Yow
= Bellefonte, Pa., June 25, 1926.
WEAVING.
My life is but a weaving
Beiween my God and me;
I may but choose the colors—
He worketh steadily.
For oft He weaveth sorrow;
And 1, in foolish pride,
Forget he seems the upper,
And I the under side.
I choose my strands all golden,
And watch for woven stars;
I murmur when the pattern
Is set in blurs and mars.
I cannot yet remember
Whose hands the shuttles guide;
And that my stars are shining
Upon the upper side.
I choose my threads all crimson,
And wait for flowers to bloom,
For warp and woof to blossom
Upon that mighty loom.
Full oft I seek them vainly;
And fret for them denied—
Though flow’ring wreaths and garlands
May deck the upper side.
My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me;
I see the seams, the tangles—
The fair designs sees He,
Then let me wait in patience
And blindness; satisfied
To make the pattern lovely
Upon the upper side.
—By Florence Maryatt.
WHAT DREAMS ARE WORTH.
(Concluded from last week.)
Maive wasn’t deeply interested in
any of his stories. She had got from
him on his first visit the news she
wanted most.
“There was a friend of yours on
board there,” he told her. “Cordover
—a Mayor in the Something or other.
Very friendly indeed, he was. I
thought at first he loved me for my-
self alone, but later I found out he
only wanted to get your address from
me. I gave it to him. You don’t
mind 7”
Did she mind!
He wrote to her from Ceylon, and
then from India. Queer, manly,
stilted letters they were. But Maive
did not tell Uncle Jack this. Her
weekly letter to him was the one
pleasure she had in life. She wrote
a bit of it every day.
“Your letters to me are my great-
est pleasure,” he wrote back to her.
“Only to be out-measured by the
pleasure it will be to come home.”
He thought at that time that he
might get home the following year.
Meantime Uncle Jack was awfully
kind, and life was very dull except on
letter days. She let him take her out
to theatres, and twice he drove her
to Richmond in his two-seater. He
was busy buying a practice.
“For it’s time I settled down,” said
Uncle Jack.
And then, one night, driving her
home from the play through the lamp-
lit streets, he took both her hands in
his and said:
“Maive, dear. You must know that
it isn’t to see that precocious little
Mike I keep on climbing those infer-
nal stairs. I can’t keep away from
you. I love you. This isn’t any sort
of life for you. I've heard of a prac-
tice going in the country. Chuck this
job and take on a permanent one,
Maive. I can’t ever tell you .. ..”
He kissed her fingers that were all
pricked and stitched with sewing for
somebody else.
“I like you awfully,” she said un-
steadily. “But I can’t—marry you.
It’s not like that.”
“Couldn’t you try?” he said. “I'm
not a bad fellow, taking me all round.
I have few tricks, and only the usual
vices. Couldn’t you try, Maive? I
don’t see how I'm to get on without
you.”
She shook her head.
one else,” she said.
He looked a little wild and ruffled.
“Is there, confound him?” said Jack
Stapleton. “Well, who knows? 1
may outsit him. Anyway, here I am,
and if you get sick of me hanging
around, you must shoot me. I can
think of no other way you will get
rid of me.”
She climbed those steps up to the
dark schoolroom and sat down, out of
breath as one always was on arriving
there. From the front of her dress
she took a slip of paper that was
wearing rather thin. She kissed it,
and held it against her face, and said:
“I am waiting for you. Can you
hear me telling you, half across the
world 7”
When Michael was seven, he went
to a day-school, and there was no
longer any place for Maive in that
particular situation. Jack proposed to
her again the day she left.
“I know of an excellent job that is
simply erying out for you, Maive. If
you'd consider it!”
But she wouldn’t consider it. She
had her dreams. And life is finished
only when we part with them. She
got a post as governess to two little
girls in a vicarage in Hampstead.
They never had the proper outfit of
maids there, because the Vicar was
an economical man, and used to go
down to the larder with a tape mea-
sure and measure the joint and count
the potatoes, So that, taking things
all round, Maive had rather a hard
time there. But she never mention-
ed that in her weekly letters to India.
He never missed one mail. “You
are,” he wrote, “the one tie I have
with home. If it were not for you, I
should not have felt the least bit dis-
appointed at having to abandon my
leave home this year. Perhaps, with
luck, I may get back in 1927.”
Now she kept his photograph on
her dressing-table. He was all she
had ever hoped and dreamed of. Those
steady eyes, that lean, still face.
The little girls from the vicarage
went to school, and once again she
was at a loose end. Maive was not
twenty-four. Not exactly pretty, but
with something very i
her. Still wi
“There’s some
that look of a fairy
‘| one wanted more than that.
time.
——
| trapped and kept for domestic pur-
poses, but never quite at home.
Jack Stapleton had bought a prac-
tice at Hazler’s Copse, attracted there
mainly by the fact that Maive loved
the place and had been a girl there.
There were lavender bushes in the
little garden, and the nightingales
sang louder there, they say, than any-
where else in England. Maive went
down to inspect his new house and
came away homesick, full of mem-
ories of those old days before Aunt.
Jill had died, and of the east wind
that had gone whihtling down the vil-
lage street and away to the woods
where the nightingales sang.
If it had not been for him, she knew
she would have married Jack. He
was such a dear, and so kind. But
You
couldn’t afford to miss the loveliest
thing on earth just for comfort, said
Maive. That would be like selling
your heritage for a mess of pottage,
if you like.
“If there is some one else, why the
devil doesn’t he come and fetch you?”
said Jack angrily. “This sort of life
is playing old Harry with you. You
aren’t strong enough for it, dear.”
He had taken her out to lunch from
one of those scholastic agencies where
they keep jobs parked and reedy for
applicants, and applicants parked and
ready for jobs.
Maive flushed and looked away
from him.
“I can’t explain,” she said. “You'd
only think me silly and romantic. But
I've got to wait for him.” ;
She took a job to teach the scion of
a noble house his alphabet. That job
took her to Scotland, and Jack did
not see her for two whole years.
Those two years made rather a dif-
ference to Maive. Perhaps it was the
raw Scotch climate that was too much
for her. Perhaps she found the noble
house a trying one to live in. The
passages were all stone, and the nurs-
ery wing was three flights up. Bit-
ter winds whistled there and caught
you unawares round corners by day
and by night. The Duke was an ec-
centric man and caused his family to
exist mainly on nuts. He also liked
people to go abroad in all weathers.
When Maive returned to London.
she was much thinner. There were
lines under her eyes, and streaks of
gray in her pretty hair.
Of course, in time these things
happen to us all, but Jack was fur-
ious. It seemed to him that Maive
should be exempt from any touch of
He went round and bearded
her in her den. Very fierce and rough
he was with her, as all tawny-haired
men are apt to be when aroused.
Her den was a bed-sitting-room,
which modestly veiled its bedroom
qualities during the day under a de-
cent veiling of chintz.
“I'm not going to have any more
of this tomfoolery,” said Jack. Who-
ever he is, he’s not worth his salt to
let you go scraping on like this.
What’s the good of waiting, Sweet,
and waiting? Wasting all your love-
ly youth, slaving. for other people's
nasty children. Pah, I’ve no patience
with you!”
He held her shoulders and shook
her.
“You aren't looking well. You aren’t
well. You've got to chuck this.”
In vain she assured him she was
quite well. Strong as a horse. Lit-
tle, thin women are notoriously wiry.
Tough as a mountain eagle, she said
she was. She didn’t tell him anything
about those silly fainting fits she had
been having of late. It would have
been something like a confession of
$ailare to have mentioned that just
then.
“If he doesn’t come in three months,
young woman, you marry me,” said
Jack. “If I have to take you off by
force. Do you understand? I'm go-
ing to give it out broadcast, and you
can write and tell him,
ite cried a little, and pleaded with
im,
“A marriage has been arranged,”
said the newspapers in spite of her
tears, “between Miss Maive Falls,
daughter of the late Colonel Falls,
and Doctor Jack Stapleton, of Haz-
ler’s Copse.”
It was autumn. The hoop seascn
was well advanced in the park, and
small boys, and nurses, and amiable
dogs, and wooden hoops all swept
along together inthe autumn wind
that went whistling under the trees.
Through it went Maive on her way to
see Mr. Charlesworth.
Mr. Charlesworth lived in a small
house off Notting Hill. He had given
up his ordinary practice, but he was
still her guardian and managed all
her affairs. He had been old when
Aunt Jill died, but now he was so
ancient and so fragile that Maive
hardly liked to shake hands with him
for fear of breaking him. The only
robust thing about Mr. Charlesworth
now was that mole with the black
hair proceeding from the middle of
it, that looked as if, in bygone days,
he might have wagged it when pleas-
e
Sitting there in the dingy little
room full of ancient photographs only
slightly more faded than Mr. Charles-
worth himself, Maive told him about
it. He wasn’t her ideal of a confidant,
but she had to tell somebody.
“I noticed the announcement,” said
Mr. Charlesworth, and sniffed. “A
determined young man. And what
is your objection?”
Falteringly Maive told him the ro-
mantic story of her one real love.
Mr. Charlesworth polished his
glasses, and put them on again, and
looked at Maive. She could almost
feel him invoking that God of his, and
presently he said in that thin, worn-
out voice of his,
“You are as big a fool as your
aunt.”
“How dare you say a word against
Sear Aunt Jill!” flashed Maive hating
im, L
Her memories of her round, kind
aunt were all so mellowed with time.
Mr, Charlesworth laughed his thin,
worn-out. laugh. “Don’t lose your
temper with me, young lady. It’s
waste of time. Your Aunt Jill was
the only woman I ever loved. I've
known her since she was a girl. A
girl not unlike you. “The same gold |
g about [hai
hair, the same - rather wistful look.
The. same insane expectation of life.
I wanted to marry her. But she
wouldn’t have me.”
He took out his pocketbook. There
was a picture there, and he looked at
it, a queer, little smile on his wither-
ed face. Then he took something out
of the flap and held it in the hollow
of his hand. It was a white silk rose
with a green silf leaf. Funny and
old-fashioned now, like the tawdry
ornament off a doll’s bonnet, it seemed
to Maive. But in its day it, too, had
been a thing of beauty. .
“I stole that the night of her first
ball,” said Mr. Charlesworth. “She
wouldn’t marry me. I wasn’t dash-
ing enough. I just loved her with a
plain, serviceable sort of love that
would have lasted a lifetime. But she
wanted fireworks. God knows what
she wanted! The millennium. And
she went on waiting for it. I believe
at the last, when she was getting old,
she might have had me. But I was
set in my ways then, and too old to
change. She spoiled two lives with
her fads, your Aunt Jill.
ed you well off on the same path.”
Maive looked at him, trying to see
in him some glimpse of the passion-
ate young lover of long ago. She re-
called Aunt Jill to mind—Aunt Jill,
who had seemed to her so dull, and
so prosaic, and so unromantic. Aunt
Jill, whom she had always pitied be-
cause nobody loved her. How wrong
she had been about everything!
“My advice to you is, if this young
man wants to marry you, have him!”
said Mr. Charlesworth. “A husband
on the hearth is worth two in the
clouds, and you are no longer a child.
This other business. It’s too new-
fangled. It’s too much like those
cinematograph stories. Like as not
he will never come back. Like as not
he was just playing the fool. You
say he writes to you? Well, write
and tell him that if he’s not back by
Christmas, you are going to marry
somebody else. Romance is all very
well,” said Mr. Charlesworth. “But
you want a little common sense.
Something that will wear.”
Maive went slowly home. In the
park the autumn wind had blown the
nurses and the hoops and the small
boys home to tea. There was noth-
ing but a few dead leaves sailing
along like fairy ships at sea.
“I must give up my dreams and
settle down to life,” said Maive. “I
suppose they are right, Mr. Charles-
worth and Jack. I've been just play-
ing at things till now. I'll write and
tell him.”
There wasn’t any need to write and
tell him. When she got back, he was
waiting in the hall.
“I got home this morning,” he said,
and took her in his arms.
These things happen once in a cen-
tury, or so, sometimes to princes and
rich men only. To queens, or prin-
cesses, or society debutantes. Some-
times to little nursery governesses
living in the modest sort of bedroom
that disguises its obviousness during
the daytime under a veil of chintz..
She sent a note round to Mr.
Charlesworth. One can not blame her
“if it was a rather triumphant little:
note. You people who are not brave
enough to believe in romance! You
poor ones, who are not steadfast
enough to wait! Take your service-
able sort of love and creep away to
Notting Hill. What can you know of
raptures like this!
He had come to her.
But it wasn’t very easy telng
Jack,
Jack took it wonderfully well. He
turned rather white under his tan,
but all he said was:
“I'm not going to be awkward about
it. As you know, all I want is to see
you happy.”
He behaved more reasonably than
she had dared to hope. He drove her
to the station himself, and they part-
ed as though they were just two
friends who had been spending the
afternoon together.
And if he did walk Hazler’s Copse
all night, and return so haggard and
weary at daybreak that the house-
‘keeper took him for a tramp and set
the dog on him, no one ever knew ex-
cept the nightingales, who, they say,
sing louder there than anywhere else
in England.
- For Maive it was a wonder-time
of dreams come true.
there, and he was even more wonder-
ful than her dreams had made him.
She stole sideways glances at him to
be quite sure he was true. There had
never, she said, been a romance like
their romance. No two people had
ever been so completely in sympathy
before.
“We were made for each other,” he
said. “And so we waited for each
other.”
Wonderful days of love-making,
those!
For one thing and another thing,
they were to be married at Christ-
mas. He had duties here, and duties
there, and it wasn’t possible earlier.
“And what are three months, after
waiting nine years?” he said.
With her savings, and what re-
mained of her ninety pounds a year,
Maive could just hold on for three
months, provided nothing unexpected
turned up. But it would mean she
would have to curtail some of her
ideas about her trousseau. She was
so happy just then that nothing wor-
ried her very much.
“It ought to be spring, not autum,’
she said.
He said nothing. His blue eyes held
that dreaming look she had come to
know, and then he would tell her
about his life abroad. Of the white
tents in the plain, and sunset over the
desert. And the call of a bugle that
waked you at morning, and the cry
of the night jarrs singing to the moon.
“I shall take you back there with
me,” he said, “and you will learn to
love it as I do. India gets into a man’s
blood. Soldiering gets into a man’s
blood. I couldn’t leave it now. It’s
a fine life.”
He told her of the frontier marches,
and a man with a rifle behind a rock,
waiting for you. . 3
“That’s life,” said Geoffry.de Cord-
over. “A man’s life. It's all so tame
and soft at home.” .
And while he talked, there was that
dreaming look in his eyes. that she
had learned to. know.
She’s start- :
Geoffry was |
| He had come back. But she knew
! that only part of him had come back.
Part of him remained out there in the
bleak places of the earth, where the
tents huddled white in the plains and
a bugle awoke you at dawn.
She thought, “Only when I get out
there with him shall I have him en-
tirely.”
She sat in her bed-stitting-room,
sewing her trousseau. Sewing pretty
things for herself again, as she had
sewed them long ago, while Aunt Jill
read by the shaded light of the lamp.
Dreaming dreams, as she had done
then.
“Only these,” said Maive, “are more
solid ones.”
It was when Geoffry was sitting
with her one day, over tea, that she
had one of those tiresome fainting
fits. And it took her rather longer
than usual to come round.
She tried to laugh about it. “It’s
just nothing. at all. I often have them.
And then I'm all right for weeks.”
But he fussed and was anxious, and
in the end she had to go to a special-
ist in Harley Street to please him.
| Laughing at him for his fussiness, she
went. Silly fainting fits that did no-
{body any harm. It was childish to
| see a doctor about a thing like that.
Such an expensive doctor, too, she
i sighed wistfully.
| She went in, laughing.
It seemed several years later, and
{| they were sitting in her room. She
had made tea, but neither of them had
touched it. Really it was the same
| afternoon. Geoffry sat with his lean,
brown hands knotted loosely between
i his knees, looking at her.
“Don’t worry, darling. Ill give it
all up. I'll chuck the Army and stay
at home. I can retire. We'll live in
the South of France, and you’ll soon
‘grow strong again.”
She couldn’t believe it. The doctor,
she said, must be wrong. “I've al-
| ways been strong as a horse. Look
i at the things I have done.”
“You haven't looked after yourself
i properly.” He spoke almost accusing-
ly. “He says you haven't had proper
food or taken reasonable care of your-
self. Darling, why didn’t you, when
you knew so well you belonged to me
all the time? To work too hard—and
neglect yourself—and the result is
this.”
He gazed down at his knotted
hands. He wasn’t reproaching her,
but it was a tragedy. For he was a
man with a future.
Maive thought of those Scotch
winds and the noble family who lived
mainly on nuts. She remembered that
vicarage, where they never had the
right number of maids, and the Vicar
counted the potatoes and measured
the joint with a tape measure. One
one wished to.
He held her in his arms.
“Don’t worry, darling. I'll send in
my papers. [I'll stay at home,” he
said.
Very tender and kind he was to her,
but she could not help seeing that he
thought she had been rather a fool.
And when they were together, she
would watch him, sunk in one of his
silences, that dreaming look in his
eyes, when she knew that he saw the
white tents from afar off and heard
the bugles calling him through the
mist. He would stay with her, but he
would always be hearing that bugle
call.
Maive laughed softly to herself, but
her eyes were wet. “It was beauti-
ful,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t
serviceable.”
And suddenly she wanted Jack's
comfortable and unromantic shoulder
to cry on. His hair wasn’t the kind
she admired, and she had never liked
brown eyes. I can not begin to ex-
plain it, but she wanted him. She
was rather frightened at being ill, and
ome thing and another, and she did not
feel she could go on being frightened
without Jack. Not glamorous, he
wasn’t. Not part of any wonderful
dream. But awfully necessary when
you were in trouble. .
She sat up very late, writing to
Geoffry.
“Don’t answer, dear,” she said. “It
will make it easier for both of us. It
was wonderful, and I can not ever ex-
plain even to myself what it was. But
it wasn’t the sort of love that is much
use for every day. And I can’t spoil
your whole life—for it would be spoil-
ing it, no matter what you say.”
He did not answer it. He was a
man with a future. The next thing
she heard of him was that he had been
ordered back to his regiment in Khar-
toum. The day she saw that in the
paper, she went to Hazler’s Copse.
She had not written to Jack. It was
so difficult to know what to say. But
there had been nights when she lay
awake, cold with terror. What was it
Mr. Charlesworth had said?
“I dare say, toward the end, she
would have come to me. But I was
set in my habits then, and didn’t want
to make a change.” ?
If Jack had come to that state of
mind, what would she do?
She went to Hazler’s Copse by an
afternoon train and left her bag at
the inn. It was getting dusk. A few
leaves drifted down from the golden
trees like fairy ships at sea. Rags
of the early autumn sunset still hung
untidily about the sky.
She passed the little house where,
as a girl, she had sat sewing beside
Aunt Jill. Through her mind there
ran the lines Aunt Jill had been so
fond of reading:
“Who is the Potter, pray? And
who the Pot?”
Perhaps the answer to that is not
quite so easy as we have imagined—
just as life itself has not been nearly
so easy as we imagined. :
“I wanted it all crepe de chine and
filmy lace,” said Maive, and she laugh-
ed with wet eyes. “Aunt Jill was
right. It didn’t wear.”
Jack was walking ‘in his garden,
alone. A little thicker-set and more
middle-aged than when she had first
known him, and that tawny, unruly
hair was streaked with gray, but not
one whit more amenable for that.
The thick grass muffled her foot-
steps until she stood beside him.
What he had heard—what -he had
guessed—what he had hoped for, one
can never know, but they had noticed
could, of course, account for it all if ;
4 lings,
in the village that the doctor had
been, of late, a trifle fine-drawn and
testy as to temper.
He started when he saw her.
“There is a late nightingale sings
here, even at this time of year, he
said unsteadily. “I came out to see
if I could hear it.”
She said: “Jack. It—didn’t wear,
dear. Do you understand?”
He understood.
Away down Hazler’s Copse that
late nightingale burst into song. They
are said to sing louder there than
anywhere else in England.—From The
Good Housekeeper.
Wild Flowers Which Require Protec-
tion.
9 |
Recently this paper called attention
to the State law governing the taking
of wild flowers, shrubs and trees
from lands belonging to others, and
presents herewith a list of such
growths as are recommended for es-
pecial protection. The list is prepar-
ed by the Pennsylvania Chapter, Wild
Flower Preservation Society.
Trees and Shrubs Needing Protec-
tion.—Flowering Dogwood, Redbud or
Judas Tree, American Holly, Moun-
tain Laurel, Pinxter Flower or Pink
Azalea, Black Alder or Winterberry.
Ferns Needing Protection.—Maid-
enhair, Christmas Holly, Evergreen
Wood, Spinulose Wood, the various
clubmosses (Lycopodium) used for
Christmas festoons and wreaths.
Wild Flowers Needing Protection.
—The various lilies, wild orchids,
Wood Anemone, Liverwort or Hepat-
ica, Bloodroot, Indian Turnip (Jack-
in-the-Pulpit), Spring Beauty, Yellow
Adder’s Tongue, Virginia Cowslip,
Marsh Marigold, Columbine, Pitcher
Plant, Foam Flower, Bishop’s Cat,
Bittersweet, Bird Foot Violet, Pip-
sissewa, Spotted Wintergreen, Trail-
ing Arbutus, Shooting Star, Wild
Blue Phlox, Closed Gentian, Fringed
Gentian, Butterfly Weed, Cardinal
Flower.
Plants Which Can Be Picked With
Impunity.—Yellow Buttercup, Blue
Violet, Dandelion, Ox-eye Daisy, St.
John’s Wort, Chicory, Bouncing Bet,
Bindweed, Horsenettle, Japanese Hon-
eysuckle, all Asters and Goldenrods.
If material is needed for large bo-
tanical classes, for nature study, for
decorative purposes, it should be tak-
en from gardens, greenhouses and
, nurseries, and if gathered in the open
. fields and woods should be confined to
the troublesome weeds the removal of
‘which, after permission is given, no
one would gainsay.
500-Mile Alaska Trail Marked By
Willow Trees.
One of the most remarkable in-
stances of native ingenuity discover-
ed in northern Alaska is a posted
trail, 500 miles long, through an un-
usually desolate region of the Illiam-
na Lake district.
The trail is marked for its entire,
length by posts made of willow trees,
sank deep into the ground. Nearly
‘every post ‘has sprouted out and
grown into a large tree. Every now
and then along the rcute native char-
acters and English words denote dis-
tances from various camps and vii-
lages. The important cannery towns
of Togiak and Nushagak are situated
along the marked trail.
I The long willow guide highway was
built something after the poll tax
‘system. Each summer any native
traveling along the route was expect-
ed to set as many willow posts as his
(time might permit. Often for small
| offenses natives were fined to set wil-
{low posts.
Today the willow lined trail serves
i during summer for a mail route and
| a stage line follows its circuitous wan-
dering. But in mid-winter when the
snow lies deep the dog sledges are al-
ways certain of the location by the
silver coated willow branches, and the
leader dogs instinctively know that to
follow the tree lined trail means a
sure swift end of the journey.
Sixty-Four Years Old, Garden Blooms
Again.
Its design dating from the time it
was laid out in 1862, the flower gar-
den in front of the botany building of
The Pennsylvania State College con-
tinues to vie with the many beauty
spots of the campus for the visitors’
admiration.
The famous old garden was design-
ed by Dr. Horace B. Enos and planted
by some of Penn State's first agri-
cultural students. Pictures showing
the students in the act of planting
the first garden now hang in the bot-
any building which was built 15 years
later, in 1887.
Continual care and planting insure
blooming flowers throughout the
spring and summer. The flowers
grown are used by the botany depart-
ment for classroom purposes.
While many suggestions have been
made to replace the old garden with
modern landscape architecture, mem-
bers of the botany department prize
the garden too highly to permit its
destruction.
New Refractor Keeps Street Lamps’
Glare From Uneasy Sleepers.
Uneasy sleepers who are annoyed by
street lights shining into their eyes
will be glad to know that a recently
developed refractor keeps a street-
light from the upper stories of dwel-
comments the Pennsylvania
Public Service information committee.
Street lighting units have been
completed, which will give each street
the precise kind of illumination it
needs. Muin business streets will
have their “White Way” lights of
high intensity. © Secondary business
streets will have less brilliant and
more definitely directed illumination.
Residential sections will have lights
whose rays shine where they are most
needed.
The new type of refractor permits
light to be directed mostly on the
street and partly on the sidewalk,
but only a small part of the illumin-
ation is allowed to fall upen the
house-front and none upon the upper
stories.
FARM NOTES.
. —At this time of year the seed
stalks of rhubarb are starting to de-
velop. To throw the strength of the
plant into leaf and root development,
these should be broken out as fast as
, they appear. There is little value to:
rhubarb seed as a means of propaga-
tion of the plant, since from the seed
of one plant you may get a dozen dif-
ferent types of rhubarb.
—Dairy calves should be carefully
and liberally fed. Well-fed calves de-
velop into large and more efficient
cows than do those which are stunt-
ed when young. If doubtful as to
methods in feeding get a bulletin on:
the subject from the county agricul-
tural agent.
Hogging-off trials resulted in re-
turns of $18.65 per acre from Cana-
dian field peas and $37.76 per acre
from corn last year at the Edgeley
substation, according to a report
made by Superintendent O. A. Thomp-
son to P. F. Trowbridge, director of
the North Dakota experiment station.
The return was considered especial-
ly good in view of the fact that the
field peas were badly damaged by un-
favorable weather during May and
June.
The average daily gain per hog for
129 hogs was 1.16 pounds on thé peas,
6.22 acres furnishing pasture for
eight days. The hogs were then turn-
ed in a ten-acre corn field, where they
made a daily average gain of 1.7
pounds each for 17 days. The value
of the gains was computed at 10 cents
‘ per pound.
—An outbreak of hog cholera
would be peculiarly unfortunate, be-
cause hogs look like good property,
and farmers need all they can get out:
of them. A dead hog pays neither
interest nor taxes. Dr. R. A. Craig
of Purdue university notes the exist-
ence of some cholera in Indiana and
urges precautions against its spread.
The warning is particularly timely be-
cause, as he says, “vaccination of
| hogs against cholera has not been
practiced generally. Herds haven’t
been vaccinated because there wasn’t
i much cholera—which is just the time
to be on watch. When cholera is prev-
"alent everybody is on guard and no
warning is needed.
Doctor Craig advises farmers to be
“on the lookout for sick hogs, to warn
neighbors of the existence of cholera,
| to be especially careful at silo filling
time on account of the exchange of
‘work, and of course to vaccinate im
| case of outbreak. “An early diag-
| nosis of hog cholera will result im
' saving a large percentage of the herd
if vaccination is practiced,” he points
out. And, he might have added, will
. stop the spread of the disease in the
| neighborhood, and so save many thou-
sands of dollars.
| —Pastures for pigs are practically
necessary in profitable pork produc-
tion successful Centre county hog
growers have found. In the State at
large the same experience has been
had by leading swine men. All but four
of the: 121 ton : litters produced in
Penna. last: year were supplied with
pasture for at least part of the feed-
ing period. This helped materially
in keeping the cost of production
down to 7.8 cents a pound and indica-
ted that most successful hog growers
in Penna. realize the value of good
pasture in producing pork profitably.
The ton litter record disclosed another
important and interesting fact; in
| practically every pasture the pigs had
either alfalfa, red clover, sweet clover
or Dwarf Essex rape. These are the
' four best hog pasture crops in this
State. An acre of good alfalfa, red
i clover or rape should take care of at
| least 20 pigs during the five summer
i months and these pigs should gain
lat least 100 pounds each during the
| time or a total gain of around 2000
"pounds of pork. If we save 133
| pounds of grain on each 100 pounds
i of pork produced this would be a sav-
ing of 2660 pounds of grain which at
2 cents a pound is worth $53.20, a
good profit from an acre of land.
Compared with the income from oats
and other cultivated crops this return
shows the value of the pasture crop.
It does not have to be cultivated or
harvested and the fertility is left
scattered on the fields where needed.
—In reviewing some of the experi-
ment station sheep-feeding tests it
is interesting to note that in practie-
ally every case corn silage has prov-
ed valuable sheep ration. While these
station reports are given wide circu-
lation, it is doubtful if the rank and
file sheep feeders know the true value
of corn silage as a ration. It is with
this thought in mind that I am record-
ing some of the recent sheep-feeding
tests, writes A. L. Haecker in the
Iowa Farmer.
Indiana experiment station com-
pared hay with silage for sheep, and
with a thorough test covering three
years, found silage economical as a
sheep ration. They were able to get
larger and cheaper gains on both
ewes and lambs by feeding silage with
hay than with hay alone.
In the Iowa test they found corn
silage greatly lowered the cost of
feeding both ewes and lambs. In
some tests the silage group cost half
as much as the hay and grain group.
At the Colorado experiment station,
silage was compared with hay in feed-
ing lambs and ewes, and the result
of the experiment showed the silage-
fed group gave four pounds more
gain than the group that was fed hay
alone. The lambs from the silage-fed
ewes were larger and stronger. Corn
silage was made to pay a value of
$6.80 per ton for wintering ewes.
This would give a profit on silage of
$2.80 per ton, basing $4 per ton as
cost of silage. With a 100-ton silo
this would allow the sheep feeder $280
profit on his siloed corn over and
above corn harvested for grain alone.
The Michigan experiment station
has thoroughly tested out the feeding
of corn silage to lambs and ewes, and
in all cases found silage a valuable
and economical ration. Farmers
keeping sheep or intending to feed
sheep would do well to look into these
recent experiments. We are likely
to see an increase in the growing of
sheep in this country, and economic
| feeding is the most important item
of the business,