Henry King brings me a box of seed pods from off the judas bush. I am planting this seed of the early, blooming flower shrub. With the weather changing for the warmer in this Greenbrier Valley, there is no reason why the judas bush should not thrive here. I remember one bush on the end of Droop Mountain near the mouth of Days Run; I hear there are a few in the sheltered cove where Locust Creek comes out of the mountain; there are lots of them about Renick. On Anthony’s Creek, the judas bush is not found above Alvon. They tell me it belongs to the senna family.

You know the old story. This is the tree on which Judas hanged himself. Originally the flowers were white; for shame and sorrow, ever afterwards the bloom was red, the flowers hanging their heads.

Calvin W. Price.

Doggone the black birds anyway. I got forehanded a long about the middle of July and planted a big patch of sweet corn for late roasting. The crop was most promising, but just as the ears came into milk stage last week, a flock of ten thousand, more or less, black birds flew down on the patch and cleaned it out to the last ear. There were bushels of ears too. The birds were so thick on the corn, they rode the stalks to the ground, breaking some of them off.

Calvin W. Price.