Norwich bulletin., 1919-10-17
tWrirtsn Specially Tor Tho Bulietin.)


 neishDorhood. to distinguished them from the white laoar frosts which nip
 tender foliage. but do not make ice. Thess two made ice. good substantial ice. half an inch thick and just as I cold as any that'll be made next win I ter. 1 know, for [ had to wash some
 celery in the tub. after breaking off l All the iziirable crops are dead. now; dead for keeps. Tomatoes. sqt1a shes
 melons, cucumbers. beans, peppers,
 egg plants. etc.. are gone where no lwoodbine twineth. Even caulifiower lleaves are badly injured and exposed
 heads are sadly yellowed. May do for
 an ingredient in mustard pickles, but its value as vegetable is seriously impaired. Cabbage, of course. resisted the freezes and celery seems to have
 taken no harm. Turnips and ruta bagas apparently find the cold quite
 to their tastes. for they have grown
 more, since the freeze, than they did 1 Some of the weeds too. were 1 scotcIed- Pigweed and wild anna ranth, for instance. Both arc dead. though I grAve;y fear the germinat- l lessened. Some Of the wild grasses, i too. which infest gardens are killed. Timothy and quite1 and clover show small sign Of injury. but the sedges sort of wild nillet. are dead. So is another grass which is quite sum lner nuisance to me but whose name do not know. It is a slender stem med variety. with long and even slan- derer branches growing almost hori-
 zortally out of the stem. much after
 the style Of a pine tree. the branches
 being opposite each other, and bear
 ing sparse seeds at the tip of each. twiG-like division: When frozen th Q whole top breaks off and forms a sort of rounded. springy. fluffy ball. lighter than the proverbial weather, resenb- ling an etheriaiized e.tun1 bleweed." :" which the slightest breeze blows along the ground. scattering seeds as it rolls, till it br.e<s up asainst some fence. eo1es ts eezesis indro%
 too. the freeze killed. But chiclxweed and i1allew and dock and sorrel and catrip and goIden-rod look about as we'll as ever. thank you. It is evident that these latter weeds Belong to this latitude. while the others may perhaps be itnportations from some warmer land which have not vet become tousilened to New England condi- ttons.
 lt seems a pity that we should be compelled to accept such wholly un- desirable plant immigrants. Why can't they stay where they belong? We've got all the weeds we really need, l without importing any from Europe or Mexico or South America
 On the whole, the frost held of bet ter. this year. than I expected. Three 1 weeks before it struck us looked ] over my melon ana Lima bean patches i with no real hope that either one , would produce any crop. I didn't see how they could mature enough in the ] short space of warm weather left l them. Yet they dtd- Our first frost l did them small damage. Indeed, it l seems to act as spur to their be- | lated activities. We gathered and | sold fully normal crop Of melons and l Muskrne elons. I, mean. waterme.ons l and citrons were both m utter fail 1 ure. But that was net unusual. We're 1 too far north to have much chance l five years I've had Bouncing crop of huge. luscious waterrnelons Some etier years I've saved a few sn1allisil ones. But it's about ten.to-one bet; any partieuiar year. that they'll to nothing.
 Considering how juicy they are. it seems to me quite odd that the very best crop of waterme1ons we ever 50 dry that not even June grass would live on it, and during the worst drouth we've known. It was an op- | 5ressiveIy hot and dry summer. when springs and wells and brooks that had never failed before went cut Of com and when even corn yellowed md shrivel1ed before caring. Yet those waterrelons. in that parching sum ntr, grew on that sun-baked gravel -idse like Joran's gourd at Nineveh, and produced wagon-loads or the sweetest and iuieiest fruit I ever sank { eeth in. it
 l thought l had, at last, found the ,ne corner Of the farm which would rev watsrme!ons So. next spring; turned out a fairly normal season in point of rainfall-and eighty hills ? lever yielded a single melon! Nor ! lave l ever got one. since, off that ( idge. I
 But to come back to this present { ea son. As usual, I've scored about ( s many failures as successes. Potz- f oes never do really well with me. My \ on is not suited to them. They must a e fed and fussed with and coddled 2 eyord reason to get them to do any f hing. And last spring planted them a n a bit of clay 1oarn. land unusually D etentfve of moisture; the very worst \ cid on the farm for vet season. n Ve couldn't cultivate them properly ecause of the inceesAnt Tfains. Those aims also made the weeds grow like rees. Of course. all this sdeterred hem Then the rot set in. Result, bout two-thirds@ Of a crop,xNfth fully
 third of those dug "specked~ with ot-. The rest are spread out ron the ar14 fioo-, where ~e can wsteh them nd sort Out the bad ones asztheys de- eabp They'll stay there. till it. gets p Q cold there's' danger of their freez- h1 ,g.s It, Some years ago, when rot itnf1arC eveioped at digging time. my. old far Ter rieishbors unanimously advised .e to leave them undug till the last gi lornent. Get ,end rot what they're a oin' to in the ground was the ad- n ice; then you won't have to look em E yer in the bin." So I waited till the II II rst week in November. We dug out 1en about 235 bushels of potatoes, of O hieh only 50 bushels were apparent L sound. We put those 50 bushels in e the cellar-and I had to carry out o1 Il but 30 bushels of them before IF hristnas. No more of that for John "A a<Tner. o1 Well, potatoes. A1 ycu can imagine, bl kve net boen q paying crop this year tt l this ranch. Asparagus, also pre- g 1ced only ahout half its usual xtei9si bl r6en DeAs.- which have always hfther- e