PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 267 



"Last spring-, only about twenty started, and some of tliem, after mak- 

 ing a few feeble efforts to go on, dried up and died. Pulling them up, we 

 found the large roots dead, barkless and fibcrless. We thought, perhaps 

 they died of wet feet. (1) What is our respected Club's opinion ? We have 

 raised grapes, to some extent for several years, and have seldom lost a vine 

 before. We have raised Isabella and Catawba, but the season is scarcely 

 long enough for even the Isabella, 



" The autumn of 1861 was long, warm and dry, and the Isabella ripened 

 well, in fact better than before or since. They were pronounced by good 

 judges superior to any Isabellas ever before eaten. 1862 was a very poor 

 grape year. The season was cold and cloudy, and the frosts came on 

 before the grapes were half ripened, and froze them hard. 



" The past season has been tolerable ; long enough to give most of the 

 grapes a good color, if not a good flavor. At the time of gathering the 

 Catawbas were pronounced green and sour beside the Isabellas, but at the 

 end of two weeks the Catawbas were much improved — were sprightly, 

 excellent, and the Isabellas insipid. We can expect only uncertain results 

 from grapes here at best. 



"The slug mentioned in the. report of a previous meeting of the Club, 

 appeared here for the first time last summer, the last of June and the 1st 

 of July. They were quite numerous, eating all the green of the leaves of 

 some trees. When I found out what they were, I searched for some to 

 preserve until next spring, when, I was told, the perfect winged insect 

 would appear. But my brother dusted the trees with ashes the day before, 

 and not a slug could I find afterward. I almost forgot to say they were 

 eeen only on dwarf pear trees. There were two colors ; one was snail 

 color, and the other was a dull yellowish color. 



" For the benefit of some of my sisters, who perhaps may be as ignorant 

 as I was two years ago, I would say something of my especial pets, flow- 

 ers. I always loved the frail things, and I well remember my pride over 

 my first flower-bed, which was about a foot square under a currant bush. 

 I increased my flower garden from year to year, and enriched it by such 

 exchanges as I could make with the simple gardens of my acquaintances. 

 I had a habit, too, of digging whatever pretty flowers I found in the woods 

 and meadows, and bringing them home and cultivating them. Our native 

 flora contains some desirable plants and flowers, but their numbers are 

 every year decreasing. 



" Yet I was not satisfied. I desired a more valuable collection ; and I 

 was often vexed by reading in agricultural papers articles describing new 

 and beautiful flowers, but leaving the reader in ignorance of where seeds 

 or cuttings might be obtained. In 1862, I sent to the Patent Office for 

 seeds, and received about twenty or thirty papers. I was teaching some 

 miles from home, but I sowed part of the seeds, and the plants throve 

 finely; but I finished my school and returned h6me before they blossomed. 

 About that time I saw Mr. B. K. Bliss's flowei'-seed catalogue mentioned in the 

 Club, and sent for a catalogue, and afterwards for seeds, the principal of 

 which were balsams and pansies. I sowed these seeds last spring, 1863, 

 together with the remainder of the seeds I received from the Patent Office, 



