Quack weather predictions are nearly always made for long periods in advance, and their popularity depends upon the fact that they give the public something--however fallacious it may be--that science does not attempt to give. The making of such predictions appears to be a particularly easy way of acquiring both fame and fortune. In this country there has hardly ever been a time when some exponent of this industry did not enjoy a nation-wide reputation. It is a satisfaction to record, however, that foreign countries produce the same sort of celebrities. Dr. Gustav Hellmann, writing in Germany, has recently published an extremely interesting account of the famous “weather prophets” of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their geographical distribution is given as follows: Belgium, 2; Germany, 36; England, 25; France, 14; Italy, 2; Austria-Hungary, 8; Russia, 1; Sweden, 1; Switzerland, 5; Spain, 2; North America, 9. The list for the United States is, to be sure, conspicuously incomplete, but we need not grieve over the fact that the fame of the American prophets omitted from the list has not spread to the Old World. The almanac is, as it has always been, the chief stronghold of long-range weather predicting. Nobody knows to what extent the almanac prognostications are taken seriously by the public, or are meant to be by the publishers. It is to be feared that the percentage of the population that “swears by them” is not inconsiderable. Almanac publishers would undoubtedly perform a public service, and perhaps save themselves some pangs of conscience, if they would append to their weather predictions the statement that, like the portrait of the gentleman who displays his anatomy to the signs of the zodiac at the front of the book, they are published merely for the sake of keeping up an old custom, and if they would conclude every almanac with the following candid avowal, which we find in Gabriel Frende’s “Almanack and Prognostication” for 1589: Thou hast my guess at daily weather Here present in thy view. My credit shall not lie thereon That every word is true: Yet some to please I thought it best To shew my mynde among the reste. CHAPTER XV AGRICULTURAL METEOROLOGY Two farmers are grumbling about the weather. The scene is Ohio, the time July, and the prevalent crop corn (i. e., maize).