Norwich bulletin., 1918-09-13

this abnormally backward season.
 Another thina I wonder if any of you have had my experience with crops punching up' this year? Com ing all in heap, I raean, even when sowed or planted so as to provide for successive ripening periods?
 Peas, for illustration. I .sowed last spring as usual seven varieties of peas; the seven which past experi- ence has shown do best on my soil and cover the longest period of ma turing. Hitherto, the seven have fur nished pickable peas, one after an i other. each variety being from three to seven days later than the one be- | fore it. To insure an even longer | bearing period, I sowed them, as l usual, at two times. That is, I sowed i half my seed of each variety as. early 1 as the ground was fit, then waited till | these had come up erough to show the rows before sowing the other half. 1 With seven varieties having seven diff l ferent periods of ripening thus sown. 1 at two intervals, 1 ought to have had | fourteen different times for picking. | As matter of fact. I had just three. | The extra earlies came on extra early, as usual; the extra lates came on e1- 1 tra late, as usual. The other five kinds | all came on i'll a bunch without tven- l tyfour hours difference in their ma
 turing, even though their normal
 habit should have separated those
 soWn at the same time by at least ] three weeks. And half of those five
 kinds were sown full two weeks later
 than the other half! I'm not talking,
 now. about seedmen's statements of
 when and, how they should pod. Fm talking about the way they actually , have podded on these same fields, un- l der the same treatment in previous
 years.
 The same was true wish sweet corn.
 l planted four yellow and three white
 kerneled varie eties-the very ones
 which past experience has shown me
 to mature about week apart. This
 ought to have given me; as it gener-
 ally has in the past, about seven
 weeks picking. The extra early came
 on a bit earlier than usual. It was
 hardly cleaned up when the five next
 sorts all filled simultaneously, so that
 I had a five weeks supply, all at once
 and then had to wait three weeks for
 the latest sort to come on.
 That makes bad business" for g
 marketn1an who has a home trade to
 supply, twice week.
 But what's the explanation for al this freakishness? That's the ques.
 tion which, ,bothers me
 l. Hitherto, we've all been inclined tc reckon the hard-Won experience which all farmers gain from long associa ton with their own fields as the big
 gest asset in our capital. But here
 comes season which on my partic l ular farm, at least, knocks all my pas experience and all it's teachings ou of the ring and over the ropes. I fee as if I'd been transplanted to new } sort of world with things happenin: 5 cortrariwise, and all the carts befort 7 all the horses.
 r There must be a reason for it all. } don't care a rap for Uncle Ike's 'idees'
 or Neighbor Warehouses dogma , tisms. But I wish I could, somehow get some sort of a grip on the under l lying causes which have produced such topsy -tufvy results.
 7 I want to know so as to arrange fo l the future. If I've got to stand ol 3 my head next! year and year after : want to begin practicing now so a : to get used to it, and not be up-endet 5 villy-niliy. and without any prepara tion, as this season.
 Or has my experience been se un <: 1 usual that it doesn't count? Am I tn : only dirt digger in ten states who ha I been inverted and reversed and trans I l posed and turned 'tother end to? Hay other gardeners and farmers had an V similar seasonal somersaults to report s THE FARMER.