Looking for something new to add to the 201st edition of The Old Farmer`s Almanac, managing editor Susan Peery thought back to one of the almanac`s big hits: a story on the social life of dairy cows.
That`s when the idea hit her-pigs.
”Pigs are the most commonly misunderstood barnyard animals,” Peery said. ”But people love them. And you don`t have to be a farmer to be fascinated by animal behavior.”
She assigned a reporter to hang around pigs, to jawbone with county extension agents and pig farmers to uncover pig minutiae.
That`s why, among the ads for dentures, hernia appliances and choir robes, the ubiquitous math puzzles and the long-range weather forecasts for 16 regions of the country, the 1993 edition of the almanac also informs readers that ”when storms come, pigs put their noses in the air and carry sticks around.”
Tidbits such as the fact that pigs like to play with each other. Or the news that pigs will climb, dig or jump to escape a fence. And that, to get a pig into a truck, you need to cover its head with a basket and lead it up a ramp backward, pulling on its tail.
These are things that readers of The Old Farmer`s Almanac might like. Those readers are a loyal bunch.
This year the Yankee Publishing Co., based in Dublin, N.H., published 4.5 million copies of the 1993 almanac to satisfy the legions of gardeners, farmers and the just plain curious who want to know the precise times of sunrise, sunset for their latitude and longitude, the dates for a full moon and when high tide will occur.
You would think that in an age when only 2.3 percent of the population consists of farmers, the almanac would have faded in popularity. Not so.
Over the last 15 years, the almanac has grown from 150 pages to more than 250 pages. Sales in metropolitan areas are just as good as sales in rural areas.
”Its usefulness is the key to its longevity,” said Peery, 45. ”People still garden; people cook and use the recipes; people still like to read the history articles.”
The almanac itself is history. Begun in 1792 and now entering its third century of publication, it is the oldest surviving periodical in the United States. George Washington was president when founder Robert B. Thomas decided to write his own almanac. Bibles and almanacs were best sellers in that era, as nearly everyone in the country was a farmer.
But Thomas` almanac, thanks to his secret formula for weather predictions and some lucky breaks, succeeded where others failed. His reputation for weather predictions grew mightily in the summer of 1816, when, just as Thomas had predicted in 1815, it snowed in New England.
Thanks to the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora in the West Indies, the summer of 1816 was much cooler. And when it snowed in July, he reportedly crowed to people who had earlier teased him, saying, ”Told you so.”
Thomas, who had been interested in weather and weather cycles since he was a teenager, came up with a ”secret weather forecasting formula” that remains locked away in a black tin box in the offices of the almanac.
But what`s the secret? Thomas was never specific-and neither are current editors of the almanac.
Thomas devised a system of astronomical calculations, which he translated into weather cycles, but it is so complicated that most of the editorial staff doesn`t really understand it, Peery said.
The almanac claims that 80 percent of its long-range forecasts have been correct. Today the predictions are made by Richard Head, a former NASA scientist who has served as the almanac`s chief weather forecaster since 1970. ”People love to look up the weather, and they love it when we`re wrong,” Peery said. ”But they`re usually nice about it. When we`re wrong they attribute it to human frailty. But when we`re right, it`s a miracle.”
Almanac readers write volumes of letters on nearly any subject covered in the almanac. The mailbags frequently come with questions such as ”What`s the best time of the month to castrate a bull?” ”What`s the best cycle of the moon to plant peas?” Peery said that about one-third of the mail deals with questions about the moon.
Almanac readers are a different breed, Peery said. While we have become a nation of couch potatoes, almanac readers are, in Peery`s words, ”doers.”
These are the type of people who work their gardens, planting and hoeing while everyone else is snoozing late. And they are the people who want to know precisely when Mercury is visible in the night sky.
Other pretenders have come along since The Old Farmer`s Almanac, including one that calls itself The Farmer`s Almanac, but Peery isn`t critical.
”When our almanac started we were an imitator. Now we`re the one being imitated.”
But the almanac has certain trademarks. Among them is the hole (punched by hand) in the top left-hand corner. Why? ”So you can put a string through it and hang it up,” Peery said.
The competition keeps the staff on their toes.
They put out two editions-a 256-page version that sells at newsstands, drugstores and supermarkets for $2.95 and a 280-page bookstore edition that costs $3.95. The bookstore edition includes a lengthy feature on famous Americans.
Peery, who has worked on the almanac for 15 years, tries to ensure that the almanac is more accurate, more useful and filled with interesting articles.
But the People magazine kind of touches can`t mask the fact that the almanac thrives on bizarre little nuggets of information.
Like the fact that pigs are excellent swimmers and can often be found on remote islands.
