THEODORE STEINBERG 213
into the clouds. Once in the sky, the silver iodide helped to increase
the number of hailstones to the point where there were so many that
not enough super-cooled water remained for any of the stones to
grow large enough to threaten the fruit crop. Or so the theory went.
For two consecutive summers starting in 1963, Howell's company
activated its generators and flew boldly through thunderheads to
ward off hail in a targeted area that included Franklin County,
Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.
But it is extraordinarily unclear what effect, if any, Howell and his
company had on the weather. And in any event, by 1965 Howell
and his equipment were gone.
He did not leave voluntarily. Howell was forced out by a rising
tide opposed to weather modification. As early as 1962, farmers in
Fulton and Franklin counties became suspicious that weather modification had contributed to the drought that had descended across
the region. The Heisey Orchards, a member of the Blue Ridge
Weather Modification Association, lost 138 young plum trees- cut
down into stumps- to those suspicions in 1962. And rumors surfaced that the company's supply of irrigated water might be poisoned if the cloud seeding continued. "We always used to get rain
when the clouds came across that mountain," Franklin County dairy
farmer Jack Beck told a reporter in 1962 as he pointed into the
distance. "But not any more, with that cloud seeding going on. I've
stood here and watched the plane fly into a black cloud, and within
five minutes that cloud scattered and the sun shone. I tell you,
somebody's going to get hurt over it unless they stop."7
To help sort out the cloud seeding issue, Jack Beck and others
organized a public meeting. Over four hundred farmers gathered
for the event on a spring evening in 1962. Among those who spoke
was Charles L. Hosler, head of the department of meteorology at
Penn State. It was Hosler's view, based on twenty years experience,
that efforts to modify the weather were futile. "You may as well spit
into the air," he remarked that night, "as seed rain clouds with
chemicals or any other substance.... You just can't push nature
around." Meanwhile, the farmers who endured the two-and-onehalf-hour meeting believed the cloud seeding was having some
effect. "Take the airplanes away," they yelled repeatedly from the
floor, directing their pleas to Ralph Heisey, who was there representing the Mercersburg orchard.8 They sensed a change in their
weather since the cloud seeding had begun and no scientist, what
