(Note: Truck Farm – A small farm producing vegetables for commercial sale, usually to local markets.)
WE have all seen the Man In In the Moon. So we know there is a man. But is he alive? And is he a truck gardener? That’s some thing different again.
Well, Prof. William II. Pickering of Harvard says there is vegetable life on the moon. He doesn’t say there are cultivated crops, but he insists on the lunar vegetation. And he takes particular pains not to say that there is intelligent animal life on the moon. One thing is sure Professor Pickering is one of the greatest living astronomers and has been studying the moon pretty steadily for two years.
What’s more, Camille Flammarion, the famous French astronomer, says Professor Pickering is probably right, as he himself has photographed phenomena on the moon which indicates the existence of vegetation.
Professor Pickering Is now in Europe. His colleague, Professor S. I. Bailey of Harvard, says: “Professor Pickering has not as yet been able to convince many astronomers that he is right In his discovery of life on the moon. He has made a prolonged study of the subject with a telescope at Jamaica and is convinced that the markings which he finds on the moon are caused by vegetation, but some others think the markings are shadows. My own attitude is one of doubt.
“No scientific man has advanced the theory that there is intelligent life on the moon. If there Is life. It is believed to be a low form. Of course, no one can say positively that intelligent life does not exist there.”
“Professor Pickering Is perfectly right In assuming that a perfected optical science will enable astronomers to make invaluable research bearing on life on the moon, which until now has been regarded as a glacial world.” declared Camille Flammarion, in Paris.
“Like Professor Pickering, I have photographed phenomena on the moon which indicate the existence of vegetation. I have been able to observe that five or six spots each hundreds of miles in diameter grow darker when exposed to prolonged sunlight.
“We are thus entitled to believe that the moon has gigantic forests, even though the chemical composition thereof may differ from those of the earth, so as to permit life in an atmosphere which is six-tenths less dense than ours.
“While It is, probable that animal life does not exist on the moon, such a fact is by no means proven, for there is nothing to prevent the existence of individuals who live and breathe differently and have different senses from ours.
“The most rational hypothesis is that the moon is a world in decline. Her zenith doubtless coincided with the date when the earth, now cooled, was herself a little sun, capable of warming the moon,
“In this case the moon will have retained semblances of vegetation life only in certain deep craters, which are probably what Pickering and my self have observed.”
In his report on this phase of his study of the moon, which has just been published in Popular Astronomy, a scientific publication Issued at Northfield. Minn., Prof. Pickering criticizes astronomers In severe terms for neglecting the study of the moon, because of an improved hypothesis that it was lifeless. He emphasized the fact that Mars is 200 times further away from the earth than the moon is, so that other things being equal, 200 times as much detail can be seen on the moon as on Mars. Prof. Pickering is one of the chief living authorities on Mars, where he believes that life exists.
When the moon emerges from its two weeks of darkness and a degree of cold probably unknown on earth, the sun’s light quickly warms up the fields in the great moon craters, some of which are many miles across, and starts, a mushroomlike growth of life there, according to the Pickering theory. This flourishes during the long moon day.
Professor Pickering found “canals” or “runs” of vegetation on the moon, as on Mars, and was able, because of the nearness of the moon, to trace the intricate patterns of growing fields, as he regarded them.
He did this with an inferior telescope at the Harvard Observatory at Mandeville, Jamaica, which location Is of special advantage In examining the moon. His instrument, a small one, is more than fifty years old. His researches are expected to result in bringing powerful telescopes to bear on the moon for the special study of living things alleged to be found In the craters.
Fifty-six hours of sunlight In the crater of Erastosthenes II. which Dr. Picketing made a particular object of study; evoked plant life. Nothing In Dr. Pickering’s report indicated that these were cultivated crops. After describing the appearance of dark patches, which sprung into existence and then faded out, he continued: “Expressing the matter otherwise, we may say that the vegetation requires two and a half days to appear, It lasts for only two days, and then rests for three days, and then produces the second crop, lasting for four days more, which then gradually, disappears In the evening shades. We thus have evidence of a variety of lunar vegetation. The wings of the northern spot begin to develop as soon as the sunlight strikes them.”
These periods vary, however, in different forms of vegetation observed. Crops with different exposures vary In duration from two to eleven days, and the average is about a week.
“In quickness of development,” says Professor Pickering, “some of it even vies with our mushrooms and toad stools. The crop has to be brief in order to ripen at all, and it is doubtful If any of it in the region we have described lasts through the lunar night.”
Telling how dark patches and lines varied In their positions I continued: “It thus appears that the runs on the moon, like the canals on Mars, shift their positions over the surface. In both cases the surface discoloration has changed its place. This cannot be due to mineral or inorganic forces. Life therefore, exists on both these planets.”
After describing how fields of vegetation darken, spread, grow pale and shrink. Dr. Pickering continued: “This description typifies the changes constantly occurring in many well defined lunar fields in the course of their development, changes much more marked than any occurring on Mars.”
Discussing one area of apparent vegetation, which he calls the Southeastern Field, Professor Pickering continues: “We now come to one of the most interesting of all the fields of this crater, because Its changes are not
only very marked, but also because they occur chiefly near the time of the full moon, so that they can be studied for several hours continuously.”
After describing how the vegetation varies with different amounts of sunlight, the astronomer says that the field finally acquires the pattern of a “lobster or a crab, with sharply curved claws.”
Professor Pickering concluded his article by saying that “We do not clearly understand the nature of life that Is here described and laid before our eyes upon the moon, yet that very fact only adds to the. Interest that it inspires in our minds.
“We find there, a living world at our very doors, where life In some respects resembles that on Mars, but is entirely unlike anything on our own planet a world which the astronomical profession In general, for the past fifty years, has utterly and systematically neglected and ignored.
From the Crossville Chronicle., December 07, 1921