322 A Lament for the Season. 



and regulate the exchanges of the world. It is well known that half a 

 cotton-crop will produce more money to the grower than a full one. 

 If there were but a single apple-orchard in this country, who can imagine 

 the extortions that would be practised on consumers, or the profit that the 

 owner would realize ? How many thousands of us would be compelled to 

 forego the seductive witchery of pie or dumpling ! The first strawberries 

 which show their half-blushing ripeness in the market command fabulous 

 prices simply by reason of their scarcity, not because of their superiority 

 in melting flavor to the great overflow which may succeed them. 



Hence it would never do for all of us to be successful, at least contempo- 

 raneously. We should be in each other's way. Providence, in establish- 

 ing the order of the seasons, has ordained vibrations against which no one 

 can effectually protect himself Absolute uniform success in all things is 

 probably impossible : it is the average of a number of seasons which can 

 be alone depended on. Skill, experience, and watchfulness will go far 

 toward neutralizing the vicissitudes of a season disastrous to all who dis- 

 regard them ; while such as invoke them will usually have their reward. 

 Hence the fruit-grower, in common with the farmer, must not calculate on 

 uniform success. His hopes may be blasted even after the most pains- 

 taking effort to secure it. 



Take this very season of 18-67 3-S an illustration of these vibrations and 

 vicissitudes. -All over this portion of New Jersey, and in much of Dela- 

 ware and Pennsylvania, neither we nor our fathers have any knowledge of 

 so enormous a rain fall, beginning in June, and continuing to the last week 

 in August. Our grandfathers have left no record of any thing resembling 

 it. It was not an occasional heavy shower that fell, but a pouring, deluging 

 torrent, which continued for successive days and nights, more like water- 

 spouts than we had ever seen. Thousands of bushels of strawberries 

 perished on the ground because there was no dry day in which to pick 

 them. Great fields of fruit and vegetables were submerged for days. I 

 had acres of strawberry-vines killed outright, losing both crops and plants ; 

 and valuable raspberries were destroyed, root and branch. Stone bridges 

 which had stood the freshets of a hundred and sixty years were swept 

 away. On one occasion, ten inches of rain fell in twelve hours, — equal to 

 the average of nearly three months. Few crops, except the grasses, could 

 flourish under the deluge which prevailed during the first twenty-three 



