The Old Farmer's Almanac is an almanac containing weather forecasts, planting charts, astronomical data, recipes, and articles. Topics include gardening, sports, astronomy, folklore, and predictions on trends in fashion, food, home, technology, and living for the coming year. Published every September, The Old Farmer's Almanac has been published continuously since 1792, making it the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. It is considered “a gardener’s bible”, including gardening articles and the best days for planting crops. It is published by Yankee Publishing Inc. which also publishes a Canadian edition to cover all of North America. The publication follows in the heritage of American almanacs such as Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard's Almanack.
History
18th century
The first Old Farmer's Almanac, then known as The Farmer's Almanac, was edited by Robert Bailey Thomas, the publication's founder. There were many competing almanacs in the 18th century, but Thomas's book was a success. In its second year, distribution tripled to 9,000. The initial cost of the book was six pence (about four cents). To calculate the Almanac's weather predictions, Thomas studied solar activity, astronomy cycles and weather patterns and used his research to develop a secret forecasting formula, which is still in use today. Other than the Almanac's prognosticators, few people have seen the formula. It is kept in a black tin box at the Almanac offices in Dublin, New Hampshire. Thomas also started drilling a hole through the Almanac so that subscribers could hang it from a nail or a string. Thomas served as editor until his death on May 19, 1846. As its editor for more than 50 years, Thomas established The Old Farmer's Almanac as America's "most enduring" almanac by outlasting the competition. In 1832, with his almanac having survived longer than similarly named competitors, Thomas inserted the word "Old" in the title, later dropping it in the title of the 1836 edition. After Thomas's death, John Henry Jenks was appointed editor and, in 1848, the book's name was permanently and officially revised to The Old Farmer's Almanac.
19th century
In 1851, Jenks made another change to the Almanac when he featured a "four seasons" drawing on the cover by the Boston artist Hammatt Billings, engraved by Henry Nichols. Jenks dropped the new cover for three years and then reinstated it permanently in 1855. This trademarked design is still in use today. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln may have used a copy of The Old Farmer's Almanac to argue the innocence of his client, William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for murder in Beardstown, Illinois. Lincoln used an almanac to refute the testimony of Charles Allen, an eyewitness who claimed he had seen the crime by the light of the moon on August 29, 1857. The book stated that not only was the Moon in the first quarter, but it was riding "low" on the horizon, about to set. Because the actual almanac used in the trial was not retained for posterity, there exists some controversy as to whether The Old Farmer's Almanac was the one used. In 2007, a competing almanac, the Farmers' Almanac, based in Lewiston, Maine, ran an article claiming that the almanac in question may have been theirs. In 1861, Charles Louis Flint became editor and provided his readers with a heavier emphasis on farming. The next two editors, John Boies Tileston and Loomis Joseph Campbell, served short terms and made no format changes. Robert Ware took over as the book's sixth editor in 1877 and served for 23 years before his brother, Horace, was named to the position in 1900.
20th century
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