Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1907-08-06
The Good Old summer Time.

II >
A school boy once wrote an essay in
which he said that the mule is "queer
bird" having wings on either side of
its head, and is Every backward about
going forward" He might have added
that, when it goes forward, 1t is with a
rush. With exceptions, the season has
been much as the boy wrote concerning
the mule. When the cold was succeed
ed by warm weather, there was the lack
ing essential of moisture. Finally, how
ever, the one thing needed was added,
and growing crops Jumped" in way
seldom equalled. Evidently, the un-
seasonable cold had prepared the crops
for what was coming, and never were
rain and warmth better utilized. The
first rains to break the dry spell were
accompanied by lightning, and assumed
a local character. A general rain, how
ever, followed and continued twenty:
| four hours.
This we may term the shay" rain
owing to the inadequacy of the former
showers to wet meadow land to the ex-
tent of pushing hay along rapidly
Within ten days the hay prospect has
improved five times as many per cent,
and although the work of securing it
will be belated several weeks, the crop
will be pretty fair after all. Some will
undoubtedly cut timothy too early for
full measure of the product, but medium
clover will be better handled as soon as
in full bloom, and then there will be
second crop, possibly heavier than the
first, depending on the weather.
Corn made checkered growth at the
start, owing to unreasonable conditions,
but when planted at time affording
favorable conditions of heat and moist
ure, it came up unusually we'll. My
own corn, planted May 26, although en-
during very dry weather for few days,
is now up as evenly as ever had corn
grow. Some seemed to forget that con-
ditions may alter times of planting.
Persons who planted as early as the mid
die of May were forced to replant much
of it.
Some varieties of wheat show a con-
siderable proportion of smut,-some
fields having as many as one-seventh of
the heads given up to that fungus. 1t
seems pity to have prospectively good
wheat turned into this worthless stuff,
but one must be prepared to accept
things that are not altogether to his lik-
ing.
was in the towns of Cohocton, How
ard and Avoca about ten days or more
ago, and there saw meadows that did
not look good enough for half ton of
hay per acre. / suppose they have i'm
proved, like those of our own township,
and will make crops that could not have
been expected before the rains came.
noticed that on lands naturally wet,
grass made more than ordinary headway
during the dry weather. The surplus of
moisture that such lands are now get
ting will have some effect in an opposite
direction.
had been told that drilled wells may
serve as barometers, in a way. At least
they were said to foretell, by their roll
ing, the approach of heavy rains. This
is said to be true, even of those drilled
all their depth in bed rock. While our
recent drouth was still unbroken, my
well, 43 feet in depth, tried our patience
to some extent by pumping roll at the
end of about three pailfuls, while since
the copious rains have fallen, no roll is
perceptible, no matter what the pump
ing Evidently there are many things
yet to be learned in regard to the earth'S
interior, as affected by atmospheric
changes. NJ. Drake in Country
Gentleman.