The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-03
THE CoLDEsT SUMMER

WhIle It IS all very well to celebrate centennials. it is to be hoped that the weather man will not go so far as to make the coming summer a repetition of of 1916. While most of those who experienced the rigors of the. cold summer of hundred years ago are now dead, there are many still above the sod who can recall the stories told by the oldest inhabitants about that awful summer of '16-
 Up to June of that indictment year the weather was variable but not markedly different from that of pre- vfous years. In June old Mamma Nature set out to establish a new record for cold summers. The cold wave which started just a hundred ago spread to a large part of the United States and. Canada Nor was the general inc1emency of that epochaI year confined to North AmArica. It was the coldest summer in Europe as well as on this side Of the Atlantic
 Early in June a blizzard ragged over a large part of New York, New Eng land and Maine and Vermont. The blizzard extended to the interior of New York and to Massachusetts, and there were light snowfalls as far south as Pennsylvania. Vermont and the adjacent sections of Canada and New York suffered the most. In the middle of June there was another heavy snowfall. On the 17th of June a, Vermont farmer went out to-get his flock of sheep in the pasture, but the snow storm became so severe that he was lost, and it was not until three days later that he was found on the side of a hill, with both feet frozen and unable to move.
 July was not much of an improve ment on June. On the 9th of July ice of the thickness of window glass formed throughout New England and New York and in parts of July, and neither month had many days when it was even comfortably warm. Ice half an inch thick was common. In England there was a slight snowfall in August, not far from London.
 The first two weeks of September were mild and balrny, with few days really hot, but then the weather changed and winter set in. In Eng land 1916 was known, as ''the year without a summer" and the descrfp- ton was very nearly true.
 In many places floods were an ac- compartment of the cold weather, and famine stalked as an aftermath. Indian corn everywhere was prAetic- ally destroyed, and the little that was grown or saved over from 1915 was carefully preserved for seed and commanded $4 or $5 a bushelI Al most all crops were destroyed in both North America and western Europe. Tn France constant rains fell throughout the greater part of the summer, and, except for a larg potato crop, a general famine might have prevailed. As it was, hundreds per ished of starvation, and the French government had to adopt strict meas ures for conserving the food supply in order to make it go round. The Mississippi was flooded that summer, and much damage was done in New Orleans. In Canada and the New England and Middle States many people were reduced to short rations in the winter of 1S16-17.
 Scientists and theo1ogians vied with each other in seeking explanations of the unusual weather. By some it was held that the end of the world was approaching, and a great many feared that the sun was cooling off. In 1917, however, Old Sol was back on the job with all his customary viger, and the superstitious fears were relieved.