TWENTY- SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. 37 



These experiments for the artificial extension of the white- fungus disease having 

 been thus successful, I am anxious to keep the germs of the disease alive in my lab- 

 oratory continuously, so that I may be able to continue the experiment during the 

 coming season. In order that the vitality of these germs may be more certainly 

 preserved, I desire to obtain constant supplies of live chinch-bugs for the purpose 

 of communicating the disease to fresh material during the winter and spring. I 

 therefore respectfully request those interested in these experiments to furnish the 

 desired material. It is a difficult matter to find any live bugs in Douglas county, 

 and the farmers of the State will without doubt willingly cooperate with the writer 

 in continuing an investigation which promises to secure to them results of great 

 practical value. 



WHO SOLD HIS WHEAT FOR |1.40? — OR AN EXAMINATION OF THE 

 VALUE OF BLAKE'S TABLES. 



BY GEO. E. CURTIS,* WASHINGTON, D. C 



In the fall of 1888 a copy of Blake's Tables of Weather Predictions for 18S9-\ fell 

 into my hands, and I was so much interested in the pamphlet in view of the consid- 

 erable attention that it was receiving, that I began a review of its contents. But 

 engagement in other duties interfered with the completion of this review, and my 

 further attention was diverted from the subject until I recently read in the Kansas 

 Farmer that "Prof. Blake is having an extensive sale for his Annual of Weather Pre- 

 dictions for 1890." The present time, therefore, seems to be especially opportune 

 for making an impartial examination of the "Tables" for 1889. For, if Mr. Blake's 

 long-range predictions have been strikingly fulfilled, the fact would furnish some 

 ground for purchasing his "Tables" for 1890, and for following his advice as to 

 early or late planting, the character of crop to put in, and the time to sell grain. 

 But if, on the other hand, his most important and most confidently emphasized pre- 

 dictions have entirely failed, assuredly Kansas farmers will wish to know this in or- 

 der to escape following blind leaders of the blind. Manifestly, therefore, the most 

 rational thing to do is to make such an examination of the "Tables" as will enable 

 us to determine their claim to our attention. In common with all professional 

 meteorologists with whom I am acquainted, I am ready to welcome any more power- 

 ful methods of weather prediction than are now known to the scientific world; but 

 for some reason Mr. Blake has not seen fit to publish the detailed methods that he 

 has employed in calculating his "Tables," and he has given only vague references to 

 "four large account books filled with formulas and figures," and to the discovery of 

 a mysterious "universal law of axial rotation," which has been the "stepping-stone" 

 to his success. 



If these discoveries are genuine astronomical or physical laws, then the highest 

 honors would follow their publication, and hence the present secresy justly but un- 

 fortunately throws upon them a suspicion which they ought not to predeserve. In 

 lieu, therefore, of studying the methods by which the "Tables" were constructed, 

 there remains only to determine their success, by comparing the predicted with the 

 actual weather; and it is to such a comparison that I invite all who are yet uncertain 

 as to whether in the present state of knowledge they do well to trust in any long- 

 range predictions. 



* Lately Professor of Mathematics, Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas. 



tBlake's Tables of Weather Predictions for each State for each month of 1889, according to mathe- 

 matical calculations based on astronomical laws: C. C. Blake, Topeka, Kansas. 



