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Old Mission, Mich June 12th 1927

My Dear Miss Taft: - Your welcome letter was received today noon so will get this ready for the morning mail in hopes you will receivei before you leave there.

The day is beautiful but I guess our nice weather came too late to do us much good. The second cherry blossoms are falling not staying like they did last year. The cherries are very thin scarcely any it makes every one feel pretty blue for we all seem to face alike this season. I never saw the trees blossom out any fuller than they did this Spring. I think so much rain has did as much damage as the frost. The sweet cherries are fairly gone. The Napoleon trees are loaded and so are the small kind of our own. It is a mystery to me. It must be that the sour cherries are more tender than any other kind. The Dutchess apples look pretty fair so far a lot of people find their apples are falling. The pears were loaded & they seem to have rust spots from rain. Joseph sprayed every thing well in hopes to keep the trees healthy.

Mr. Phelps stoped & talked to Joseph Sat A.M. and said that some disease struck his cherry orchard on the lower flat & the trees look as tho' the leaves had been singed & are all drying up. He didn't put the early spray on & Jos. told him that he better get busy & spray right away maybe it could be helped a little.

I am so glad that we have a comfortable convenient place to market our cherries at least some of them. What little a person does have will be worth gold this year. This letter will make you feel bad I would gladly have it different if I could but we have the same out look as you have. So lets all try & look on the brighter side so many people are worse off than we are.

Have you tried selling any of your sweet cherries in Detroit? I hope you can dispose of any left over ones. We have about 17 sweet trees but not many cherries on them. If you can sell more than you have we would be glad to be remembered. Lets try & plan on earning extra money some way think hard & I will do my bit towards helping bake or any thing I can do.

Roger is finishing replantng corn today. It didn't come very good.

I bought 5 gal gas and paid for it as our share to spray with and Jerry has new shoes again also will fill your can with oil. Joseph was going to buy a new lever dray this pay day to work your & our orchards with but since we looked at the cherries we will wait for a couple of weeks & see if they look any better. Mr. Christopher has been kind about leaving us use his tools but don't like to impose on him. I will be there Sat. evening to meet you when you arrive.

Am glad you are away from school & can have a rest. With love Essie K.

P.S. I will have butter ready for you also a potato or two to eat. They are high & not many at that. Will save your buying any thing to eat for a day or two. I forgot to mention that there has been another mile of [tarvia] put on at Edgewood and then at the Mission they put in another mile starting on the Stone corner & going as far as the old cooper shop.

Thanks many times for the squash seed I was so surprised when they came also pumpkins. The cows are very fond of them. They make very good food for the early winter. Guess I haven't forgotten any thing this time. E.K.