The Syracuse Journal, Volume 20, Number 26, Syracuse, Kosciusko County, 25 October 1928 — Page 2

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|:)W is the time for the weather prophets to get in their good work and tell us in advance just what kind of winter we are going to have. And if they run true to form some of them will predict I a “long, cold winter,’’ while others, I just as positive of their advance inforI mation on the 90 days of December, January and February, plus as many days before, in November, and as many days after, in March, as logically con- ' stitute the cold season, will declare.

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"It’s going to be a short, tnild winter.” If it is the “long, cold winter school of prophets who are having their say they will point to the fact that: s The breastbone of the Thanksgiving goose is thick and solid. The ducks and geese went South fully six weeks Ahead of their schedule. Hornets have built their queer paper houses high to avoid deeply drifted snow. The husks on the corn were tight about the ears at harvest time. The squirrels have laid in an extra large supply of nuts. The foxes’ fur is heavier than usual. The muskrats have built their stick houses earlier than usual. The beaver has prepared his home, with a good supply of food in it, at least a month earlier than usual. jThe acorns are unusually plentiful, so that those animals which depend upon them for food will not run short before the winter is over. The opossum is holing up underground. Toadstools on the logs have many wrinkles. The owls have retired to the woods much earlier than usual. But if it is the “short, mild winter” host of prognosticators who are being oracular, they will tell you their belief is based upon the fact that: The breastbone of the Thanksgiving goose is thin. The ducks and geese Were in no hurry to reach their popular winter resorts in the South. The hornets have built their nests near the ground. The husks on the corn were loose and easily stripped off. The squirrels evidently believe that the world them a living for they’ve laid up but few niits against the day when foraging for food will be necessary. The foxes’ fur is light. The muskrats and the beavers were very leisurely about getting their houses in order for the winter. There are not many acorns in the woods this year. The opossum Is depending upon a hollow tree for his winter home. Toadstools on the logs have few, if any, wrinkles. The owls are still too-whitting and too-whooing about the farmhouses of an evening. So there you are! Take your choice as to the kind of winter you’ll have. Then seek out the local oracles and if one of them doesn’t predict the kind of winter you want, another probably will. As for weather predicting by local oracles in general and one famous case in particular consider this historic instance which was revived not so long ago by Charles F. Talman, writing in the New York Times Magazine as follows: This blather about what is said tn remote settlements on the subject of winter portents is a hardy annual, as much as the apotheosis of the groundhog on February 2 and the revival of Swithin’s sainted memory on July 15. Much of it is quite Obviously meant to be taken with several large grains of salt. It is obvious that many a country newspaper Correspondent keeps a weather prophet handy at all times in the upper right-hand drawer of nis writing table. Not only in the autumn but also at any opportune moment throughout the year this familiar spirit is evoked to enlighten the world with his meteorological wisdom. There was one remarkable case, now fading into an oblivion from ‘which .it deserves to be rescued, in which not ■merely one but a whcffe bevy of these obedient sprites haunted the sanctum of a talented Munchausen in Reading. Pa. This town, with the surrounding Berks county, ■jls a stronghold of Pennsylvania-Germanism. The region is rich in folklore, much of which relates to weather, and it appears to always have been •well supplied with weather prognosticators of iJocal renown. Writing of these worthies in the Pennsylvania-German of July 1905. Rev. John Baer Stoudt says: ’ “Every fall after the Thanksgiving festival all eyes are turned to the city of Reading, and we •anxiously await tike predictions and forecasts of ,t-he weather for the subsequent winter by the .famous goosebone prophet, Elias Hartz. It was ■with a sigh and a shiver that last fall we received his famous prophecy of an ‘old-fashioned winter, 'with blizzards, zero weather and heavy snows.’ But our fears and anxieties were somewhat allayed when his forecasts were followed by those of Isaac E. Henning and Benjamin Stover, both of Reading; ’Abraham Strausser of Bloomsburg and George Young of Hill Church, each of whom predicted a jnild winter. Every one of the above-named gen--4 tiemen calculates and makes his forecasts by separate and independent methods." The unvarnished facts about the Berks county weather prophets and the traditional signs and

Some Absurd Weather Predictions

Does the weather on certain days of the year control the weather for long periods in th* future? One of the difficulties in the way of accepting pny of these predictions, according to the weather bureau, is that most of them overlap and lead the discerning Into many absurdities. For example, many people believe in forecasts starting f rom certain sup uosedlv Important key or control days

WHAT’S THE WEATHER AT HOME? Hun. reds of travelers daily leaving Washington view this weather map at the Union station before boarding their trains. A glance at any one of the 48 states will tell you what the weather is for 24 hours ahead. The map is changed daily. Two travelers can be seen looking over the chart before train time. : ®> omens upon which they based their predictions make a colorful story. Between the years 1907 and 1913 long accounts of the prophets and their doings appeared, under a Reading date line, in Philadelphia newspapers and were widely copied in other parts of the country. These things were not confined to one season of the year, but they rose to a climax of entertainment in the autumn, when the rural sages were alleged to hold a “convention," at which they decided what kind of winter was in store. In 1912, for example, the report of their proceedings reads, in part, as follows: “The weather prophets of Berks county, Pennsylvania, who have forecast the weather for many years, held their annual convention at Lobachsville, this county, when, by a two-third vote, it was . agreed that the coming winter will be an unusually severe one. Weather prognosticators from all sections of the county were represented and exchanged their.views on the subject. Many are close followers of the veteran goosebone weather prophet, Elias Hartz, who died several years ago and who was considered one of the best weather prophets of his day. “Loyal supporters of the goosebone theory all declare for a severe winter. They have noticed the covering of feathers on geese born last spring and say that they have the appearance of being ruffled considerably. This leads them to believe that after the geese are killed for Thanksgiving day the breast bone will show many discolorations. “The annual convention of the weather prognosticators was interesting in every particular. Those in attendance expressed their Views freely. Some are guided by the action of small animals and reptiles, while others pay close attention to the trees and shrubbery. “Gideon' Keller of Brecknock, aged eighty-two years, said: “ ‘When I was a boy I learned the signs of the weather from my father, who always foretold the seasons with success. We will have a cold winter, and it will not start late either. I believe the seasons are changing, the summers are becoming shorter and cooler, a"nd the winters longer and more severe. The leaves on the trees began to color some weeks ago and have already started to fall. This is an indication that the winter will be cold. The apple crop is earlier than usual. Another sign of a cold winter is the fact that the weeds are very tall. Nature permits the weeds to grow tall to make provisions for the birds and animals that use this food.’ “Quite a number of other weather prophets made their predictions. It was reported in substance that muskrats have begun building early; that corn husks are thick, with the stalks leaning to the west; that geese, ducks and chickens are growing • a thick down under their feathers and a bony substance on their feet; that squirrels are laying up unusual supplies of provender; that toadstools on old logs have many wrinkles; and that owls have retired to the woods much Carlier than usual.” In this and other bulletins from Berks the prophets mentioned were all fictitious with the exception of Hartz, who was a celebrity of earlier date, and their reputed conventions were, of course, equally mythical; but the prophetic methods ascribed to them were very largely identical with those that have prevailed from early times among the Pennsylvania Germans, as well as among people of other racial groups in America. The hoax was admirably carried out. Millions of newspaper readers all over the country took it seriously, and it even ruffled for a moment the serenity of the United States government. At the close of 1912 the weather bureau established one of its regular stations at Reading. When official weather forecasts began to appear at that place, the native prophets were reported to be up in arms.. Finally in January, 1913, a newspaper item was widely circulated to the effect that a meeting of the local prognosticators had been held at Boyertown, at which resolutions were drawn up strongly condemning the federal authorities for the invasion of their territory This led to an official investigation. The myth was exploded, and thus a goodly fellowship of prophets whose sage announcements had been .quoted far and wide in the press melted into thin air. The writer quoted above then proceeds to demolish some of these “weather signs,” especially those in regard to this “long, cold” or “short, mild” winter. Commenting upon the goosebone prophecy, the thickness or tightness of corn husks, the storing of food by squirrels and the thickness of the fox’s fur, he continues: These and many similar notions are not, so far as anybody knows, based on actual observations, scientific or otherwise, but purely on tradition. In order to justify them on scientific grounds wk should have to assume that certain weather conditions in the autumn, differing in some degree from the average, are invariably followed by certain types of winter. It this were the case, then animals and plants might be supposed to have acquired, through a process of evolution, reactions to the various autumnal conditions that would tend to prepare them for the consequent winter conditions.

in the year. It is said that “as the first \of January is so will be all the rest otthejHentn; that the second day of January (though itself already ruled by the first) determines the weather of February, and, strangely enough, also that of the following September; and that the third of January (likewise ruled by the first) is a model of the coming March.” The third is also credited with fixing the

weather of the following nine weeks. If we go on to St. Paul’s day, January 25, we find assurance that if it be fine so will all the rest of the year be. But we have just been told that the first of January rules the whole month; hence if the first be fine so must the twenty-fifth be, and from that time all the rest of the year. Tue weather for 40 succeeding days is supposed to depend one way or other on the weather at Candlemas day, February 2. which is called groundhog day In this country; also on that

THE SYTtACTSE JorRNAL

Analysis of meteorological records fails, however, to disclose any such definite relationship between abnormal features of the weather in autumn and the character of the subsequent winter. There has been very little scientific discussion of the alleged biological phenomena just mentioned. One of the few naturalists who ever gave the subject serious attention was the late Dr. Charles C. Abbott For twenty years he kept records of the building of muskrat houses and the amount of nuts and seeds stored by squirrels in the neighborhood of his home in New Jersey. According to a tradition prevailing in that state and elsewhere, muskrats build houses above ground only in the autumn preceding unusually cold winters, while in other year? they take up their quarters in subterranean burrows. So far as Abbott’s observations go there is no truth in this idea. The list of animals whose habits are supposed to prognosticate winter weather is a long one. It is said that if opossums are found in the autumn in hollow trees, the winter will be milder than if they burrow in the ground. Dunwoody, in his “Weather Proverfis,” says: “In early and long winters the beaver cuts his winter supply of wood and prepares one month earlier than in mild, late winters." An English authority on weather lore mentions the belief that “when the field mouse makes its burrows with the opening to the south, it expects a severe winter; when to the north, it apprehends much rain.” Birds of passage are said to migrate early cr late in the autumn according to the kind of winter at hand, but not the slightest support of this notion is to be found in the voluminous records of bird migrations that have been collected in recent times by such agencies as the United States biological survey. The flight of geese is popularly supposed to be of special significance. One fantastic tradition has it that these birds form figures in their flight, denoting the number of weeks of freezing weather to follow. This idea is reminiscent of the divining methods practiced by the Roman augurs. The appearance of the Arctic birds in the autumn far south of their usual haunts has been thought to forebode a hard winter—a notion that was espoused by the late John Burroughs. The rather plausible assumption involved is that the birds are driven south by exceptionally severe conditions in the Arctic, and that such conditions should be followed by severe weather in middle latitudes. The meteorological relations between the polar regions and the temperate zone are. however, by no means so simple as the champions ot this belief suppose, nor does it rest on systematic observations of any sort. in some rural districts hornets are said to build their nests low before a cold winter and high before a mild one; but according to J. B. Stoudt just the opposite of this belief prevails among the Germans of eastern Pennsylvania. A common kind of caterpillar—the larva of the moth Isia Isabella —which has been described as “the woolliest woolty bear,” is looked on as a prophet of winter in some of the eastern states. The “fur” of this creature is part black and part yellow. We are told that the black denotes cold winter weather and the yellow mild and also that the arrangement of the colors and the amount of each indicate the order and duration of cold and mild spells in winter. Actually, according to Dr. F. E. Lutz, the coloration is related to the moisture conditions of antecedent weather. Popular beliefs on the subject ot weather prediction are invulnerable. It is a waste of time to disprove them. The prophet of a cold or a mile winter is sure to see the verification of his forecast in some of the cold or mild periods of which every winter in our kaleidoscopic climate is composed. Moreover, a mild winter in one part of a country as big as ours is often a rigorous one in another part. So the picturesque lore of winter portents is hardly doomed to early extinction. But just because some of these predictions in regard to the kiud of winter we are going to have are based upon false premises, there is no reason to declare that all of the sayings in regard to the weather which have been handed down from generation to generation are not true, in fact, many of them, based upon long observation, are often reliable and no less an authority than Dr. W. J. Humphreys of the United States weather bureau has set the seal of his approval upon some of these. “A pretty good guess is to be found in the verse ‘if the sun sets in gray, the next day will be‘ a rainy day,’ ” Dr. Humphreys declares. “There is also much reason in the saying, ‘When the grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night. When dew is on the grass, rain will never come to ’pass,’ for one of the very best indicators of weather for the day is the state of dew in the morning. It gathers on grass and other exposed objects when they are cool, enough to condense it out of the air, just as moisture is condensed on the side of a pitcher tilled with ice water.’ Now, the grass and other outdoor things cool considerably only on clear, still nights, the kind that occur during a spell of fine weather and at no other time. Hence a heavy dew means that the air was still and the sky clear, at least during the latter half of the night. And it is pretty certain that if there was neither wind or clouds during that time the day will be a good one for all outside work.”

of St. Swlthin’s day, July 15; St. Peter’s day, February 22 (which has already been regulated by the weather on the second of January); on Pancake Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, St. Medard’s day, June 8; St. Protasius’ day, June 19; July 3, the first dog day; St. Bartholomew’s day, August 24. The weather bureau discredits them all, emphazing the fact that the only reliable guide to weather behavior is the record of what has happened in the past, and such /ecords show considerable variety.—The Pathfinder

In Normandy y rjX ZcVys . V WD" flhF oTl: M War' i jH jhfx .jsfcz Zr ‘ sjßlwlil - wBB ■ ■ ft . wMto rwwl Bretons in Holiday Attire.

(Prepared by ti.c National Geographic Society. Washington. D. C.) FRANCE, rich in many ways geographically, cui rously enough has few lakes and uo important ones. Lake Geneva, which for more than thirty miles forms a part ot the French border, is Swiss. Really, the only large lake in all France is GrandLieu, just south of Nantes, in Brittanny, and it measures only 17,300 acres in extent. Another curious geographical feature is that, the length of coast Considered, France is inadequately supplied with true seaports or harbors capable ot receiving and sheltering large vess'els. But the river ports make good that deficiency to a considerable degree, and not only serve invaluably thereby, but add greatly to the picturesqueness of the country. The geography of France has affected the people as wed as the climate and the architecture. Though the old provincial boundaries are gone long ago, tfie characteristics the people ot those divisions imbit.ed from the soil remain the same, and in each lives a pride of locality second to none, with idiosyncrasies of speech and custom and costume easily traced back to regional conditions and peculiarities. In architecture we find the explanation of some of the most remarkable buildings of the country in the geographical conditions of their locations. It might fairly be said that the general impression France, as a whole, leaves upon the beholder is—green. Perpetually moist of climate —except in the south —endowed with heavy and continuous rainfalls, and having a temperature which is astonishingly even, year in and out, the country is like an enormous hothouse. But France is not all green, either. That is only the brackground, the filler, as it were, for a warm-toned picture full of highlights, touched with the gold of grain, the ruddy tiles of ancient roofs, the fiery spatter of poppies, the tawny flood of a river or the steely thread of a brook; and on the glistening southern shore, with cliffs as red as any soil New Jersey boasts, water like melted sapphires, villas covered with majolica tiles that make the beholder rub his eyes and wonder if he is dreaming the amazing inebrieties of and color that strive to but cannot shatter the harmony of creation. Spring in Normandy. Just as the visitor to a picture gallery retains a much stronger impression of the merits of different painters by seeing the works of only one at a visit, so the beauty and charm of France are best remembered by considering her provinces one at a time. Almost every one of the older divisions of the country has some feature distfhctly its own that fixes it indelibly in mind. Brittany is always the “Land of Pardons,’’ a bleak, wind-swept peninsula full of silent, undemonstrative folk who live by the harvest of the sea. Dauphine, whose Alpine sierras saw the horizon with their snowy teeth, burns with glorious sunsets that fire its savage grandeur; Burgundy, of the wine; Champagne, of the “liquid suhshin4”; Auvergne, of the dead volcanoes, like giant beehives, andTouraine. that was and still is the playground of France, are all characteristic and easily remembered. Not less so is Normandy, with its shimmering streams and its wide spread orchards of cider apples—acres and clouds of pink and white and green in the tender spring—the air quick with the thin, sweet, subtle fragrance. And spring is not only “appleblossom time in Normandy.” By every ■farm, about the railroad stations, along the roads, and in private estates bristly hedges of scented haws vie with the purple and the white clusters of great chestnuts, the long festoons of the* towering acacias (locusts), and other flowers innumerable. What an air the many mud houses have, with their great thatched roofs! The walls are built of a sticky, clayey soil, that dries rock-hard in the sun The roofs are a joy. simply thick rolls of straw laid close by the farmer and cemented together by nature in a few months with moss and flowers. They overhang the sunny wall and shelter the vines—sometimes they are trees, trained like vines—that border door and window and the whole place radiates a spirit of solid prosperity and

Injurious Insects The biting or gnawing insects are those which actually masticate and swallow some portion of the solid substance of the plant, as the wood, baik, leaves, flowers or fruit. They include most of the injurious larvae, many beetles and the grasshoppers. The sucking insects are those injure plants by the gradual extraction of juices from the bark, leaves or fruit, and ir ' ‘he plant bugs, aphides,

comfort, as well as beauty and charm. I The beauties of Normandy are as I varied as they are striking, and a sin- j gle day among them brings a sympa- | thetic understanding of the struggles | of centuries to hold such a lovely j province. Bayeux and Its Tapestry. One of the fiercest of these I struggles began with the Norsemen away back in the Ninth century. Their strange, dragon-prowed galleys swooped down upon the French coasts, and the frolicksome vikings came inland. killing, burning, and destroying in true pirate fashion. It took them about a century to secure more than a mere toehold; but then King Charles the Simple did a wise thing and made the pirates welcome. They settled thickly along the lower reaches of the Seine and made Rouen their capital. And the Norsemen were no mere freebooters. Under Rollo the Ganger they fathered the Normans, who conquered England in 1066, and gave their name to this rich and desirable region. The story of their conquest of Eng- j land reposes \safely under glass to-1 day, after a somewhat stormy career, | in the placid little city of Bayeux, one I of William the Conqueror’s towns. ! Bayeux’s quaint old houses cling about the handsome cathedral as barnacles grow upon a rock, and through the meadows all about meanders a sleepy little stream gemmed with lilies. But it is the “tapestry’’ in the museum that makes Bayeux a magnet. No more original or curious history of j a war was ever wrought than this [ seamless strip of plain lines —not tap- | estry at all —230 feet long, by 20 inches j wide, covered with vivid sketches in j worsted embroidery of eight colors, i Clearly and in great detail the 581 scenes tell the story of the preparation of William the Conqueror’s fleet and the Battle of Hastings. The needle sketches are rude and simple, hardly 1 more than mere artistic shorthand ; suggestions; but they were done with I such fidelity to the facts and such ; dash that they move us even yet as J no mere written account can. Duke Williams favorite town was Caen, where he and his duchess. Ma- ( tilda, who defied the canon law’ by | marrying within the forbidden degrees ■ of consanguinity, did royal penance by building two great abbeys, whose churches of St. Etienne (St. Stephen) and La Trinite contribute so greatly to Caen’s beauty today. On the Lovely Orne. Below the town idles the lovely little Orne. a sleepy stream, at sunset a drealn river, running noiselessly by broad, grassy, tree-hedged promenades and lush meadows, where gray and brown nets overhang the walls and the multi-colored rowboats glow like stmnge jewels upon the river’s 1 placid breast. Queer little rickety bridges bar its shining length as it | slips northward out of the city, and j away through the lovely Norman country of great, rolling fields, golden ■ with grain and dotted with farm j houses and apple orchards, toward the j gleaming white sand dunes that fringe ■ the bay of the Seine with iridescence. Big and little steamers ply slowly up and down the canalized waters of ; the Orne. You can almost shake hands ; from deck to deck as the vessels pass between the endless lines of serried poplars. The Normans themselves, ! blond and tall and handsome, con- : tribute in no small degree to the beauty of the scene with their de-j cidedly English coloring and appear- ; ance. Across the bay -from the mouth ot the Orne are the mouth of the Seine and the great ship building and commercial port of Le Havre. The glori- j ous river that leads from Havre to i Rouen and on to Paris is a stream i of delights, winding tortuously among little towns, farms, the ghostly ruins of former grandeur like Jumieges, and between chalky cliffs now and again, that rise hundreds of feet above the river, or. low and beetling, shelter astonishing cave communities, whose j homes are bored right into the solid i rock. Splendid wooded peninsulas jut out I into the stream, that widens below. Rouen into as majestic a flood as the . Hudson; and then the ancient pirate stronghold itself comes into view, j shrouded with the smoke of its factories and busy with the activities which have taken the place of the Industries of a thousand years ago.

scale insects, thrips and plant-feeding mites. These insects possess, instead of biting jaws, sucking beaks or bristles. Metals Long Known Copper was known to the Egyptians of 70(Ml B. C. Bronze, another copper alloy, was the material of which relics, dating back to Menes. founder of the first Egyptian dynasty, were made. Menes reigned as king of Upper and Lower Egypt about 5500 B. C.—Exchange.

r ’l or I I I Distant J* i I and I # I Near By I / The modern way to make • jelly, use PtitEL and get this never this JELLY failure is a thing of the past. Pexel is here. It’s a 100% pure-fruit product that always makes jelly jell. Absolutely . colorless, tasteless, odorless. Pexel makes any jelly jell by the time it is cold. With it, jelly is ready for the glasses as soon as it comes to full boil. Thus Pexel saves fruit, sugar, flavor, time and fuel. Right here it repays, from one to three times, the 30c it costs. Get Pexel at your grocer’s. A recipe booklet with complete recipes, accurate tables in each package. 30c. The Pexel Company, Chicago, 111. For example—with Pexel 4Yz cups strawberry juice and 8 cups sugar make il glasses jelly. 4’/2 cups raspberry juice and 8 cups sugar make 11 glasses jelly. 6 cups currant juice and 10 cups sugar make 14 glasses of jelly. cups grape juice and 7 cups sugar make 10 glasses jelly. Knows How “Can your daughter get a goodj dinner?’’ “Well, she always seems to ha*e pretty good luck about it with th* fellows I’ve seen her with.”—Portland Evening Express.

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