Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1913-05-22
LOYAL VERMONT WOMAN IN
IOWA.
TO the Editor of the Free Press

To the Editor of the Free Press:
Being a native Vermonter / am going
to take little space in the dear old
paper which found its way to my ia
Tiers home for more than 40 years Your
last issue discussed caterpillars on the
trees. We have them here in Iowa too,
but on our farm they have found no lodg-
ing place for many years. ours is a prairie
State and to those who really love a
home a tree is one of the family Many
years ago | took it upon myself to keep
the home grove of about 10 acres free
from the tent caterpillar. When they be-
gin to spin their web I find a fish pole,
take a little pail of kerosene oil and
half dozen corn cobs. Dip the
cob in the kerosine and fasten it to
the pole and light it with match
and there are few nests that cannot be
reached with this torch. Black walnut
trees are prone to harbor the pests and
until | learned to conquer them they made
havoc Of our beautiful trees of which we
had many, but none of the enemy can
now be found on the farm As for danger
careful mot to set fires.
AS for these black walnut trees they are
as easily grown as a soft maple In the
fall of 1884 [ sent to Wisconsin for a bar
rel full of walnuts and butternuts planted
them in shallow burrows in the field while
they were yet fresh. They came up the
next spring and summer. Many of them
were transpanted when they We're one
,IJ al ,tIa
were to remain. At five years old few
nuts grew on some of them. At 10 years
old they were bearing heavily and last
year the ground was covered with them
after everybody had been given liberty to
gather all they pleased
Now here is some more. I was born in
Chttenden county, Vermont, as were al
so my parents About 80 years my grand
father owned what is now the John Dear
born farm not far from Huntington Cen
ter. He died there about 1885, when my
father, sabin Joslin, and his brother
Josiah, became the owners. Some 90 years
ago John Dearborn became the owner and
l learn that it is still IN the hands of his
family Grandfather settled on that farm
soon after the Revolution in which he
was a soldier.
that farm that l wish to- write About
the year 1893, grandfather had an outdoor
cellar where he stored vegetables, apples.
and at that time many casks Of hard
cider which would be kept for vinegar
and at the proper time would DE hauled
to Burlington and sold. on his farm was
a large orchard and a cider mill He al
so made much maple sugar and Grand
4
haps the best in the county at that time.
In the fall of that year they had five
very heavy fat hogs, and one sunday the
family had all gone to church down to
the Norton school house In some way
before the family got home that day the
big hogs broke out Of their pen and Of
course they were bent on mischief In
some way they broke into that outdoor
celler and smashed and bruised around
till they had overturned several OF those
casks of hard cider and the contents had
run out forming small lake several
inches deep, in the bottom of the cellar
and mother said when they found the
hogs they We're all dead drunk and seem
ngly too drunk to ever be got ont alive.
Before dark one or two Of them reused
little from his stupor, tried to get up-
on MS Feet nut luulDltd Gown dBdlu anu
sucked down more cider. The next day
the cider had soaked into the ground,
making a fine mud hole for hogs to sleep
in. and on the third day, there being no
more cider for them to reach they began
to sober up, and with much effort were
got out alive Mother said before they
sobered off some of them would make
an effort to get up and would sit up on
his launches and squeal like h. vas be-
ing killed for few minutes, then tumble
down. suck a little NOR" cider nd then
sleep again.
Mother thought they We're verg human
in their actions. but that was long ago
Now there is no cider to spare To the
hogs
CYNTHIA JOSLIN DELONG
BOWS, Ia, May 13. 1918
=. S.-My brother IN looking this over
tells me that grandfather died about 1880,
though his gravostone in the old cemetery
there tells the exact date. | remember
grandmother's death occurred when l was
about seven years old. in 1891, have
copv of grandfather's Revolution service
taken from the old colonial records of
Massachusetts when he and his three
brothers enlisted al birmingham, Mass,
also a copy of the town records showing
that Zehedah Josln married Hannah
Hale in l7S2 at Tyringham.
G, ]. d.