Absent Icemen The theory that Buchan or other periods of
warmth or cold or wet or wind have fixed dates in the year's calendar has been abruptly con-, tradicted by recent experience. The Festival of the Three Icemen (which has a wide European circulation) provided the very hottest days known in recent annals. Spring became summer all of a sudden ; and this befell in a season that is singularly late. That grim festival which may utterly ruin the chief fruit crop has on rare occasions been post- poned till June ; but there is a reasonable expectancy that the apple blossom will set its fruit without much danger from St. Bonifacius or other envious saints. It is not the amount of bloom that promises a large crop, but the percentage of bloom that is fertilised without hostility from the weather. How the bees have flocked to the orchard! You could hear their hum in the nearer trees even from within the house.
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