66 ANNUAL EEPORTS OP DEPAETMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Northwestern States and no further warning was necessary, but 

 warnmgs were ordered for eastern Colorado, western and southern 

 Wyoming, eastern and southern Iowa, and the interior of northern 

 Illinois, and during the 27th were extended generally over the 

 Lake Region, the Central Valleys, New England, and the Middle 

 Atlantic States. This cold wave proved to be the most pronounced 

 of the winter of 1914-15, temperatures as low as zero occurring 

 almost to the Ohio River. 



During the month of November, 1914, a succession of storms of 

 marked character crossed the Great Lakes, causing winds of storm 

 force. The rapidity with which one storm followed another was 

 most marked, and necessitated many warning advices. 



The heavy and continued rains oi May and June, 1915, in Kansas, 

 Nebraska, and adjoining sections, while not producing marked 

 floods in the rivers, nevertheless wrought immense damage to stand- 

 ing crops, not only from overflow and total destruction of the crop 

 in bottom lands along the rivers and small streams, but also by 

 reason of the saturated condition of the soil, it being impracticable 

 to gather the crop until the ground dried out. 



An estimate of the damage to crops and farm lands in Kansas 

 places the amount at $6,000,000, with an additional $1,500,000 

 along the Missouri east of Kansas City. 



WEATHER FORECASTS DISTRIBUTED BY WIRELESS. 



Amateur wireless operators at lUiopolis, in Illinois, were per- 

 mitted to aid in the distribution of weather forecasts by a scheme 

 put in operation in June, 1915, as follows: 



The sending station receives the forecasts usually by mail or by 

 telephone, and broadcasts them between 12.45 and 1 p. m., in a 

 message sent out at a slow rate — about 10 or 12 words a minute — 

 to accommodate inexperienced operators. The receivmg operator 

 copies the message on an approved card and posts it-for the benefit 

 of his neighbors. Three places in Illinois — Ilhopolis, Rock Island, 

 and Springfield — send the forecasts in this manner, and 16 places 

 in the State receive them. The total number jof cards posted daily, 

 except Sunday, is 38. 



The distribution of forecasts by wireless was also begun in January, 

 1914, at University, N. Dak., from which source nine places in the 

 State are supphed. 



STORM- WARNING SIGNALS. 



At the earnest solicitation of marine interests, especiafly those on 

 the Great Lakes, a decided improvement in the former system of 

 night storm-warning displays has been worked out so as to convey 

 more definite information by means of the lantern displays. By this 

 arrangement the direction of the expected wind can be shown to the 

 nearest four quadrants instead of to only two directions, as heretofore. 



The new night storm-warning signal consists of three fights in a ver- 

 tical fine. Special experiments conducted by the Instrument Division 

 showed that in order to be seen separately by the naked eye as two 

 bright objects the lights must be approximately 4 feet apart for each 

 mile the observer is distant. To secure great briUiancy a standard 

 electric lamp of the gas-fifled timgsten type is being tried out, and 

 necessary modifications in the standard lantern are being made. The 



