When I was small, I heard that it was good when it snowed because it was called a “poor man’s fertilizer”. The person that told me was an old farmer, so I never questioned the saying. Is there truth behind the saying?
Aside from water, nitrogen is the only element that snow puts back into the Earth. However, lightning and rain actually emit a greater proportion of nitrogen than snow. What probably makes snow good for the soil is that it feeds nitrogen into the soil at a slower and more even rate (through melting) than a thunderstorm, which delivers precipitation at a more rapid rate.
So, my friend was right and maybe he knew that all along.
Peter Geiger is the Editor of the Farmers' Almanac. 
If you notice a hole in the upper left-hand corner of your Farmers' Almanac, don't return it to the store! That hole isn't a defect; it's a part of history. Starting with the first edition of the Farmers' Almanac in 1818, readers used to nail holes into the corners to hang it up in their homes, barns, and outhouses (to provide both reading material and toilet paper). In 1919, the Almanac's publishers began pre-drilling holes in the corners to make it even easier for readers to keep all of that invaluable information (and paper) handy.
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[…] days of Spring we still have a thick white blanket covering the garden, sometimes referred to as 'Poorman's Fertilizer' The upside of all this is that there has been plenty of time to snowshoe and ski, or simply sit by […]
“poor man’s Fertilizer
I was asked about this recently and cannot document what I had been lead to believe, that a late snow doesn’t add fertilizer to the crop, instead, it breaks dormancy again causing additional shoots to emerge from the crown of plants that had previously broken dormancy.