enc A Beuonali ic, Bellefonte, Pa., March 21, 1919. EASY ENOUGH TO BE PLEASANT It is easy enough to be pleasant ‘While life flows by like a song, But the man worth while is the one who will smile, When everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble, And it always comes with the years, And the smile that is worth the praises of earth Is the smile that shines through tears. It is easy enough to be prudent When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within no voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue Until it is tried by fire, And the life that is worth the honor of earth Is the one that resists desire. By the cynic, the sad, the fallen, Who hath no strength for the strife, The world’s highway is cumbered today; They make up the items of life. But the virtue that conquers passion And the sorrow that hides in a smile, It is these that are worth the homage of earth, For we find them but once in awhile, —Ella Wheeler Wilcox. THANKS TO LUCIA. One really hasn’t the right to be surprised at anything nowadays, es- pecially as regards sudden departures from the conventional in the conduct of young girls. So I was entirely to blame for being startled when there walked into the smoking-room of the hotel, where I was sitting alone, a young and very pretty girl who threw me a careiess and rather friendly glance, then began, apparently to un- dress. Taken thus off my guard, I stared at her for a moment, then looked round for the camera-man, for this | was down in the moving picture coun- try. In fact, there was nobody at all around, and, being of a wary nature, I was about to retire when the girl extracted a pin which had been stick- ing into some part of her, reassembled again, and, turning to me with a smile, remarked: “Clothes are a great bother, aren’t they? I don’t see why people want to wear so many of them.” “It is one of the foolish customs of the country,” I answered. “Perhaps they are more sensible where you come from.” For, in no- ticing the ivory tan of her clear skin, it struck me that perhaps she was a Pacific Islander, though in general type she was Anglo-Saxon. She shook her head and tumbled down a bale of insecurely fastened ruddy hair. “Bother!” said she “It’s just the same with your hair. So don’t know how to make it stay. Do yon 2’ “I never tried,” I answered; “so the chances are I should make a mess of it. If you go in the ladies’ dressing- room, the maid might fix it for you.” She ignored the advice and fasten- ed me with a pair of large eyes which were of a pale but very soft shade of But there was no camera-man. : impatiently. ! of it without ever sighting so much as many silly little pins and things! I! smoke, we built a ] i i gray, doubly fringed with long black lashes. I saw immediately, from their express sort of a primitive. girl, however artful, could have given an absolute stranger such an uncon- scious, inquiring stare. “You look very nice,” said she. “Do you know my father?” n, that I had to do with some ! No sophisticated | ry ©. French label. She was homeward bound full of empty casks which were worth more than the blooming wine, and uncle said to me: ‘Nephew, here’s a chance to make a man of yourself. Captain Simms runs a dry ship, and you can’t get a drink for at least three. months. Now you can go and overcome your vice or never expect another cent from me.” So I went.” “Did you get cured?” I asked. “You bet! I was cured before we crossed the Line, but it wasn’t the dryness of the ship that did it. The skipper was a secret drinker, and he was taking out the niece of a French winegrower in California. Her name was Renee Duffroy, and she was a beauty. I fell in love wih her, of course, and so did that darned psalm- singing, rum-soaking skipper; and I had to keep sober to protect her. Oh, it was a beastly cruise, and kept get- ting worse the nearer we got to the Horn. Down there off old Cape Stiff, everything went glimmering. The mate was swept overboard one night, and the second mate fell from aloft, and smashed himself to pieces, and just then the old man blew up in a raging attack of d. t’s and saw sea- serpents and things tearing over the waves and crashing their jaws. The crew got at the liquor, and, with all hands drunk and I standing guard over Renee with a gun, we got caught aback and dismasted. Before this, we’d been swept repeatedly, and lost all of our boats and most of the hands. Then the weather cleared, and we found ourselves wallowing crazily in the backwash from the foot of great, jagged, towering cliffs, and fi- nally slewed into a bight and fetched up in a landlocked basin on three big prongs of rock. We jammed down on them with the tide at full flood, and there we stuck like a piece of junk on a fork.” “How many of you were there?” I asked. “Six of us. Renee and the skipper and Andre, the cook, two of the hands, and myself. It was a terrific sort of place—huge, heaped-up, jag- ged cliffs full of caverns and grottoes, and farther inland there were high plateaus and deep gorges and valleys with boiling springs and geysers and things. The sea roared over it, and part was frozen and part steaming, and there were seals and myriads of birds and a good many wild goats. It was an isiand, I think, though in twen- ty years’ time I never got all the way across it to see. In the basin where the ship fetched up there were places where the water boiled up hot and fresh in big, flat eddies, and in some of the little valleys the vegetation was tropical. You can’t imagine such a mixed-up place, and it had a sort of fantastic beauty of the Turneresque school. A few miles away, a mina- ture volcano got semiactive once in a while and turned the atmosphere a ruddy saffron. It was an awful place for thunder-storms, too.” “And you’ve just come from there?” 1 asked incredulously. “Yes. After about eighteen months pinnace, and the skipper and two hands cleared out, but they must have been lost. Before the skipper left, he married Renee and me, and about a year later, Taucia was born. Andre preferred to stay with us than take a chance in that little boat in those awful waters with the swift tides and fogs and ter- rifie, sudden squalls. The climate wasn’t really so bad, as you could have any kind you liked at almost any time of year, the place being steam-heated, as you might say, or full of furnaces. would be a steeple of rock sheathed in ice, and mushrooms grow- i ing round a hot spring at the foot of {i iz, + ways comfortably warm. “Thank you,” I answered. “What! is your father’s name?” “Elliot Fiske. We have just got here from a long way off. I never saw any people before. Kather says sure he wouldn’t mind my speakng to you.” But I was hardly listening. Fiske—Elliot Fisks. entirely familiar. Sometime or oth- er, I had known one Elliot Fiske, and the vague association impressed me Eiliot tion. “Mine is Lucia.” “And mine is Arthur “What is your name?” she asked. | Brown,” 1 answered, at which she clapped her | ] ) { I think, but, being a Breton, that was hands. Then suddenly I remembered Elliot Fiske as one of the American art stu- dents at Juliar’s paint-school when I had studied there nearly twenty-five | years ago, and one of the wildest of | that rollicking crowd. It seemed to me also that I had heard something of his having been lost at sea on a voyage round the Horn on one of his uncle’s big sailing ships. “Of course,” I said, and, as I spoke, Fiske himself came in. I doubt if I should have known him for the gay, debonair friend of my youth. He did not look to have aged so much, though his hair and Van Dyck had whitened, but his handsome face was tanned and weather-roughened as if from many years of exposure, and had a strong, virile intensity of expression utterly lacking in the Elliot Fiske whom I re- membered. His body, too, gave a sug- gestion of splendid muscular strength and nervous tenacity. “Here you are again!” he snapped to Lucia. “How many times must I tell you to keep out of the smoking- room and not to bother strangers?” “Hello, Fiske,” 1 interrupted. “Where have you been all these years?” He recognized me at once. Then some woman acquaintance looked in and called to Lucia, who went out with a rush, her hair tumbling on her shoulders. Fiske dropped into a chair with a sigh. “Now what the deuce am I to do with a young savage like that?” he demanded helplessly. “Just think of it, Brown; until a week ago she’d nev- er seen a living person but her mother and old Andre and myself.” “Where in the world have you been?” I asked. “On a weird outcrop of hell in Ma- gellan Land. Old uncle Saltonstall stuck me on one of his wind-jammers for a voyage round the Horn to cure me of the liquor habit. This ship had taken a cargo of California wine to Bordeaux, got it good and agitated, then bottled and shipped back with a The big cavern we lived in was al- Taking it full and by, we weren’t so badly ‘off. We had everything a big ship carries to start with, and the seeds we plant- ed in the warm, fertile spots grew amazingly. I suppose the ground was I must not speak to strangers, but I'm | Heh phosphates and nitrates and ‘onions and potatoes We had peas and beans and _ and corn, and we'd saved a few chickens that soon he Rome web | increased and multiplied. Then there were the goats and seals and all sorts of sea-food. Fact is, when we began to get used to it a little, Renee and I as having been a pleasant one. The | Vere perfectly happy. She loved me, girl interrupted my effort at recollec- | and T loved her. “Je t'aime; je t’'adore; Que veux tu encore? ” “A paradis a deux,” I murmured. “Quite so. Good old Andre was a sort of Caliban. He got a little dippy, natural. As I said, the place has a wild eerie beauty about it. Imagine the north pole and the tropics stirred up roughly together and then sudden- ly solidified. Ice crystals on the beach and a couple of hundred yards away fruit and flowers growing round the edges of a steaming pool. As soon as we gave up the idea of rescue and be- gan to make ourselves at home for the rest of our lives, I started in to paint.” “Using the ship’s paint when your colors gave out?” I asked. “Not a bit of it. I never touched that mud. There were some wonder- ful pigments in that volcanic forma- tion, and I ground them up and mix- ed them with various tempers until I got what I wanted—gums and egg al- bumen and amber and all that stuff. Do you know, Brown, I really learn- ed to paint in that place. I cut my canvases from the sails and used the cabin-panels, and I had some wonder- ful things, if I do say it myself. Then, about three years ago Renee was kill- ed.” His face twitched. “She was struck by lightning in one of those hideous storms. The place fairly shook with them. Renee got careless and started to come to the ‘studio,’ as I called the grotto where Lucia and I were at work. “Well, it was unbearable without Renee, so we decided to try to get away. Andre was getting old, and any day some accident might have happened me and left Lucia there alone. It took the three of us two years to build our boat, and she was nearly finished when there came an earthquake which killed Andre and destroyed all of my paintings except two which I had stuck up in our cav- ern. I had painted them for Renee. So Lucia and I put to sea, and here we are.” “Good Lord!” did you get?” “We were picked yp by a steamer off the entrance to the Straits of Ma- gellan and taken to San Francisco. I landed there after twenty years of ex- I exclaimed. “Where ile with about five hundred dollars and a grown-up daughter whose knowledge of this world is purely the- oretical. But let me tell you she is very far from being the young savage you might think. Her mother was convent-educated, and gave her les- sons in everything which she thought she ought to know, while she has i learned a good deal that she may some | day have to know from me. I'm no believer in the protection-of-innocence idea. Lucia inherits her mother’s beauty and temperament and a good deal of her father’s damfoolishness, and she’s not on any desert island now.” “I don’t think you need worry about Lucia,” said I. “She’ll soon learn the ropes. What is mere important just at this minute is how you are going to provide for her with what is left of your five hundred dollars. Have you no other resources?” He shook his head. “None whatever—barring, of course, my painting. Renee had no dot, and I learn that uncle Saltonstall took it for granted that I must be drowned when I failed to cadge on him for a year or two, and left his fortune with no pro- vision for my turning-up. I came here hoping to find an old chum, but he’s dead, too. Ho I’m going to see if I can’t get a job with these ‘movie’ people for the time being.” “Nonsense!” 1 said. “You come to my house and stay as long as you like. I've got a nice bungalow down the beach with a big studio, and my household consists of a Chinese cook, a French valet, a Swiss chauffeur, and a Portuguese boatman. Draw on me for what you need until you get on your feet again. I’ve done pretty well since we last met, and just now I’m at work on a big order to paint the mu- ral decorations in the palace of a mil- lionaire. So just you pack up your dunnage and move in.” Fiske protested a little, but finally gave in; so, as soon as Lucia came back, I loaded them and their scant luggage into the car and took them to my place, which was about five miles away. Fiske sat in front with the chauffeur and was tremendously in- terested and excited in the running of the car, but Lucia seemed entirely at ! her ease. I asked her presently what she found most curious about her new | surroundings. i “Men,” she answered promptly. | | “They are not at all what I thought | they would be like. All that I have | talked to were very nice, but, of | course, some are nicer than others. | Father must be quite wrong about! them. Money is very interesting, too. | It seems to me that if one wants to | be happy here, the first thing to do is | to make friends with some man who | has plenty of money.” | “Why not a woman?” I asked. “I think a woman would probably | want it for herself,” said she. “The | men seem to be much more obliging. | I hope that you have plenty of money, | Mr. Brown.” | “Fortunately I have as much as we | are apt to need,” I answered. “What | would you like to have first?” ! She reflected for a moment while I | watched her in amused curiosity. If. I had been twenty years younger, Lu- | cia’s profile would have aroused a | much warmer emotion. | “I think I should like to have a | goat,” said she. “I had to leave my | goat, and I have missed it a great | deal. Later on, I should like to have | a husband who was good-looking and | has plenty of money.” ! “Those are both very reasonable | things to want, and I don’t think there should be any great difficulty about ! getting them,” I answered. “I shall | buy you a kid this very afternoon. | But you had better look round a little | before you choose the husband, as you | might pick the wrong one, and they | are sometimes difficult to get rid of.” | She nodded. “So father has told me. But Ican’t wait very long, because we haven't any money, and it would not be right for us to keep on spending yours with- out giving you anything in return. “That is done between friends,” I said. “Besides, you do give me some- thing in return. You give me the pleasure of your company. And as long as I am satisfied with the ar- rangement, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be.” Lucia turned and looked at me in- tently, then smiled, and a shade of color glowed through her clear ivory skin. Her face was of the sort which is intensely attractive to men, not pre- cisely beautiful or entirely regular of feature, the mouth being wide and set slightly at a slant with very mobile lips and a nose of which the tip left plenty of clearance for their activity. It was, on the whole, the face of a thoughtful but potentially mischiev- ous nymph. “What are you thinking about?” I asked. “Of what you just said,” she ans- wered. “Of course it is very nice to have a friend who gives you things, but I should want to give more than the pleasure of my company in re- turn. Now, if I were your wife, I would be yours, just the same as my goat is mine, so it would be all right for you to take care of me. I think that you would be a very nice hus- band, Mr. Brown, but I suppose that if you wanted a wife you would have got one a long time ago.” Fortunately Fiske was plying the chauffeur with questions about the machine, which the latter was ans- wering in detail, so that this tentative proposal was not overheard. “The only woman I ever wanted to marry did not want to marry me,” I said to Lucia. “Perhaps at that time I did not have money enough. So she married a man whom she did not love but who had a great deal, and after- ward he went and lost it, and then she had nothing at all. You see, my dear, money is not everything.” “No,” Lucia agreed; “especially as you might lose it all. But you might lose all your love, too, and then it would be just as bad if not worse.” “You have undoubtedly inherited some good French common sense,” 1 observed. “I do not think that your father need worry about you. To change the subject, what do you think about this place? Do you like it?” “I like seeing all the funny people and the pretty houses and gardens and riding in automobiles and going to the ‘movies’ ” she answered; “but I wish that Thunder Island were not so far away.” She looked at me with a wistful expression in her light-gray eyes. “Sometimes I think about where we lived and mother and An-| BEAU BRUMMEL AND MISS VAN- | | dre and the seals and rocks and my | goat, and it gives me a bad feeling in | my stomach, but father says I shall soon get over that.” I saw her suddenly in a different light, which was that of a pitiful, homesick little girl torn like a limpet from her rough rocks and caught up in our strange social conglomerate. But I felt this even more strongly when after we had arrived and I had i | ITY, PAY ATTENTION. Uncle Sam is still playing the role : of elevator man, so far as prices are i i | | got them settled, Fiske and I went in- | to the studio. He had the only canvases which he had saved, two ! and | seemed impatient to get my opinion : , € mas, silk shirts, cravats, house coats ' and bath-robes are affected. of them. I rather dreaded this, as Fiske had never shown any talent in the paint-school, and most of us had been inclined to regard his dabbling in colors rather in the light as a pre- | text for not going to work. But I might have spared myself anxiety, as the first picture which he placed upon the easel showed at a glance the mastertouch and that his! claim that he had learned to paint on | Thunder Island, as he had named the | place, was a perfectly valid one. subject was the bulk of the old Pema- quid in the moonlight, and the prob- The : lem about as difficult technically as he | could have chosen, being a study in| the values of the lunar rainbow with | later, under present plans. those from the crater of a small ac- | tive voleano reflected against the sky | and thrown down upon the still water . in the background. treatment of these two wholly diffei- ent qualities of light was enough to puzzle criticism without the effect produced by the extraordinary medi- um, or tempora, which he had employ- ed, and which suggested a picture painted on a slab of ice, if such a thing were possible. Like the place, as he had verbally described it, one The comparative , seemed to feel the combination of heat : and cold. outrageous impression. “You’ve got it, Elliot!” I said. “I don’t know what the deuce it is, but you've got it, and it’s something big.” He laughed. “I thought it would puzzle you,” said he. “The other’s in a different key.” And he replaced the first by the second. This was even more as- It was really an amazing, tonishing. The subject was a splen- | did girlish figure, standing in the sun- rise at the edge of a steaming pool,’ with a fantastic valley sloping dewn to the sea in the background. The whole place was filled with brilliant. multi-colored vapor which tempered concerned, and luxurious garb and ac- cessories in the clothing line, will hear Dade say, “Going Up,” again on May rst. This new law, unless repealed by a Congress that has finished its regu- lar session, will be drastic in its scope and is called the “luxury tax.” Furs, silk hosiery, footwear, nighties, linge- ries, millinery, parasols, traveling bags, toilet cases, purses, fans, paja- | JEWELRY TAXED APRIL 1. And the luxury tax is not to be in- cluded in the sale price. It is to be paid plus the selling cost. It amounts to ten per cent. on the value of the ar- ticle, over a fixed amount. Should a woman buy a hat costing $20, the tax applies to $5, or the excess over $15, bringing the total price to $20.50. Beginning April 1st, jewelry is tax- ed five per cent. of its total value. This law will not be felt so severely as the patrons of clothing stores and shops will feel the chief luxury tax, which becomes effective one month A full schedule, showing the list of taxable luxuries as provided for in Section 904 of the new law, is appended: ‘N' NEARLY EVERYTHING HIT. The statute reads that on and after May 1st, 1919, a tax equivalent to ten J ’ : h | per cent. of so much of the amount | paid for any article specified as in ex- cess of the prices named when such | article is sold by or for a dealer or his estate, for consumption or use, shall be levied, assessed, collected and paid. (1) Carpets and rugs, including fiber, except imported and American rugs made principally of wool, .on the amount in excess of $5 per square yard; (2) Picture frames, on the amount in excess of $10 each; (3) Trunks, on the amount in ex- cess of $50 each; (4) Valises, traveling bags, suit cases, hat boxes used by travelers, and fitted toilet cases, on the amount in| exeess of $25 each; (5) Purses, pocketbooks, shopping and handbags, on the amount in ex- | cess of $7.50; (6) Portable lighting fixtures, in- ' cluding lamps of all kinds and lamp what one felt must have been the vio- lent tones in the contorted rocks with their curious tentacles and the gyrat- ing stream which flowed down through a formation which suggested molten lead thrown into water, such as we used to make on All-hallow e’en. shades, on the amount in excess of | $25 each; (7) Umbrellas, parasols, and sun shades, on the amount in excess of : 84 each; (8) Fans, on the amount in excess i of $1 each; The whole place fairly vibrated ! with color through equally intense. Blue icicles hung from the eroded lips of grottoes, while strange fungoid growths, with blos- soms weirdly hued, bloomed from the pool’s edge and about the pink feet of ! an atmosphere | the girl, who stood looking down into ! the saffron water, the stem issuing from betwen her parted lips and wreathed about her limbs and body. One could almost feel the frosty rime on her fresh skin, and the fissured rocks in the background held ice crys- tals and snow-filled seams. The evert- ed lip of the basin was edged with sulphur and vitriol and sparkling with pyrites. “A study in heat and cold,” said Tiske. “I have not exaggerated a bit. That is our bathtub, and precisely as it looked on a frosty morning. The P figure is not posed, of course.” “The thing is a wonder, Elliot,” I: said. “What a catastrophe that all your work of twenty years should have been lost! But you don’t need worry about your future when you can paint like that. Did away plenty of pigments?” i “No, unfortunately,” he answered; | “but I think I can manage with ordi- After all, this sort of | nary colors. thing really belongs only to such a place as that where the whole mise prehistoric. vou bring | (9) House or smoking coats or jackets, and bath or lounging robes, on the amount in excess of $7.50 each; (10) rately from suits, on the amounts in excess of $5 each; (11) Women’s and Misses’ hats, bonnets, and hoods, on the amount in excess of $15 each; (12) amount in excess of $5 each; FURS TAXED TOO. (13) Men's and boys’ caps, on the! amount in excess of $2 each; (14) pers, not including ghoesjor appliances made to order for any person having ' a crippled or deformed foot or ankle, on the amount in excess of $10 per air; (15) Men’s and boys’ neckties and neckwear, on the amount in excess of $2 each; (16) Men’s and boys’ silk stock- ings or hose, on the amount in exces: of $1 per pair; (17) Women’s and Misses, silk stockings or hose, on the amount in excess of $2 per pair; (i8) Men’s shirts on the amount in excess of $3 each; (19) Men’s, women’s, Misses’ and ! | boys’ pajamas, nightgowns, and un- wouldn’t understand it, and by the | time I got ’em educated. I'd be dead. | o 5 01. The main thing is that I learned val- $15 each; ues. One couldn’ help it, they were so pronounced. Diagrammatic, as one might say. They hit you in the eye.” We went out after Fiske had polite- ly admired some specimens of my own work, for all its success, looked, I i must say, very thin and anemic in comparison with his vivid interpreta- tions. But he was unquestionably right in saying that it could not hope to find popular interpretation any more than Thunder Island could have been a popular seaside resort. It was too savagely elemental. But it made a deep impression upon me, and I drove over to the Portuguese village in quest of Lucia’s baby goat, marvel- ing at the sweetness and gentleness of a girl born and bred in such raw sur- rounding conditions as might have ex- isted at the very dawn of our race. (Continued next week). Have Your Seed Tested. Under the provisions of the Penn- sylvania seed law farmers can have seeds tested for purity by the Depart- ment of Agriculture at Harrisburg. This test shows the value of the seed from the standpoint of purity and weed seed content. The state- ment of purity on a percentage basis is useful in indicating how much of the represented the sample actually contains. The report in reference to the weed seed content is a safeguard against the production of weed-infest- ed crops. A special statement in re- gard to the occurrence of dodder and Canada thistle seeds is alsv made. The department tests the seeds of red and crimson clovers, alfalfa, tim- othy, barley, spelt, wheat, buckwheat, oats, rye, alsike clover, perennial rye- grass, German and Hungarian millets, white clover, redtop and Canadian and Kentucky blue grasses. To have test made send two to four ounces (about one-half cupful) of the sample, carefully secured and repre- sentative of the whole lot, to the Bu- reau of Chemistry, Pennsylvania De- partment of Agriculture, Harrisburg. A fee of 25 cents for each test is re- quired and this fee should be submit- ted with the sample in the form of a certified check, money order or cash. Found It High. “How did you find the medicines I prescribed for you yesterday?” “Rather expensive, doctor.” | facturers, importer, or producer, ; ) i mount i en scene was violent and ferocious and | derwear, on the amount in excess of People here at home $5 each; (20) Kimonos, petticoats, waists, on the amount in excess of Title 9, section 900, imposes a tax i of 10 per cent., payable by the manu- on | sporting goods and games, liveries, hunting, shooting and riding garments and furs; a five per cent. tax on ther- mostatic containers; and a three per cent. tax on toilet soaps. Section 902 puts a ten per cent. tax | on works of art when not sold by the artist. Section 905 puts a five per cent. tax on the sale of jewelry, watches, and binoculars when sold for consumption or use. General Lee's Kindness. A humble countryman was driving a loaded wagon over a muddy road in Virginia. His team was light and pro- gress was slow and difficult. At last his wagon sank in a deep rut and his struggling horses stopped. He had “stalled,” hard and fast. Nothing he could do—yelling at his horses, whip- ping them, prying at his wagon wheels—would extricate him. Meantime there were passers by in plenty. But it was war-time and most of them had on hand difficulties of their own. Underling officers pushed ahead of the luckless wagoner; cav- alrymen rode by without apparent concern; and even privates afoot were too much engrossed to lend a helping hand. But just then rode up an elderly gentleman of soldierly bearing and kindly face who proved to be “the no- blest Roman of them all.” At once he saw the difficulty and at once he dis- mounted, gave some suggestions, put his shoulder to the muddy wheels and helped the driver out to solid earth and sent him on his way. Not until later did the grateful ben- eficiary learn that he had been aided by no less a personage than the Com- mander-in-chief of the Confederate army.—Kind Words. In Trouble Again, “Well, Henry,” said the judge, “I see you are in trouble again!” “Yessuh,” replied the negro. “De las’ time, Jedge, you rec’lect, you was mah lawyuh.” “Where is your lawyer this time?” “I ’aint got no lawyuh dis time,” said Henry. “Ah’s gwine to tell de troof.” ——Subscribe for the “Watchman.” « TBUWYIJBM,, OY} I0F IqLIISqNS— ly Men’s waistcoats, sold sepa- | Men’s and boys’ hats, on the | Men’s, women’s, Misses’ and | boys’ boots, shoes, pumps and slip- and | FARM NOTES. —The success of a gardener large- depends upon his experience in i handling garden soil, and his knowl- | edge of what the soil contains. For a i good garden the soil must be deep, i mellow and friable, so that it will be | crumbly when it is plowed or hoed. { In other words, the minute particles | of soil must be granular, each holding | its form and consistency. When such | soil is wet, each particle is enveloped : by a film of water which is retained { for some time. The plant food is thus dissolved and this water-laden plant ‘ food is taken by the roots of the plants. The film-moisture around the soil particles may be better under- stood by dropping a marble in water. When taken out it will be seen that the marble is surrounded by film- moisture. This is what takes place when soil particles are wet. The fin- er the particles the more pore space between for air, and the better it will hold moisture, other conditions being favorable. —The importance of a large per cent. of vegetable matter cannot be too strongly emphasized. There must be plenty of humus in garden soil— decayed vegetables and animal mat- ter that makes up that dark, “springy” part of the soil. Where soil is low in humus manure must be | applied, and green crops turned un- der. Or leaves, straw and rubbish may be applied to decompose and fur- nish the organic matter. —On the majority of soils commer- cial fertilizers may be used to good advantage. On many soils acid phos- | phate is especially beneficial. More ! phosphate is needed for beans, peas, i turnips, melons, etc., under conditions | prevailing on most soils where a heavy yield is expected. Nitrate of i soda may be used to increase the sup- | ply of nitrogen; wood ashes of potash : salts to supply the potash, in case it ! is required. Early preparation is nec- I essary for best results in making the | mechanient condition what it should | be. —Rotating crops saves labor. For | instance, after the crop of early pota- toes is gathered the land will be al- | ready broken and in good tilth, and i can be planted to corn, making two crops with one breaking of the land. | The destruction of insect life can be | better accomplished by planting dif- | ferent crops each year. In fact, it is absolutely necessary to rotate crops iin order to control insects and fungus | diseases. { By planting different crops each year the humus supply is kept up on the different fields. As one kind of plant uses only certain food substan- ces, it is obvious that rotation keeps the food substances on a balance. Growing the same crop on the same i land year after year poisons the land, but by rotation the toxic substances are destroyed, thereby keeping the soil from becoming worn out. Another reason given for the rota- i tion of crops, is the advantage it af- | fords to control weeds. A cultivated crop may follow a grazing crop or a grazing crop a row crop. But prob- ably the most important reason for rotation is to conserve fertility. Some | crops take all the fertility they use from the soil, others take a large part of their nitrogen from the air. The latter belong to the legume family, such as clovers, alfalfa, peas, beans, vetches, ete. Still another good reason for rota- tion is that it helps to supply the fam- ily with a regular income. The crops planted may be for stock. Then when i grazed the land may be planted in another crop. The animals may pro- ‘ duce the income in milk, butter, pork, beef, mutton, wool, poultry, eggs, etc. Or a short crop, such as sweet corn, Irish potatoes, radishes, lettuce, ete., may be planted as a money crop, | to be followed by a grain crop. It has been estimated that a crop of red clover one year old contains from 20 to 30 pounds of nitrogen per acre in the roots. A crop of cowpeas i is reported to have furnished 100 pound of nitrogen per acre. It will readily be seen that a crop affording so much nitrogen is worth considera- ' ble in a rotation. As most of the ni- i trogen is in the roots of the plants, the tops may in many instances be cut . for hay or grazed and the roots turn- i ed for fertility, making such a crop ! of much value. { _ As an example of nitrogen in grow- | ing non-legumes it may be well to mention an experiment at the Minne- sota Experiment Station. That sta- tion found that there was a loss of 2000 pounds of nitrogen per acre when wheat, barley, corn and oats were grown for twelve consecutive | years; two-thirds to three-fourths of this was not used by the crops, but lost in other ways. The Ohio station also found that 300 pounds of nitro- gen were gained per acre in access of what the crop used when clover was included in a five-year rotation cover- ing a period of ten years. When tim- othy, a non-legume, was used instead of the clover, nitrogen was lost from the soil even more than that removed by the crop. It is a well-known fact that plants differ as to their habits of growth, type of root system, etc. Some plants have long, deep tap-roots, such as the clovers, peas, soy-beans, ete.; others have fibrous roots, as corn, wheat, oats, grasses; still others are tuber- ous, as the potato; the sweet potato, beets, turnips, etc., have bulbs or fleshy roots. There is advantage in rotation to follow a tap-rooted plant with a fibrous-rooted plant, and a fi- brous-rooted by a tap-rooted. Some plants use more of one constituent of plant food than another; some are soil exhausters; some soil builders. —A farmer who has grown sun- flowers for his stock says the exper- iment stations, may be correct in say- ing it is a valuable stock feed, but he has experienced a good deal of diffi- culty in convincing his cows that the experiment station professors are ‘right about it. —Ground grain for hogs will al- ways give best results, but there is a time when corn is new, and they mas- ticate it well, when it does not pay te grind it. It is always more econom- ical to grind small grain, such as wheat, oats, barley and rye. —A mule remembers kindness and will recognize by sight and sense of smell the individual who has shown it to him. Be brutal in treatment of him and he will shy from you and avoid you.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers