FROST DATES.
Ingenious students of weather, notably Buchan, have picked out certain periods in the year remarkable for definite types of weather ; such as the Festival of the Three. Icemen in the second week of May. None of them, so far as I know, has called special -attention to the- middle week of October. In my records, and memory, the first hard frost falls again and again about the middle day of October. The hardest remember—it completely cleared every ash and chestnut within a few hours—was on October 17. This year the date was October 14. There was ice a quarter of an inch thick on a bucket of water and the frost fetched down not only leaves but fruit in a wholesale manner. As soon as the sun touched the orchards the thud of falling fruit was almost continuous. It also killed off -the wasps which were still numerous. On this subject it is a curious country belief in my neighbourhood that wasps sting the fruit, so causing decay, -which harbours (presumably by spontaneous gener- ation !) a bug, which is consumed along with the flesh of the apple by the birds. My experience is that the birds make the first hole and the wasps follow. In regard -to the poison of wasps, several correspondents urge me to assure the world that no remedy has quite the virtue of an onion Whether that indicates the alkaline or acid nature of the poison the chemists must determine.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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