2 JANUARY 1948, Page 17

Prognostic Berries One popular belief, doubtless now regarded as a

superstition, is particularly hard to kill: it is that few berries, especially few holly berries, portend a warm and kindly winter. Well, '4 cannot remember any year in which holly berries were so hard to find.. The Christmas plum pudding itself had to appear undecorated. This dearth of berry coincided with one of the warmest Christmas Eves known in the records. But will January justify this optimism of the village? And has any long range prognostic ever been accepted by the scientific statisticians?