Warm weather this last spring came quite early, and with bated breath we waited for the usual frost, but still it came not.  The plum orchard became a wilderness of bloom; the buds of the apple trees began coyly to unfold their dainty loveliness; pussy willows flaunted their sweetness on the air—­while the birds sang their love notes from trees and bushes.  Then frost came—­not once, but night after night.  Thus our hopes, which had risen with every promise of a bountiful harvest, fell with the thermometer far below zero.  When fall came both plum and apple orchards made so poor a showing, not only here but all around this part of the country, that we had hardly enough fruit for our own uses.

[Illustration:  Mrs. Stager’s grandchildren among the roses of one year’s growth.]

We had a great deal of rain, all through the spring and into the summer.  Strawberries, that generally do well in wet weather, did not bless us with their usual abundance.  Currants and gooseberries also left us in the lurch—­but the Snyder blackberries were loaded with luscious fruit, while raspberries—­why the berries of the Golden Queen bent the stalks down with their weight.  Prof.  Hansen’s Sunbeams were covered with berries, as were all of the seedling raspberries sent from the Breeding Farm three years ago, Nos. six and seven, of the red ones, bore the largest and firmest berries.  I had quite a time keeping the blossoms off the everbearing strawberries sent here in the spring from the State Breeding Farm.  Although I had bought and planted three named—­and very much extolled—­other kinds of everbearers, none of them were as prolific in plants, and extra large berries, as those unnamed ones from the State Breeding Farm.  We had our first berries from them in August.

When we had our fair here, the last of September, I made quite a showing of them, from the size of a bean (green) to a crab apple (ripe), surrounded by leaves and blossoms.  They were still covered with bloom when the hard frosts came.

The two small hybrid plums sent did not make much growth.  Most vegetables that have always grown so well in other summers did very poorly this year.  Out of four hundred and seventy-five tomato plants, taken the best of care of by Inez, my granddaughter, for the state tomato contest, we did not get one bushel of good ripe ones.  Lima and other table beans were planted three times (on account of rotting in the ground) and then did not ripen.  No ripe corn.  In fact, about all the vegetables that came to fruition were peas, cauliflower and cabbage.

Of flowers, sweet peas, pansies and early lilies were fine, although growing things were late.  Paeonies had very few flowers.  However, roses were masses of bloom.  Moss roses did the best ever, also large bushes of Rosa Rugosa (you see this year, we had neither the ubiquitous potato bug, rose bug, caterpillar or any other varmint to war against); quite a number gave us blooms all summer.  Then most of them threw out strong new plants, as do the raspberries, from the roots.  On the whole, with our bounteous harvest of grain and so forth in this blessed country, we can be thankful we are alive.