- sive and progressive; that it gives no specific service, only general serv- ice which is of no value to individ- | uals;, that it is evasive and inten- tsonally ambiguous, and that 1t offers | no well-grounded hope of improve | nent in local forecasting. He goes a | long way towards proving these as- sertions.
 The only earthly value a weather prediction can have for any farmer is | in it's telling him, beforehand what | the weather is likely to be for him that | day and. perhaps, the day following. | Mir. Hough shows that this Is not done | by any service of the weather bureau, | nay, more that the bureau does not l pretend or attempt to do 1t. It openly