SPRING HAS COME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3675, 9 August 1927, Page 4

SPRING HAS COME.

ASTRONOMICAL AND SEASONAL DIFFERENCES.

“Can you tell me the exact date of the first day of spring?” This point is a perennial source of argument and seems to crop up every year shortly after the winter solstice. Sometimes an answer is supplied by one who knows, or should know, but it nearly always seems to be forgotten by the time twelve months have sped. On the rule of thumb method it would seem that, taking the length of each season at three months, six weeks after the shortest day should mark the beginning of the vernal period of the year, that in August 1. • But this rough and ready method does not stand the test imposed by latitude, since the nearer the Pole the longer the winter. In a country like New Zealand stretching as itjloes over more than twelve degrees of latitude, it is ma-

nifostly impossible to set a date for spring’s opening that will suit every district. In the far north, there is practically no winter as the south understands the term, and growth begins there before August has arrived. About the latitude of Wanganui, August 1 might be taken as the date if one may judge the season by the leafage bursting its buds on the trees or the blossoms springing into flower. In Otago, growth begins later, and September might be taken as the opening of spring in the southern province. But this refers only to what may be called the natural spring, the beginning of annual growth which indicates that the sap has begun to run.. If the sap movement is the indicator then the times mentioned, varying with latitude, might be accepted showing that so far as nature is concerned, she has no absolutely fixed date. But just here enters the astronomer, who fixes the seasons, their openings and closings, with mathematical precision according to a recognised formula and we find he lays down a different method. The question was referred by the Chronicle to Mr. W. H. Ward, of the Wanganui Observatory, who stated that August 7, marks the astronomical commencement of spring in this district.