St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1916-02-16
The Cold Year 1915.
(From Exchange)

A Vermont correspondent writes us
as follows about the cold year of
1916
In my scrap book have what was
taken from diary kept in northern
New York. begun in 1910 and kept un-
broken until 1910.
January 1916. was so mild that
most persons allowed their fires to go
out and did not burn wood except for
cooking. There were few cool days,
but they were very few. Most of the
time the air was warm and spring
like. February was not cold. Some
days were colder then in January, but
the weather was about the same.
March from the first to the sixth was
inclined to be windy. Tt came in like
a small lion and went out like a very
innocent sheep. April came in warm,
but. as the days grew longer, the air
became colder, and by the first of
May there was a temperature like that
of winter, with plenty of snow and
ice. In May the young buds were
frozen dead, ice formed half an inch
thick on ponds and rivers, corn was
killed; and the corn fields were plant
ed again and again until it became
too late to raise a crop. BY the last
of May in this climate the trees are
usually in leaf and birds and flowers
are plentiful. When the last of May
arrived in 1916 everything had been
killed by the cold.
June was the coolest month of roses
ever experienced in this latitude.
Frost and ice were as common as but
tercupS usually are. Almost every
green thing was killed; all fruit was
destroyed. Snow fell 10 inches deep
In, u,
snowfall in Maine, a three-inch fall
in the interior of New York State and
the same in Massachusetts,. There
were only a few moderately warm
days. Everybody looked, longed and
waited for warm weather, but warm
weather did not come. 1t was also
dry; very little rain fell.
All summer long the wind blew
steadily from the north in blasts lad
en- with snow and ice. Mothers knit
socks of double thickness for their
children and thick mittens. On June
II there was a heavy fall of snow. A
Vermont farmer sent a flock of sheep
to pasture on June 16. The morning
of the 18th dawned with the Their
mometer below the freezing point. At
about o'clock in the morning the
owner of the sheep started to look up
MS norO. before leaving nome ne
said to his wife jokingly: Better start
the neighbors soon; it's the middle of
June and I may get lost in the snow"
An hour after he lett terrible snow
storm came up. The snow fell thick
and fast, and, as there was much wind,
the heecy mass piled in great drifts
! along the windward side of the fences
and outbuildings Night came, and
the farmer had not been heard from.
| His wife became frightened and alarm
ed the neighbors. All the neighbors
joined the searching party. On the
third day they found him. He was
| lying in a hollow on the side of the
hill with both feet frozen; he was half
covered with snow, but alive. Most
of the sheep were lost. A Vermont
] farmer owned a large field of corn
and built fires around the field to keep
off the frosts. Nearly every hight he
and his friends took turns in watch
| ing that the corn did not freeze. The
farmer was rewarded for his tireless
labors by having the only crop of
corn in the region.