CHAPTER VII. WHEN VEGE- 

 TABLES GET PNEUMONIA 



"W DO wish I could raise a crop of potatoes 



I or beans once in three years, anyway!" 



It was in the frigid Grafton Notch, near 



I the foot of Mount Speckle, that I heard 



[ this pathetic remark from the lips of a 



farmer whose garden, as on so many other 



occasions, had been ruined by an August frost, 



a sad spectacle for the autoists passing it on the 



way to or from the Rangeley Lakes. 



"Usually we have a frost here every month 

 in the year," he said, "but once in a while a 

 merciful fog saves our crops. 



"I have no ambition," he continued, "to raise 

 pineapples and figs and bananas, but I do think 

 it is hard on the poor farmer that most of the 

 things we need most and like best are easily 

 killed by the slightest frost potatoes, beans, 

 cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, tomatoes, and 

 corn. There is nothing equal to the sweet corn 

 or the potatoes raised near the Maine moun- 

 tains, but if you try it you are likely to raise 

 Cain." 



Being an unlearned man, he attributed his 

 loss to the fact that his beans and potatoes got 

 too cold in the early morning and died of 

 pneumonia. 



Now, plants do die of what you might call 

 pneumonia, but, strange to say, the cold isn't 

 what makes them die. Many a time I have 



