1 am writing this 20 miles from home, in the great orchard and vineyard district of central Shansi A feeling of pessimism at present pervades the di for on the night of the 24th, there was a heavy, killing frost. Since that date I have travelled pretty. well through the entire district, The greatest damage was dare (9 the peaches and the vines. Where the bloom had fallen, or was boat, to fall, from the peach trees it is estimated that about 80 per vent. of the buds have been killed.
Throughout the whole district fully one half of the shoots on the grape vines have been killed. This, coupled to the drought at present prevailing all over Shansi, gives anything but a cheering aut look for the year. The cold was 80 severe on the date mentioned that even the young wheat many fields was scorched and blackened. Before this catastrophe the peach orchards, heavy with pink blossoms, had prevented a glorious picture.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.