are both rhymes suggesting the probability of wintry weather to follow, if the early weeks of the year are mild and unseasonable, and they may be considered as generally correct prognostications.  A neighbouring village had the distinction of possessing a weather prophet, with the reputation also of an astrologer; he could be seen when the stars were gleaming brightly, late at night, gazing upwards and making his deductions, though, in reality, I fancy, his inspiration came from the study of almanacs which profess to foretell the future.  He was quiet and reserved, with a spare figure, dark complexion, and an abstracted expression.  Occasionally I could induce him to talk, but he did not like to be “drawn.”  He told me, as one of his original conceptions, that he thought the good people were accommodated in the after-life within the limits of the stars of good influence, and that the wicked had to be content with those of an opposite character.

The proverb about March dust, and “A dry March and a dry May for old England,” are both apposite, for they are busy months on the land, and a wet March amounts to a national disaster; but everyone forgives April when showery, for we all know that “April showers bring forth May flowers.”  Shakespeare, too, says: 

     “When daffodils begin to peer,
        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
     Why, then comes in the sweet of the year.”

A charming sentiment and charmingly rendered, but possibly more accurate when the Old Style was in vogue, and the seasons were nearly a fortnight later than now.  The modern “daffys” too, no doubt, “begin to peer” somewhat earlier than those of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

During a very hot summer I suggested to the Board of Agriculture that it might be worth while to experiment with explosions of artillery, with a view of inducing the clouds to discharge the rain they evidently contain when they keep passing day after day without bursting.  I had seen it stated that many great battles had ended in tremendous downpours, and that it was believed that the rain was caused by concussion from the explosions.  The Board replied, however, that experiments had been conducted in America for the purpose, without in any way substantiating the theory; and the experiences of the Great War have since conclusively proved that it has no foundation.

As to weather signs, I have already quoted the original pronouncement of my carpenter, T.G., that “the indications for rain are very similar to the indications for fine weather,” and there is a good deal in his words.  My own conclusion, after fifty years of out-door life on the farm, in the woods, in the garden, at out-door games, and on the roads, is that fine weather brings fine weather, and wet weather brings wet weather, in other words, it never rains but it pours, in an extended sense.