1879 the following lines were
written--it was said by the then Bishop of Wakefield--in the visitors'
book at the White Lion Hotel at Bala, in Wales:

"The weather depends on the moon, as a rule,
And I've found that the saying is true;
For at Bala it rains when the moon's at the full,
And it rains when the moon's at the new.

"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 s