Norwich bulletin., 1920-02-06

1 Written Specially For The Bulletin.)
 The late lamented P. T. Barnum, exhibitor of, woody men, bearded Wo- men, Chinese giants and genuine mermaids, showed himself keen ob- server of human. nature when he said:
 The American people dearly love to | be humbugged."
 | Which is why there are so many weather prophets"
 l I don't mean you people on the hills who have to use your own eyes and brains to form some idea of coming weather from such indications as 1 your own experience has, shown to- be 1 significant. That is just plain bus 1 iness'-your farmer business. If you'll be perfectly honest with your self and admit to yourself, all the | time, that it is only more or less shrewd guessing. nobodys got any fault to find with you.
 It's the long distance 'prophets"-1 | the fellows who assume to pre-an- l nounce the weather of weeks or l months ahead or that of a whole sea- son in the future-they're the ones. Whing- -whang 'em Also blosh-blim em!
 But even they wouldn't do it if whole lot of the rest of us didn't take their charlatanism for knoWl edge, and their superstitions for sci ence.
 There's the fellow who looks at 8 goose bone and tells you, right smack, eWhat the weather will be for whole summer, and the one to whom | hogs milt reveals whether the spring shall be wet or dry. And the other who foretelIs an era of thunder 1 storms from the orbits of the stars And the one who knows it will be a dry month because he could hang his water-bucket on the horn of the new 1 moon.
 l Oh, quaclxs and mountebanks and l jugglers and tricksters and jockeys l and cheats and pretenders and impos- ters and humbugs-your names are Il legion and your tricks are manifold! f But you don't begin to count up in the census with the innumerable Sim pie Simons who take your chaf for corn, your vagaries for wisdom, and your humbuggery for prophecy.
 Storms and disturbances of the air, etc. They are the results of condi- tions. And those conditions often manifest themselves in more or less noticeable symptoms before the real storm breaks. A good doctor can often tell you that you're going to . have the measles, even before they good weather observer can frequent ly diagnose near r-at-hand weather from natural symptoms That's fair game. Fair, that is. provided he does not set up as any sort of prophet: does not arrogate to himself of any degree of infa1libility; and does not S claim that any diagnoise, whether oi disease or of weather, is anything more than a shrewd balancing of probabilities.
 Generally, i. e. in most cases, red sky in the evening portends fair tomorrow, and a red SKY in the morn ing promises a foul day Generally 3 anchor ice is formed before a thaw \ Generally, the swallows fly low before storm. Generally we have a Tine storm" the latter part of September Generally, there is brief 'Indiar : summer in late November. And SC on and so on. We've talked about al these things before. They and many other signs are the results of oh servations, long continued but never Il recorded or tabulated. And they art none of them dead sure things. Any a one is liable to go back on you jus F when you're depending on it. They are often helpful, and every farmer keeps an eye on them. He has to. Ht h Is playing an exceedingly "chancy' game. at the best, and can't afford tt lose any of his chances.
 But these fellows undertake. by | SOH0 Wt6TQ pTOCoSS Ol iIIldSlldlICH, U K develope regulations for the weathe months in advance-they're cattle o another breed.
 For instance; all last fall we hear, from them that this was going to b s a mild, open winter" They. knew i from the squirrels: they knew it iron the woodchucks; they knew it iron At the wild geese: they knew 1t iron the moon and the stars and a. score o other "unfailing signs"
 Now, l sincerely hope that they'r all right here in New England en Ijoying iti I hope that they're hay
 and dig out fodder-stacks and mil shivering cows in real country barn and take their hens into the kitche every night to save their combs fror
 freezing off! Sometimes, in moment
 of peculiarly inhuman ferocity, I hop
 they're having to do it all in slipper
 and pajamas and without mittins, a
 would befit mild. open" seasor For the winter thus far in my par
 ticular neck O woods has been tn
 coldest-and the blowy- est-and tn | freezing -est-and the chilblainey- est
 and the ear-nipping- est - and tn
 rip-roaringest. all round, of any win
 ter in my memory.
 ! To begin with, we didn't have an
 
 didn't have any Indian Summer ! last November. We haven't had an
 January thaw" this winter. Whe
 winter set in, 1t did so with a sna H that was almost venomous. In or
 night things changed from fairly nol n nal December weather to Arctic. I'll E mercury dropped with a really "sick
 ening thud' from well above freezin
 to twenty three below zero in s
 hours. And it has staid mighty clo:
 by that figure ever since!
 The thermometer at my mort
 door registered 32 below zero twice
 2S below zero twice, 23 below zel
 once, 22 below zero four times, ar
 something below zero seventeen tim
 in January alone. For seventee
 days 1t never once got as high z
 freezing; for three consecutive da,
 remained well below zero, even
 noon with a bright sun shining. AT
 the wind! It has blown and blow
 generally from the open door of u
 North Poles coldest icehouse, da
 after day and week after week. Or
 morning, when I went down to u
 kitchen to start the fire, I found u
 water left overnight in the tea-ke
 tie standing on top of the Sto- frozen solid: likewise the sink pun
 in the neighboring pantry. Aft
 thawing things out, making myself
 cup Of hot coffee and doing my reg lar morning chores, took a look the thermometer and found it. the v 23 below zero, Where it might ha 2 been before that, don't know. Eff
 or hundred below I should say. ng it were left to my feelings! n