Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1916-06-24

written Specially for The Bulletin1
we are officially informed BY the
New York city weather observer that
this has been, thus far, the coolest and
wettest June since the station was
founded. forry-five years ago
As . matter Of fact, we farmers
didn't need Official information about
IT, Not only has the first part of June
been an undried-up Red Sea for us
to wade through, but May Vas wet,
cold, slow and backward. Spring
work was delayed, made unusually
diff1cuit when do-able at all, nd oft
by the sodden state of the soil. It's
hard to do good work in dirt that
was soaked mud yesterday and hasn't
any sun today to help dry it off
Yesterday saw one man trying to
pillow his garden! 1t had rained the
day before. was drizzling at lac time.
and he was hurrxing to get through
before the next clond-Durst, which
was visibiy forming along tile hori-
zon, should drench him. He wasn't
really blowing, either. couldn't in the
state of the dirt. He was just poach-
ing up the mud.
Another told me he hadn't planted
his potatoes, yet, and didn't know of
but one neighbor who had.
In my own gardens, those parts
which are inclined to the gravelly are
doing quite we'll, thank you, But the
richer, loamy land is hardly work.
able. Corn is the most disconsolately
unhappy crop I've ever seer on this
ranch at this time of the year. Small
uneven, yellowish. othered
For three full weeks after it came up
we were unable to get IN ii with
horse and cultivator, because during
al nfA vol I,.,y
rained so recently that the dirt was
pudding. Spinach, Lettuce, beets
onions, though, have thrivea in the
slop. And what weather for trans
planting! We have got out all oul
tomatoes, peppers, caulifower and
most of our cabbage, without having
to water in" a single plart. Ano
that is something which neter hap
pened before in my personal expert
ence. a4af
What's the use Of watering in" 9
plant which you set in the mud an6
which the rain is going to wet dowI
for you within two hours3
So far, out of more than ter thous-
and such plants set, we haven't founC
a dozen which failed to lie. MOI
have we found any serious evidence O.
cut-worm work
Last year, lost my entire oniol
crop by cut-worms and had to Sc
cabbage plants at least three time
over TO get any, besides. using bushel
Of poisoned bran mash Whether
killed 50 many by this means o
whether the constant wet tEis sprin:
has drowned out the pesl<y things,
don't know. I~rejoice over their evi
dent scarcity, whatever the cause.
But weeds!-I never saw sucl
swamps and forests of them. Thi
weather has just suited them and i
has prevented US from lighting then
effectually. Some my small drilled
in crops we have had to abandon en-
tirely simply because by the time W
got to them the weeds had completed,
smothered them out From ..ss thai
ten feet Of one onion row l 'ioed III
and carried to the l1en-yard two corn
baskets full of chickweel. In tn
whole ten feet l couldn't fird half-a
dozen starveling onions. The chick
weed was a mat about eight inche
wide and six inches high and IT'S root
were as thick in the dirt as its in
terlaeed stems above ground
A neighbor who has been sick 70
two weeks asked me, yesterday, t
clean up his little asparagus bed, /
is a small piece, perhaps twelve fee
wide by thirty feet long, and hadn'
been touched for a fortnight Tn
weeds on it included SOW thistle
clinch-grass tmallows," shepherd
purssL cnarloc<, wild mustard, will
buckwheat, golden-rod, dalldeIions
dock and some few others Tine this
ties. shepherds purse. charloci1, mus
tard, golden rod and dock average
about three feet high. while the NAL
lows, dandelions and grass made
mat under them. 1t was more Xix
hoeing down a young forest than