WEATHER IN CRANBERRY CULTURE 59 



It will be seen that most of these frosts came in periods of sunspot abundance 

 or within a year or two after severe volcanic activity.^^ All of those in June, 

 July, and August, except those of August, 1889, and June 30, 1900, in Wisconsin, 

 came at such times. There may be little to go by in this, however, for the world 

 has been in a secular trend of rising temperature since the turn of the century.™ 



SOLAR CONSTANT 



Solar constant values are interesting in long-range temperature forecasting. 

 They presaged correctly the cranberry frost conditions of 1923, 1927, and 1940 

 and may be helpful at times. A prediction of the solar constant published re- 

 cently''^ suggests that the seasons of 1945 and 1946 will be very frosty. 



MOON PHASES AND FROST OCCURRENCE 



Many cranberr}- growers think the full moon somehow favors the occurrence 

 of frost. A stud>- of this is given in table 9, which is self-explanatory. ^2 The 

 summations in this table show that about as many cranberry- frosts came in one 

 phase of the moon as another. It will surprise some growers to see that, on the 

 whole, more spring frosts came in the dark half of the moon than in the bright 

 half. 



^^Frost did more harm on the cranberry bogs on the Pacific Coast in 1937, 1938, and 1939 — 

 all years with sunspots very abundant — than in a long time before. The frost of July 8-9, 1938, 

 was the most unseasonable severe frost in the history of the industry there. That of April 29-30, 

 1939, came after a long drouth in a season that is usually rainy there. 



''"Kincer, J. B., Our changing climate, Amer. Met. Soc. Bui. 20:448-450, 1939; Relation of recent 

 glacier recessions to prevailing temperatures, U. S. Monthly Weather Rev. 68:158-160, 1940. 

 (Copies of both in the Middleboro library.) 



^^ Abbot, Aldrich, and Hoover, Smithsonian Inst., Astrophys. Observ. Ann. Vol. 6, Fig. 14, 1942. 

 (Copy in the Middleboro library.) 



'2"Frost night" in the Massachusetts table means a night in which the minimum bog temp- 

 erature was 28° F. or below at two or more of the following observing stations: Marstons Mills, 

 East Wareham, South Carver, Norton, Halifax, South Hanson, and Pembroke (see p. 37). In 

 the New Jersey table it means a night in which the minimum bog temperature was 28° F. or below 

 at either Whitesbog or Pemberton (the observing at Whitesbog began in September 1905, and that 

 at Pemberton began in October 1921 and ended with 1935). In the Wisconsin table it means a 

 night in which the minimum bog temperature was 28° F. or below at Cranmoor, Mather, or Beaver 

 Brook. (The U. S. Weather Bureau established the stations at Cranmoor and Mather, Wis., in 

 June 1906, and at Beaver Brook in August 1916.) The frost records for October are far from com- 

 plete for any of the three states, especially for Wisconsin, but all available records were used in 

 compiling the tables. 



