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Cloud Seeding in the Cotton Fields of Mississippi

The Great Rainmaking Hoax



The Great Rainmaking Hoax Because my lifelong friend and mentor Jaybird had seen hucksters, hawkers, and horse thieves come and go, the old black man often warned me: “Boy, if somebody offers you sumpin’ that sounds too good to be true, it is.” But even he fell for the great rainmaking hoax. Before large-scale irrigation was feasible, droughts could be disastrous for Mississippi Delta farmers, as was the case one year when my father’s cotton seedlings started off well and needed only a timely rain to bloom and begin setting fruit. But no rain came.
One day, when Dad and Jaybird were in town at the hardware store commiserating with other farmers about the dry spell, a stranger spoke up. “I can help — I’m a professional rainmaker.” Desperation overrode caution, and they asked how much he charged. “It depends on how many bags of super dioxide crystals y’all want me to spread from my airplane,” he answered. “They make clouds suck in moisture, which in turn initiates condensation — rain, in other words. The plane hauls two bags. Each bag will run you $1000. The odds of getting the amount of rain y’all need with one bag are fair, but your best bet is two bags.” Dad and his neighboring farmers decided $2000 was too steep, and chose to take their chances with one bag. “Okay. Here’s how it works. Tomorrow afternoon, build a huge bonfire in a spot that is centrally located to y’all’s farms, and keep it burnin’ as hot as possible. By mid-afternoon when clouds start building, I’ll fly above them and sprinkle the crystals. The heat rising up from the fire and the crystals falling down on the clouds will combine to initiate precipitation.” To the not overly learned farmers, the pilot’s scientific explanation sounded like a lead pipe cinch, and they anted up one grand for his services. With the bonfire roaring the next afternoon, the pilot swooped down, wagged his wings, did a few dippity-doos, ascended above the clouds, and spread the crystals. By sundown not a drop of rain fell, and the farmers were certain they’d been gypped. But along about midnight, thunder and lightning, the likes of which will announce Judgment Day, awoke everyone, and a downpour set in. It was no normal rain … it was more than a gully washer, or a chunk floater — it was a frog drowner!

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Because reliable meteorology was in its infancy, the farmers were not aware that a front moved across in the night, and Mother Nature, not the long-gone swindler pilot, delivered the deluge. At sunup, Dad and Jaybird stared in disbelief across flooded fields in which only the cotton seedlings’ top leaves peeked above muddy water. Jaybird said what Dad was thinking: “Lordy mercy, Boss, ain’t no tellin’ what would’ve happened if y’all had paid that pilot to spread two bags of them dad-gummed super dioxide crystals.” My father and my mentor, along with many other farmers, never realized what they’d fallen victim to: the great rainmaking hoax.


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Jimmy Reed -- Bio and Archives

Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.

This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.

Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).


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