Distrustful of the Bureau of Meteorology with its with its blind reliance on mere science and especially on those new-fangled weather satellites (a passing fad)? Why not, instead, keep a backyard pig and rely on the infallible data its behaviour yields?
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One hundred years ago today, with rural Australians sceptical of science, the Nhill Free Press (of western Victoria) offered its hobbledehoy readership this plausible-sounding story. The region was in the grip of drought and so weather stories had a special piquancy.
"PIGS AS BAROMETERS.
"The last thing that one would expect to indicate changes in the weather is a pig's tail. However, according to the skipper of a Norwegian sailing ship who normally has a porker or two on board, one could scarcely have a more reliable barometer.
" 'When a weather disturbance is coming on the tails of the pigs, usually kinky, straighten out and their ears droop. With the barometer reading between 29.90 and 30 the tails begin to forecast approach of a trough of low pressure. When the reading gets below 29.50 the pigs seek cover, and the storm is pretty sure to burst within five hours. But a high barometer puts a beautiful twist in the tails, and the ears stand jauntily stiff, and with a trifle of a cant forward.' "
Alas, this story was the only jauntiness in this farming-preoccupied edition of the newspaper. One big story (from the Editor's pespective) included some abnormally big potatoes brought in, to show them off to the media, by a local farmer. Then, (stop the presses!) there was "FINE CAULIFLOWER. Yesterday Messrs A. Bongiorno and Co., fruiterers and confectioners, of Victoria St., had on view a magnificent cauliflower, grown by Mr Gardiner, which weighed almost 12 pounds."
