Wet Holiday

Northern Advocate, 31 January 1939, Page 4

Wet Holiday

THE peculiar perversity of the climate during the present summer reached its lowest, extremity,, when the last of the summer’s official holidays was converted from a day of pleasure to a day of dreariness. Yet it had its compensation. The few who were condemned to work felt that there was some abstract justice in life, after all. This admittedly was a selfish attitude, but a not unnatural one. Newspaper men, who are accustomed to working on holidays, and accept such trials with resignation rather than bitterness, felt an unholy joy in preparing the dismal story of saturated campers, frustrated yachtsmen and other victims of the weather’s capricious mood.

Then, too,'the downpour had, its redeeming features. To farmers and gardeners it afforded timely relief. To townspeople the farmer usually appears a somewhat disgruntled individual who is perpetually dissatisfied with the weather. Only rarely, for his benefit, does it strike the happy medium. Usually it is either so wet that pastures are flooded and grass grows rank, or so dry that the stock have nothing to eat. Actually, of course, the weather for a month in spring or late summer may mean the difference between a good year and a bad one for the farmers. It may mean, too, increased or decreased production from the country as a whole, more work in dairy factories and cool stores, better prices for a superior product, and hence more money in circulation.

Of all New Zealand’s advantages as a farming country, its regular rainfall and its immunity from storms of real violence are easily the most important factors. These govern the country’s productiveness. Without that steady, unremitting rain, which drummed so monotonously on the rooftops throughout yesterday, while thwarted holidaymakers yawned, slept, did crossword puzzles, or reluctantly turned to some long deferred odd jobs and repairs, New Zealand would not be one of the most fertile and fruitful countries on the face of the earth, but just some oddly shaped fragments'of earth placed in the South Pacific at an inconvenient distance from larger and more populous countries. As a suitable exercise for a wet holiday, we recommend a study of the meteorological data in the Year Book. This gives an insight into the inscrutable workings of nature —and is also an excellent soporific.