“When the moon’s at the quarter, then down comes the rain;
       At the half it’s no better I ween;
     When the moon’s at three-quarters it’s at it again,
       And it rains besides mostly between.”

Rather hard on Bala, for the summer was so abnormally wet that these lines would have been true of any part of England.  I suppose everybody is more or less interested in the weather, but the custom of alluding to the obvious, as an opening to conversation, is probably a survival from the time when everyone was directly interested in its effect upon agriculture.

Nothing proves how completely town interests now dominate those of the country so much as the innovation called “summer time.”  During the war it was no doubt a boon to allotment holders, and of course it gives a longer evening to those employed all day indoors; but it inflicts direct loss on the farmer, who is practically forced to adopt it in order to supply the towns with produce in time for their altered habits.  The farmer exchanges the last hour of the normal day, one of the most valuable in the old working time, for the first hour of the new day, one of the most useless, for owing to the dew which the sun has not had time to dry up, many agricultural operations cannot be properly performed or even commenced—­hay-making and corn-hoeing for instance are impossible.  We may be sure that the former times of beginning and ending farm-work, which I suppose had been customary for at least 2,000 years in England, did not receive the sanction of such a period without good reason, and it seems to me, that so far as outdoor work is concerned the new arrangement savours of “teaching our grandmothers to suck eggs.”

There is a saving of lighting requirements, no doubt, but in such a six weeks of winterly mornings as we had, following the commencement of “summer time” this first year of peace, there is a considerable increase in the consumption of fuel.  Wherever possible, I suppose, most houses are built to face the south, and the breakfast-room would be generally on that side, so that by 9 o’clock, old time, the sun had warmed the room, but at 9 o’clock, new time, the sun has scarcely looked in at the window; a fire is probably lighted and to save trouble kept up all day.  If the new arrangement is continued, and I understand that it was tried more than 100 years ago and abandoned as a mistake, it would be much better to begin it at least a month later.  Our present May Day is nearly a fortnight earlier than before the New Style was introduced, which is the reason why old traditions of May Day merry-makings appear unseasonable; and probably the promoters of summer time have not heard of “blackthorn winter” and “whitethorn winter,” which, in the country, we experience regularly every year in April and May.

     “When the grass grows in Janiveer
     It grows the worse for it all the year,”

and

     “If Candlemas-Day be fine and fair
     The half of winter’s to come and mair;
     If Candlemas-Day be wet and foul
     The half of winter was gone at Yule,”