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SUN SHINES SOMETIMES 



ITS FAIR SOMEWHERE 



Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, 



The flowers are hlooming somewhere and growers' hearts are light, 



And somewhere blooms are plenty, and somewhere prices soar, 



But there is no joy in Roseville — Old Sol comes out no more. 



— Adapted. 



m"^ 



fOU don't need to call the 

 attention of the rose 

 grower to the lack of sun- 

 shine at this time of year. 

 He is only too well aware 

 of it. He can tell the time 

 of year without a calen- 

 dar; for when his red roses look like a 

 sunset reflected in the Missouri river, 

 and his pink varieties assume a hue 

 that defies the powers of the most ex- 

 pert exhibition judge to classify and 

 would give dyspepsia to an artist of 

 tender temperament, he knows that the 

 months of December and January are 

 hete. November and February are not 

 welcomed with enthusi- 

 asm, but they are not 

 quite so bad as Decem- 

 ber and January. 



These four — Novem- 

 ber, December, January 

 and February — are aptly 

 grouped as the dark 

 months of the year, and 

 they are so termed in 

 this article. In the ta- 

 ble on the two pages 

 following, these months 

 are appropriately set in 

 black-face type, so that 

 comparison will be easy, 

 to show just how bad 

 these months are for the 

 flower growers of va- 

 rious sections. 



Wanting When Wanted. 



Not only is sunshine 

 scarcest when it is need- 

 ed most, but also where 

 it is needed most. The 

 sections of the country 

 where greenhouses are 

 most numerous are least 

 favosed with sunshine, 

 and, conversely, in the 

 places where there is 

 more than enough sun- 

 shine at all times of the 

 year nobody cares par- 

 ticularly about growing flowers. The 

 first line of the stanza above, adapted 

 from that famous ballad, "Casey at 

 the Bat," is the strictest truth. At 

 such places as Phoenix, Ariz., or Santa 

 Fe, N. M., there is, at all times, an 

 abundance of sunshine, but on the other 

 hand, there is extremely little opportu- 

 nity for making use of it. 



There is a large variation, too, within 

 the sections where the greenhouse in- 

 dustry is of importance. The graphic 

 iliustratiop on this page shows how con- 



siderable is the difference in the 

 amounts of sunshine during the four 

 dark months in four of the largest 

 flower producing centers of the coun- 

 try. The table on the- two pages fol- 

 lowing will enable the readers of The 

 Eeview to ascertain how each one's lo- 

 cality compares with other sections in 

 the matter of sunshine. 



Possible and Actual Sunshine. 



In making these comparisons, it is 

 well to have the terms involved well 

 understood. Possible sunshine is de- 

 termined by the number of hours the 

 sun is above the horizon, the number 



of hours it might shine if no clouds, 

 fog or smoke obstructed its rays. 

 Actual sunshine is, on the other hand, 

 the number of hours the sun's rays 

 really fall upon the earth at the point 

 of observation. However, it is not 

 necessarily dark when the sun is not 

 shining, although, without doubt, the 

 light bill is larger in January than in 

 •luly. The degree of darkness depends 

 upon the deuseness of the clouds, 

 smoke, etc. If the sun comes above 

 the horizon. ?>av at this time of the 



year, at about 7 a. m. and sets, in the 

 theoretical sense of the word, at about 

 5 p. m., the possible hours of sunshine 

 will be calculated to be ten. The sun 

 may shine the whole ten hours, or it 

 may not ba visible at all, or it may 

 appear from 11 a. m. to 2 p. m. The 

 actual hours of sunshine would be in 

 each of these cases, respectively, ten, 

 none and three. It more commonly hap- 

 pens that there is a bright day followed 

 by a few dark days rather than that 

 there are a few hours of sunshine eacli 

 day during the month when the sum- 

 mary shows an average of only a few 

 hours per day, as at this season. 

 For the four cities 

 represented in the dia- 

 gram on this page the 

 number of possible 

 hours of sunshine is 

 nearly the same, for 

 they are not far from 

 being in the same lati- 

 tude. This IS particu- 

 larly true of the first 

 three; Los Angeles is 7 

 <legrees farther south 

 than the others, and so 

 has a larger number of 

 possible hours of sun- 

 shine, but the difference 

 amounts to no more than 

 fifteen to twenty hours 

 per month in winter. 



Cloudy Cleveland. 



In the number of ac- 

 tual hours of sunshine 

 received, however, they 

 are by no means alike. 

 Cleveland gets only 

 about half as much sun- 

 shine as Chicago, which, 

 in turn, receives consid- 

 erably less than New 

 York and less than two- 

 thirds of that vouch- 

 safed to Los Angeles. 

 Comparing the extremes, 

 we find that Cleveland 

 lias little more than one-fourth as much 

 sunshine as Los Angeles. It is said 

 that the cocks take a vacation in Cleve- 

 land during the winter because they 

 don't know when to crow. Perhaps 

 that's nature-faking, however, and we 

 want to avoid the big stick. 



There are other places as cloudy as 

 Cleveland, some in the same section, 

 som^ clear across the continent. In the 

 comparisons made here, the figures for 

 the four dark months alone are consid- 

 ered; even rie\ eland has enough sun in 



