Winter weather signs were watched carefully by English gardeners. Dogwood days

Winter weather signs were watched carefully by English gardeners. Dogwood days were prophetic if remembered, for abundant spring blossoms were a sign of a cold winter to'come. . .Heavy bunches of pink dog-roses or white hawthorn flowers in the hedges of early summer, late blooming cherry trees or lilacs or a handsome crop of holly and redhaw, - all predict hard weather. English gardeners say: “Onion skin, very thin. Mild winter coming in; Onion skin thick and tough. Coming winter cold and rough. ” New England gardeners substitute an apple-skin and American Indians believe that if sweet corn is thicker-husked than usual, making cleaning harder, cold weather will follow. Wiltshire people see an omen in a field-mouse’s nest, for if she builds with the entrance to the south, a severe winter is to be expected, if to the north, much rain. In

the United States the katydid is a most dependable predictor of the weather; in August it calls “six weeks to frost, six weeks to frost.” Six weeks after the first rasp of the katydid’s wings is heard the cold finger of the winter is felt.

Profile of the Virginia Farmer Census data is being sought by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The 1982 census forms will be mailed out to all farm and ranch operators. Farmers, orchardists and ranchers should return their completed forms as soon as possible before the February 15 deadline. From the 1978 census, we learned these things about the Virginia farmer: —Sixty-two percent of the State’s 56,869 farm operators own the land they work, compared with 59 percent for the U.S. farm average. —Twenty-seven percent of the farmers are part owners-operators who both own And rent land—and 11 percent are tenants. —Slightly more Virginians—40 percent—as compared to the 37 percent national average—were employed more than 200 days off tfte farm. Just about half of them—47 percent gave their principal occupation as farming. —Virginians have smaller farms than the national average—175 acres as compared with 415 acres for the U.S. —Virginia farmers only harvest about one quarter of their cropland. But very few of them must irrigate—less than one percent. In crops, hay was the acreage leader, with 979,900 acres followed by com, 856,500; soybeans, 486,500; wheat, 125,400; peanuts, 105,600; barley, 102,300; tobacco, 76,000; orchardland, 39,600 (including 33,300 acres of apples producing 480.4 million pounds of fruit); and vegetables harvested for sale, 34,600 acres. Other facets of Virginia agriculture as outlined by the census: —Eighty-eight percent of the places or 50,302 were operated as individual or family farms, on a par with the national average; 5,069 were partnerships and only 1,254 were corporations. f —Eight percent of the farms were operated by women, 4,668, as compared with 52,201 by men. Nationally, 5 percent of the farms are women-operated. —Sixty-eight percent of Virginia’s farms sell less than S10.000 in farm products; 5 percent sell more than $100,000.