The Manitowoc Pilot

Some of the newspapers are discussing the "harvest moon" and framing theories as to the reason of its being thus designated. The harvest moon is a term applied when the moon rises three or four consecutive evenings without the usual interval of time between successive risings. The time when the harvest moon appears differs with latitudes, with us in Wisconsin, it rules in August. It is caused by the gradual convergence of the line of the moon's orbit to the plane of the horizon, the moon moving about in the same direction as the plane of the horizon, appears about the same hour each evening. It took the name because in England it occurs about harvest time and when the sun sinks in the west the moon rises in the east and seems to prolong the harvest days for some time.