WEATHER SUPERSTITIONS 109 



and bear a larger crop to make up for it next year. 

 It is not an attitude that makes for commercial 

 success, but it shows the proportion between the 

 occasional dramatic errors of our climate and the 

 going wrong of a whole season. The real calamities 

 are such summers as that of 1909, when in many 

 districts the harvest was ungarnered till November, 

 and of 1910, when nothing ripened, from grass 

 to apples, and the mould of loss ate into all the 

 farmer's profits. No wonder that the moon and other 

 oracles should have been pored upon as they never 

 had been, and that we scan our almanacs to see what 

 manner of summer may be next before us. The 

 past we know, the present we know : we want to 

 know the future, and will not hear that it is un- 

 knowable. 



