Norwich bulletin., 1918-08-02
The Weather As It Concerns Crops and Man

(written Specially for The Bulletin.) Always there is somebody to tell the Lord when rain is needed" So writes one of the witty para agraphers of the daily press. There is food for a little calm reflection in the semi ironical phrase.
 For six weeks or two months we farmers in my particular valley were pretty well drowned or chilled out, the carly part of this season.
 IL rained, more or less. every day; when it didn't rain the overcast skies shut of all the suns normal warmth; the nights were actually cold. Late m June we had a really nipping frost Many other nights the mer- eury hovered so near the freezing point that there was no comfort in them, either for men and women or for cattle and crops.
 Pretty neariy all the conversation ] was compelled to hear, those days, consisted of wailings over the unsea- sonable cold and wet. or pathetic re- marks slch as: "Ain't we ever goin' to have Hummer weather?'
 Then, as was to have been ex- pected and anticipated, came change 70 broiHng heat For a week or more. now. We have been sweItering. People who have lived several years in this world,--i. Q. people who have 2 fair amount of brains and a fair ca oacity for using them,-know that Nature isn't apt to be considerate of our feelings in her vagaries. She Aops from one extreme to another, whether it be of cold and wet or of heat and drought, without the small lest apparent consideration for our comfort or the slightest regard for our plans She did so in this case.
 Without giving us any special warn Ing. and without any easy graduation of her movements so that we could zccustom ourselves to them, she swept the globe from an April or October temperature into one resembling an equatorial August.
 So that now. instead of irritable or pathetic complaints about the rain and the cold one hears general Ehimpar or grumble about the heat and drought.
 The one constant factor in the sit ustion seems to be that of criticism and complaint and fault finding.
 From telling the Lord that they wanted il warmer and dryer the great majority of my fellow Acitizens are now engaged in the business of tell ing Him that we need rain.
 As a rule.
 Mans a fule
 When it's hot he wants it cool:
 When it's cool he wants it hot:
 Always wantiu what it's not;
 Never pleased with what he's got.
 I maintain. as a rule,
 Mans a fule."
 The Hoosier doggerel hits one very ubrusiYe nail suuarely on the heaC and drives it home to the conscious ness of any one who has eyes to see and ears to hear withal
 confess that to me, as the yeart roll on and I pass through their in ceSsant changes and harden myself tt heir eternal whimsies, this chorus O repining and whining becomes mor' and more irritating.
 Ii is not only so monotonOus but i is so utterly senseless,
 We humans, you and and the res of US, didn't make the world, nor wer we consulted about how it should b constructed In fact. we weren't her nr anywhere else, when it's measure were determined. when the line wa stretched upon it when the faunda tons were fastened: when the morn ing stars sang together and all tn sons Of God shouted for joy"
 We didn't even make the weathe TOT have anything whatever to sa, 3 bout how it should be ordered
 That there was some far though intention in the great plan is so prob able that it may be accepted as cer tain But what that intention was what may be the divine far off even towards which the whole creation moves" we do not know and it is dan serously near irreverence for any o Us to pretend that we do.
 The whole thing is the work of wiser head and more competent hand than ours.
 For US, poor, half blind colossall jgnorant creatures, to assume tn function of critics of the universe simply to advertise our own self-con ceit and bad temper.
 Ought we to have had more sun an warmth during June and early July Great Scott, how do I know? c you? or anybody else?
 If We had been given more I thin that melons and the squashes and tn cucumbers and the corn in ny garden would have made a better growtl But. whatever may be the plan whic governs the weather, of one thing