MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 241 



The Angel of Thanksgivings blushed to feel 

 The empty lightness of his mighty creel ; 

 " But three ! " he muttered — turning on his heel 

 To hide his basket. 



Then spoke St. Peter : " When again you go 

 On a prayer-gathering, you will better know 

 That men's petitions in the world below 

 Fill a big basket, 



" But when you go to gather up their thanks 

 For prayers well-answered and forgiven pranks, 

 For health restored and disentangled hanks — 

 Your smallest basket I " 



PEACH FAILURES. 

 From the Kansas City Times. 



As an amateur borticiilturist I have thought somewhat concerning 

 the reasons why the peach has become so uncertain a crop in this 

 climate and was grown with great success twenty-five years ago. 



It is generally understood that if the thermometer falls below 10 

 degrees above zero Farenheit the peach crop is in danger, especially 

 if this fall of temperature is after January, and it is these cold snaps 

 which have caused the frequent failures of the crop during the last fif- 

 teen years. The problem then is, why are we subject to severer cold 

 now than twenty-five years ago ? 



With considerable caution I offer the following explanation : Al- 

 most invariably our cold snaps come on a northwest wind or "blizzard," 

 as we say. These blizzards come down across the Dakotas, iSTebraska 

 and Kansas. Twenty-five years ago at least three-fourths of the course 

 traversed by these blizzards was prairie. This prairie in the winter 

 was burned over, leaving immense areas of black, burned surface, which 

 even in winter absorbed considerable heat from the sun. These north- 

 west winds are often in clear weather, or blow clear after the first day» 

 so the blackened areas formerly continued during the entire blizzard 

 to absorb the sun's heat and throw it back into the cold air. It is 

 quite possible that this might have had the effect of raising the temper- 

 ature one, two or five degrees, enough in many seasons to save a peach 

 crop. 



Now, however, the conditions are changed. Three-fourths of the 

 area now traversed by the blizzard is cut up into farms and sufficiently 



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