266 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



January 2G, 1864. 

 Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the chair. 



A New Year's Greeting. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I hold in my hand a letter from a young lady that is 

 SO full of pleasant sunshine, although written in one of the coldest days of 

 a borean region, that I think the club will be amused and instructed by 

 its pleasant gossip. I should have introduced it a week or two since, if I 

 could have had the opportunity. It is from Almira L. Bliss, written Jan. 

 1, 1864, from Antioch, Lake county. 111. Tliis county lies along the shore 

 of Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, where it gets the full force of all 

 northerly winds, and also has the advantage of a great body of water 

 which never freezes. Her letter is addressed "Dear Farmers' Club." Thia 

 is only an item to show how much farmers and farmers' wives and daugh- 

 ter, appreciate discussions of matters intended to throw light upon the pur- 

 Suits of their life. I will now read the letter : 



" I send you my wishes for a ' Happy New Year.' May your members 

 never be behind time. May their numbers never grow less or their sajnnga 

 less readable. May you receive the first and finest of fruits and flowers to 

 test and report upon, that we far-away people may know which are most 

 profitable and desirable. May you continue to expose the doings of hum- 

 bug, and perhaps a few of the 'heathen' may heed. May you never be 

 troubled with ' sour grapes,' wilted apples or gritty pears. And last, but 

 not least, may the report of your sayings and doings shine abroad over our 

 united land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the 

 Gulf of Mexico, with a light so much brighter and clearer than ' moon- 

 shine,' that plfuits and trees may show the effects in greater vigor and pro- 

 ductiveness. If these wishes of mine should seem ' to rattle together like 

 stones,' do not wonder, for the mercury stands 20 degrees below zero. The 

 snow resembles sand in all except color, and is driven about in all direc- 

 tions by a fierce north-west wind. Northern and southern roads in many 

 places are level full of snow from fence to fence. Sometimes in a field a 

 drift commences at almost bare ground, and slopes upward until it reaches 

 clear over the top of the fence. The wind is so penetrating and so snow- 

 laden, that barns and sheds that are not air-tight are but little protection. 

 My iather, whose boyhood lies in the beginning of 1800, says the present 

 weather is unparalleled in his recollection. This morning at 8 o'clock, the 

 mercury stood at 25 degrees below zero. The wind is still as high as ever, 

 and though the mercury has risen 6 degrees, we are hoping that the wind 

 will cease, lest we lose all our fowls and animals, too. To-day my father 

 brought in a bushel basket full of dead hens, and reported more freezing. 



"We crawl around the red-hot stove, and 'sigh for a sunnier clime.'" 

 We live in the south-east corner of<»Wisconsin, ch.se to the State line. But 

 this is not what I took my pen for to-night. Two years ago, or rather in 

 the spring of 1862, my brother planted 200 Isabella grape roots. The 

 plants were grown from cuttings, and were planted on a rather stiff, clayey 

 loam, with a clay subsoil, without under-draining, and with no other pre- 

 paration than manuring and plowing. They throve finely the first season, 

 Bome of them making twenty feet of growth. 



