Norwich bulletin., 1913-06-21


 'I admire the spirit of the old Dutchman who, when his leg was broken, said he was thankful it was not his neck"
 So runs the sentence in an old Reading book which came down to me, more than fifty years ago, from my fathers school days.
 If you ever read Dickens story Of Martin Chuzzlewit,' you will remem- Der that Mark Tapley" was sorely tw@abled because he never got into quite enough trouble to make It a credit for him to be jolly" He had the idea that it was easy to be happy when things went smoothly. but that there would be some real glory in be- ing hilariously jolly when every thing was going wrong.
 For the satisfaction of his own souls desire. I wish Mark could live on my ranch. this season. I'm fairly optimistic. but it has taken pretty nervy work for me, thus far, to keep a stiff upper lip"
 I've already told you how. seduced and over-tempted by the false prom 1se Of early spring. I violated my own better judgment by putting in some garden truck along in March. Of course, that turned out badly. l might have known 1t would, and can blame nobody but myself. But since then several other things have been happening.
 Those early seeds came up, feebly and suspiciously just in time to catch a second winter in April. Still, some of them made a live of it. When real seeding time came along. it was bit terly cold and we had to delay opera tions till the ground became workable 4hn 60PnYfiU Early in May. the local drouth as- serted itself The nights were cold: the days sunless and chilling: steady winds dried out the surface, and for four weeks, not drop of rain fell. Nor was there any dew visible three mornings out of four.
 Freshly planted seeds lay dormant; some of them routed: some were eaten ny worms and maggots: only few survived to show, later.
 In the midst of this, the tent Cater pillars appeared in hordes. They att tackled the apple and cherry trees; even the plums and grape-vines. There wasn't an hour of daylight when it was practicable to spray the trees. because of the incessant high winds which blew the spray out of of the very nozzle. Furthermore, on such partly protected things as we could reach,-plum trees and vines. the ars- enate of lead spray. which is specially recommended for these pests, seemed to inconvenience them not at all. They thrived on it. So I went back to the old-fashioned oi1-soaked torch, and burned the nests out. after dusk. I spent every evening for fourteen days, going over and over my few trees One night I burned twentyseven nests off one small Sweet Rough, and the second night after burned seventeen more which had been rebuilt on the same tree I rather expected to kill the trees with my torches, but l was careful as one could be. and most of them survived the scorching and when the weather softened up a bit, blos- somed luxuriantly.
 Then came a nice little freeze, straight from the North Pole, and every apple and cherry and plum blossom was blasted, the young leaves shrivelled up. and the starting foliage of the grape-vines utterly killed. So far as this years yield is concerned, I might just as well have let the worms have the trees.
 That same freeze-about the middle of May,-killed every stalk on my as- paragus bed. I had been cutting, from two thousand crowns, about 150 pounds a week. In the two weeks
 
 ten pounds, all told. It also froze back all my early peas. which were just beginning to blossom, so that the vines yellowed and dried. and had to start all over again. It even froze beet-tops lettuce, and young cabbage and celery plants in an unprotected seed-fFame.
 We'll, we reseeded and reset and generally soldered up the wreck as well as we could. and waited to see what would come next.
 It came.
 We got a couple of helpful rains, and a few days of summery warmth. Then, June Sth and 9th. appeared the next polar wave. It froze ice in the horse-tub about a quarter of an inch thick and killed the foliage even of the butternut and white ash trees in the woods. My early potatoes had, by this time. got to be about foot high. They had been cultivated four times and were nearly ready for the final shovel blowing. Frozen to the ground. They may start up again and give me a few bushels of hazel-nuts. But. as