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The 



VOL. VIII. 



SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Nd^, 1863. 



NO. 11. 



DEVOTED TO THE 



FARM, THE ORCHARD AND THE GARDEN, 



PUBLISHED BT 



BAILHACHE & BAKER, 



SPRINGFIELD, ----- ILLINOIS. 



MI. L. TtJINJuAJP, Editor. 



All business letters should be addressed to the 

 publishers. 



j2^~ExcHANGES and all matters pertaining to the 

 editorial department, must be directed to Illinois 

 Farmer, Champaign, 111., as the editor resides at 

 that point, and is seldom at the office of publication, 

 from which he is distant over eighty miles. 



*^* For terms see prospectus and special notices in 

 advertising department. 



Hevember. 



Chill November's surly blasts 

 Lay field and forest bare. — Burns. 



Instead of a poetical hymn, Jack 

 Frost has taken one of sober prose, by 

 a premature closing up the dog days 

 and wrapx^ing the last of the litter in a 

 mantle of frost. To-day is the sixth of 

 October, and we have never before 

 seen during this month severer frost 

 than -covered the ground this morning, 

 and it is seldom here that the frost at 

 this date more than nips the leaves of 

 the sweet potatoes, or droop the leaves 

 of the Dahlias, and yet this year we 

 have had frost nearly or quite every 

 month, doing more or less damage. 

 The season has been a most remarka- 



ble onetbr the whole of the ISTorth West, 

 proving a very indifferent crop year, 

 perha^ the poorest for the past twenty 

 years.' In some localities particular < 

 crops have been good. In the way of 

 fruits i^re are some singular features, ,; 

 most puzzling to the orchardist. In the - 

 fall^ of 1862 the late and succulent ^ 

 growth had all the appearance of that 

 of ^854-5 that proved so disastrous to 

 nearly all of our orchards, not only cut- 

 ting oS the crops of fruit, but destroy- 

 ing hundreds of thousands of trees in 

 the orchard and millions in the nurse- 

 ry. So close was the similarity that we -, 

 entered the winter with fear and trem- 

 bling,knowing tliat if the winter should 

 prove like the former, we should again 

 have to mourn over a like, though a 

 more wide-spread disaster, but fortu- 

 natelv the wtnter was mild and the 

 crop of fruit at the north part of the 

 State is nearly or quite quadruple of 

 any former year 



This year the growth of tree is unn^ 

 sually meagre, and the branches loaded 

 with fruit buds, what effect the prema- 

 ture frosts may have on them we know 

 not, but reasoning from experience we 

 think the whole thing is to be summed - 

 up in the condition of the winter, and^; 

 it is to this that we must turn our at- y^ 

 tention. If we can winter our trees in ; ; 

 an equable temperature, they wiU come 

 out all right. It is doubtless' the snd- 

 den changes that act so disastrously on 



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