The Old Farmer's Almanac 2004

In 1792, Robert B. Thomas, a schoolteacher, bookseller, and amateur astronomer living near Boston, Massachusetts, began a North American institution when he published the first issue of his Farmer's Almanac. (The word Old was added in 1832.) He was confident of his skills and knowledgeable about his readers. In one of the early issues, he wrote: "We must strive always to be useful, but with a pleasant degree of humor." That timeless formula of providing useful advice and entertaining information has contributed greatly to making The Old Farmer's Almanac an indispensable reference for generations of readers.