The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1920-11-11

doesn't. If circumstantial evidence
may be taken seriously he has broken
drouths all the way from. San Diego
to Dawson City.
Forty-one times in sixteen years he
has undertaken to soak the parched
earth for dry farmers of the West,
and forty times the rain has descend
ed in torrents. Once those who en-
ployed him swan swollen streams to
reach town to pay him off.
A few years ago he set out to fill
a gigantic mountain reservoir which
never had been full. Within twenty
six days thirty-three inches Of rain
fell. The reservoir overflowed.
Charles Mallory Hatfield, an unas-
suming Quaker, just turning forty,
looks sadly away when doubters ap-
pear. "People used to have doubts
about steam enignes, electricity, grav-
ity, and other things" he remarks.
"And they doubt that I can induce
rain. Why can't !! Nobody laughs at
the farmer who fertilizes his soil. IF
soil needs assistance to serve man as
it should, why doesn't the sky need
little help?" *
Hatfield is the prize mystery of
the great Southwest. He was born
in Kansas and raised in Minneapolis.
He resides in Los Angeles. Not many
people actually have faith in his op-
erations, but no matter how much
doubt is in circulation there is always
the haunting fancy that perhaps, af-
ter all, he really can produce rain. He
may be chemist, a charlatan, self
taught scientist or nature fakir. He
is, to say the least, a figure around
whom inquiry and speculation love to
linger.
The most convincing thing about
him is that he sells showers c. O. D.
He contracts to deliver a certain
amount Of precipitation for speci-
fled price, the money to be forthcom-
ing when the rain is delivered. Only
once has he failed to collect his fee,
and the rain in that case was, if any
thing, too abundant.
Rainmaker Hatfield came into
prominence in 1904 when he contract
ed to break a drouth in Southern Cal
ifornia for a. purse of gold offered
by Los Angeles men. Sixty hours af-
ter he began work 1854 o. an inch of
rain fell. ~.-..
;. The next winter he signed up with
Los Angeles busoness men to produce
18 inches Of moisture between Decem-
ber and May, despite the fact that
some years the rainfall within that
period did not reach 10 inches. He COL
lected the $1,000 after 1852 inches of
moisture had fallen.
Another year he produced Az inch
es Of rain in ten days. for the South
Yuba Water Company at Nevada City,
Calf. to fill its reservoirs. Then he
went to Dawson City to provide rain
which was needed by hydraulic miners,
For six days, during June, the rain
fall averaged .18 of an inch daily, al
though the Dominion and Hunker
Creek districts, in which he worked,
had never before seen more than 20
of an inch of moisture fall in the
whole month of June. The mining com
panies paid the rainmaker $4,000
without a murmur.
Hatfield has done some of his most
effective work in dry farming dis
tricts. For eight consecutive years
the cattle and grain ranchers of the
"West Side" district, around Crows
Landing and Newman, Calf, engaged
him to make the skies weep.
It was at Crows Landing that Hat
field made his most unique record.
The ranchers hired him to produce
nine inches Of rain for $3.50, a like
sum being offered for an additional
inch, $500 more for IL inches, and
81 500 for IL inches. The normal rain
fall in that section each year was
five inches.
Hatfield rolled up his sleeves and
went to work. When II inches had
fallen the fields were so wet the
farmers couldn't SOW their crops, so
they called mass meeting, paid the
Rainmaker his $1,5O0.00, and request
ed him to quit.
Sherman County, Oregon, is anoth-
er district which swears. by Hatfield
as rainmaker. Once, working around
Wasco, he set out to produce 6 inches
Of moisture between May and Septenl-
Der. He collected his fee within six
weeks. Concerning one of his visits
to that locality, the Portland Oregon
ian Of June 4, 1908, said: "This is
Hatfield's second season in Sherman
County. According to the records .O5
Of an inch has been Wasco's greatest
precipitation in May for IS years.
Up to May s25th this year Hatfield
says he has secured 1.23 Of an inch.
In giving this figure he claims to
have counted from the ninth of the
month. when HIS contract began"
Hatfield does not claim to be a rain
maker. He says he merely induces
rain. my system consists Of chem
ical combinations working il harmony
with the law which makes rain in g
natural way" he explains. I