The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-08-04


Jack Frost in April, froze upon the
trees Ice was formed and melancholy
hue appeared to seal the fate of all vege-
table life.
And then came June, with its luscious
strawberries, its bright-red cherries peep
ing out from the dark green leaves, and
its golden harvests. Such is June as our
ancestors knew her, as we know her now.
''Hope spings eternal in the human breast"
and the advent of June was hailed with
hopes and anticipations that were the
stronger for the rude buffetings they had
received. Garden and field crops were
again planted and sowed. But June hopes
were only apples of Sodom, fair to the eye
but bitter to the taste. There is no record
of June so cold. Again Jack Frost rode
over the land with his wintry horde and
left broad black trail of desolation be-
hind-the blight left by cold and ice.
The King of the Winter, with icy breath
and snowy robes, for once reigned in Sum
mer's stead, Vermont was buried under a
mantle of snow from six to ten inches in
depth; the interior of New York lay beneath
three inches, while Maine and New Hamp-
shire lay under cold and feecy covering
varying in depth, Every green herb that
with pertinacious perseverance had dared
raise its head, every garden vegetable care
fully nurtured and protected by artificial
means and now confidently consigned to
natures keeping was killed outright.
Where one looked on the hillside and in
the meadow for the blushing strawberry
one found the cold hoar frost; and on the
tree, instead of the crimson cherry there
was the black dead blossom, while the har-
vest-field lay under canopy Of snow.
SUMMER, "BUT WINTER WAS THERE"
Spring had passed away and winter had
fingered in her lap. Summer time had
come but no summer. When July came
the hot sweltering July, when there is a
mighty rush to the mountains and sea to
escape the oppressive heats, when the hot
sultry dog-days commence with the fatal
diseases engendered by the great heats
when July, 1916, so contrary to what
might have been expected of it, came in
cold and cloudy and gloomy, with heavy
frosts night after night, and, on the 9TH
with ice throughout Pennsylvania, New
York, ond New England, no wonder the peo-
pie lost heart; and, in the language of the
faithful contemporary chronicler whose re-
cords have been closely followed, sit was
month of melancholy forebodings, and it
seemed as if the sun had lost its warm and
cheering influence"
Well might such be the case. frosty
nights succeeded sne another with great
regularity. The Indian corn was chilled
and withered on the stock; the grass, that
hardy and vigorous plant which bodily
pushes out early in the season long before
the frosts are out of the ground or the
SHOWS have ceased to fall, was so greatly
injured by repeated frosts and ice that it
contained little or no sustenance, while its
erstwhile emerald hue was changed to
dull brown. Grazing cattle would scarcely
eat it. OF fruit and flower and ''briery
vine" not one was left to tell the tale. The
foliage of orchard and forest was dead and
withered too, or hung iaccid and colorless
to the branch. Northerly winds whistled
through the dry grass and moaned around
the sapless trees An overcoat and leaden
sky often added to the dreariness of the
landscape. In midsummer
''The trees to the blast had surrendered their
leaves,
The beauties of summer had fed
The warhlers departed for SUMMER clmes,
The herbage is withered and dead"
To arrive at proper understanding of
the effects of these strange conditions one
must take into consideration the state of
our country, as regards size, population,
mode of life, and other details at that
time
THEN AND NOW.
A sparsely- settled country, with only
eleven cities against two hundred and
eighty-six now, that hardly reached the
Mississippi on the west, and Florida,
Spanish possession, and Texas, Mexican
territory, on the south, constituted the
bounds of the inhabited United States at
that time. Barely seven and half mil
lions of people were scattered over the
broad tract extending from Maine to
Louisiana, from the Atlantic to the Ohio
and the Mississippi. Itwas predonirantly
rural population, depending for living
on the direct produce of the soil. Not
quite five out Of every one hundred inhab-
itants were residents in cities, while the /
proportion of residents in cities to-day is
nearly if not fully twenty-five out of every
one hundred Of our population. Steam |
and electricity were then unknown agents |
Of motive and other kinds of power, and |
travel was on horseback or in vehicles over
rude roads, often impossible great portion
IF Tho 1yaor FTha ,ournaxy from, Navv Vorlr |
to Boston, which is now easily made in
day, would then have required full week
under the most favorable circumstances.
Freight was slowly conveyed from one
portion of the country to another by means
of slow sailing vessels, ever dancing atten-
dance upon wind and tide, or the still slow
er but surer canal-boat, and in long lines of
coyered-wagon trains, winding in pictures
que curves over mountains and through
forests. Freight rates were fearfully high;
the conveyance of goods limited in kind;
while the carriage of perishable food pro-
ducts was an absolute impossibility.
DISTRESS Ann SUFFERING.
Consequently the distress caused by the
total failure of all crops north of the Po-
tomac-a failure and distress intensified
by the greater dependence at that time of
almost the whole population of the country
on the direct produce of the scil-could
get no relief from the shipment of food
products from the South, where, though
similar weather had been felt, yet from
climatic reasons it had not been so severe
No great cities with a teaming popula-
ton had given the impetus to the trucking
interests in the South, and no railroads
with refrigerator-cars were there to trans
port fruits and vegetables even if raised
A year without summer in this age Of
steam and electricity would find US better
prepared to meet it with our extended and
diversified country, but even in this case
the scarcity, the inferior quality, and the
necessary high price of provisions would
entail great suffering, especially upon the