Bellefonte, Pa., March 1S, 1931.
FRAGRANT WORM,
Tell you something about Chinese
women? Well, I don't know an
awful lot, and Id hardly know
where to start. Yes, they do look
shy, and sweet, and docile, I'll ad-
mit; and they can be all of that.
But you ought to hear the old ones
rave and scream and curse heaven
and earth when they're riled—or
the young ones, for that matter.
Fall in love? Why, certainly—in
their own way, of course. As a
matter of fact they're just like
other women, as far as I've seen,
only more so—if you get what I
mean. I mean to say they show it
more, if that's clear. It's hard to
explain. Maybe it's because they're
plainer-spoken about some things—
80 plain-spoken sometimes it makes
you jump.
I never knew but one at all, and
perhaps she wasn't a fair sample;
for she was an unusual girl, certain-
ly. That was the Fragrant Worm
that I've often talked about. No?
I thought everybody had heard that
story. Well, then, I must tell you
about the Fragrant Worm.
It was up in Shansi that I ran
across her, at a littie sty of an inn,
with a food stall and tables outside,
on a mountain road, It was the
year of the last bad flood in the
Fen Valley. That was nine or ten
Years ago. Ten it was for it was
the spring before I was married.
Anyway, the roads were jammed
with flood refugees moving north-
wards toward Taiyuan, like the
beggars in the old rhyme—“some in
rags, and some in tags, and some
in velvet gowns.”
A district magistrate had started
a cotton mill up there and he had
an idea that he wanted to buy oil
from us in bulk. I had been up to
help the agent with the contract
when the flood ISmoyed both all
and magistrate. was returning
the railhead at Taiyuan in a chair
cart when we stopped at this inn to th.
feed the mules; and I sat out at a
roadside table to drink tea, one of
a dozen or so doing the same.
While I sat there a refugee fam-
ily came along, with the household
goods and the lady of the presum-
ably missing house balancing each
other on opposite sides of a high-
wheeled barrow. Paterfamilias was |
pushing it, and behind him shuffled
a rather pretty young girl with big
liquid eyes who looked very tired or
very sore with destiny.
The barrow was set down for a
rest almost in front of me, and the
man, a tall, gaunt fellow with an
Muilive, red. diag profile and hol-
ow eyes, began negotiate a small
food purchase. Then he n me
and dropped his haggling over frac-
tions of a cent to dive into the
grimy bundle on his barrow and
bring forth a very nice little dark
red jar of the sort that we call |
ginger jars.
“There, excellency,” said
he, “is something that you will want.
HR the Stamp 2 the bottom,
's Ming. 's real, because
it has been in our house for three
hundred
What will |
“I'm not buying,” said I. “In the |
first place, I don't understand the
values of antiques, so I never buy
them. Then if it is, as you say, a
family treasure I don't think you
ought to sell it.”
e fellow stared at me as though
he pitied my stupidity.
“You speak our language, excel-
lency,” said he, “but you don't
our country, for you don't
understand the position I'm
in. How
am I to walk
the roads without
food? And who will give me food
unless I have money? Perhaps it's
otherwise in your esteemed country,
but this is China At a price
must sell anything that men will
buy—my right hand, or an eye, if
there's a price for it.”
“The old woman?" asked a hard-
faced muleteer in Jest, pointing to
woebegone
the hedraggled and
creature on the barrow, for which
he was rewarded by the butt of the
joke with a husband's lip curled,
and with a short laugh he said, *“1|
hear no offer, so rn quote no price.”
t about the skinn wench,
i shied a fat-faced' Tientsin
man in the greasy of a pett
mers: ho she for sale?” peels
€ surly look disappeared and |
the girl's eye widened as she stared
in unblinking appraisal at the
brutal fat face of the merchant.
“To know that she would not
starve but would be well cared for
certainly,” said the father with
something like cold dignity, “What
will you give?"
“Ten dollars,” snapped greasy
one. Je
“It's too little,”
- ®. said the father
T can't
earls bargain on such
“It's enough in this remote coun- |
try,” said the greasy one. “There's
a fare to Tientsin on the railway.
There are clothes to put on her be-
fore anyone would look at her; and
such bits of merchandise must be
fed and fattened to bring money in |
Tientsin. At ten dollars there's no
vetain Pron: in it. gamble.”
e father, to my astonishment |
seemed to waver, y ot.
“Make it twenty
it a deal,” said he
approaching a whine.
“But this you can't do!”
indignantly, “Even in China
are laws & man
his child to such a—into such
Do yeu feel no shame?"
i
i
I cried
there
cl th 1
Sumy he 8 iquid ones in the
face. The father as-
sumed his
“The destitute,” said he, “
afford shame. But if your heart is
don't you take the oh ou "m
She looks about eleven to me.
the girl until
‘I'm a fool.
‘remain with
Here's ten do!
| squandering
(and thorough!
| cold-blooded attit
| looking a little neater
corridor when I took
great sheet of writing
‘ancient and respec
daughter could not be given in mar-
land also with
1 Taiyuan
night before.
| chandise, meeti
dollars and call | more than
with something |
selling
a fate. |
All eyes now turned upon me, in- I tossed
but a whipping now and then will
improve her.”
“I'll give fifteen dollars, and that's
the last word!” shouted the greasy
one.
“Twen'y,” said I on an angry im-
pulse.
“Twenty-five,” snapped the mer-
chant, scowling at me.
The father's eyes moved
swiftly from one to the other of us.
He searched ny face appealingly.
“Thirty,” L
“Befuddled fool!" exclaimed the
greasy one, as he rose red-faced to
waddle away; but he turned sudden-
ly and addressed the crowd.
“Isn't this a disgrace to our broad
China?” he demanded. “What hon-.
or have we left when a yellow-
headed savage can buy our Chinese
flesh and blood?”
I was after him with a bound,
seeing red, but two or three men
got in my way while he bolted, tell-
ing me not to demean myself by
being angry with such scum.
“Now, old Liu,” said I, when 1
had settled down n and had
learned his name, “I'm going to
give vou the thirty dollars because
I offered it; but your valuable
Chinese flesh and blood, I don't
want, I have no wife, I cannot
take care of a child, so"
“She's no infant,” the parent in-
terrupted. “She's sixteen and she'd
serve you faithfully. Why not a
Chinese wife while you're in China?
When you return to your country
you can leave her a little money or
give her to a friend.”
The girl's liquid eyes
upon my face.
“Now see here!” I shouted ir-|
ritably, feeling that I was somehow
being enmeshed. “I tell you that I
don't want her, sixteen or sisty.
‘'m
going to give you thirty dollars to
write me a pledge that you will keep
you've settled some-
where and can find her a husband.
It's throwing thirty
dollars away, but, anyway, that pig-
faced dealer in women doesn't get
her. Draft me a document saying
were fixed
[the girl is mine but that she is to
u until she marries. guil
Ss as money. |
The rest I'll pay you if you bring
€ paper to the Fu Tai Inn at
Taiyuan tonight or tomorrow morn-
ing.”
And with that Igot up and stalk-
ed away, angry with myself for
the money when I'd!
probably never see the man again,
disgusted with his |
ude toward the sale
of his child. I got in a still worse
{humor when I had rumbled away in
my cart, for it then dawned on me
‘that the Tientsin merchant
| probably reappear and buy the girl
would |
while the assembled
good laugh at the mad foreigner.
In thisI the father, how-
ever, for he was at the Fu Tai Inn
the following morning long before I
was up, and with him, somehow
and certainly |
not so sullen, was the big-eyed “bit |
of merchandise.” He left her in the |
him into my
room, which was a relief, for the
unblinking stare was getting on my |
nerves. :
From his bosom he produced a
on flimsy
paper, but this lie retained while he |
launched into a protest again hav-
ing to keep the girl. it not!
dawned on me, he wanted to know,
that after she became my property |
he was entitled to payment for her
keep over what t be a long |
od? The Liu ily was an
ted one. His
loafers had a
riage to just anyone. So it might
be years before he found her 2igut
ing Shsband, because men of stand-
ng do not marry paupers,
In the end I ‘held the
and he departed with
pressions of
document |
fervent ex-
gratitude and esteem:
fifty dollars in good
silver.
For an hour perhaps, after he had |
gone, I sat in my room, checking |
‘over a stack of invoices that our
agent had brought me the
I then donned my hat
to go to the for a confer-
ence; but he re
open the
door and s briskly out, with |
what should I collide inthe corridor
but the aforesaid small bit of mer- |
my astonished
eyes with the oresaid unblinking
My exclamations were in
but Igot around in time to 5
“What are you doing here? What
do you want?” I snouted. t
"My father sent me back here,"
she replied in a small, meek voice.
“He ordered me to stay and serve
the foreign excellency. You have
paid him money; he has given me
to you; I am yours.” i
“But where is this father of
yours?" I A i
“Gone,” said she, in the same |
small voice. “Where, Idon't know.” |
I did some more exclaiming in|
before I ordered her into!
| thet voom and closed the door on a deed bulging
gathering throng of inn underlings.
“But he promised to keep you until
you were married,” Ithen expostu- |
lated,
“He thought I'd be better off in
the foreign excellency’s hands.
sides, it’s not in the document,” she
hastened to say in a more assured
voice. And she was right. I had
not tried to read the thing; but now,
while she stood at ease by the table,
I sat down and plowed painfully
through it. i
The whole long rigmarole did no |
e” of Hsiang
whose future T was re-
sponsible.
“H ! Ch'ung, ” Xl
only a baby name, a
What is your real name?
“I've been given no other,” said
she, and then added , ing
perience: “If I had a proper name,
I couldn't tell you, . According to
rich. Give her to your wife as a
servant.
our customs, it is wrong for a bride
|and a day or so later when T
Be- | home for lunch I
She has a little temper, to tell her man her girlhood name. |
The master will per
foregin name. I 3 like that. I
like foreign " I pulled myself
together then for a patient explana-
tion.
The large eyes left my face to
wander over my shoulder to the
bed on which my blankets
were still
with approval.
“That's not a small bed,” said she
wistfully. “In your country isn't
it the custom for man and wife to
sigep together 7"
“I'll tell you now, and I don't
want to have to tell you again.” I
cried, “that I have not bought you
as a wife. We foreigners do not
marry children. I'm nearly old
enough to be your father and you're
not as big as one of our girls at
eleven or twelve. If I wanted to
marry I'd marry a grown woman.
Talk no more nonsense.”
Her head dropped at this and she
turned half away, but I saw that
her eyes were filling with tears. 1
made some angry exclamation and
the child dropped on her knees,
raised her wet face, and whimpered:
“Please, foreign excellency, don't re-
ject me because I'm small and thin.
Don't turn me out. Let me be
our servant until I grow bigger.
t me have just a little food and
I'll grow quickly and get fat.”
“Gosh!” said I. as I grabbed a
hand towel to wipe away the tears,
and a layer of grime with them,
and that ended it.
Our Chinese agent in Taiyuan had
no advice to offer that wasn't inline
with the Fragrant Worm's own
ideas, so I got her to Peking and
into my amazed household somehow,
without being charged with ab-
duction, or slave-dealing, or any of
the other crimes of which I felt |
ty.
The initial assumptions of my
house “boy” and the other servants
were as irritating as the Sweet In-
sect's own aspirations and the
Taiyuan agent's advice
the girl was installed in a small
vacant room across a court from my
quarters and far removed from the
servants. Clothes were purchased,
bathing was enjoined, vermin were
expelled, hair oil was tabooed, and
the girl was ducted into the ele-
mentary mysteries of a oreign
household.
As soon as my accumulated work
permitted, I began to look about for
a school—the easy solution that I
had had in the back of my mind all
along. I encountered snags at once.
Sweet Worm knew about three char-
acters of her written e. Her
place was in the
she was sixteen and all but mature,
80 no school had a place for her.
Besides, it was late
1 broke the news to her that she
was to be useful, and she received it
Ll ’
with glee. The
He was a
grandfather of fifty-odd and he
humored her by allotting her tasks
that had to do with me—my room,
my clothes, and my meals— so she
was an apt
Fragrant Worm swept and dusted
my room, pressed my clothes, and
waited at the table; and she did it
all with an intelligence and an r
interest in my wants. In two
months she was major-domo and the
boy's nose was out of joint. She
elected herself warden of
cash and be,
in a score
The food bill
low figure, the
a superfluous coolie
, 4nd an unheard of
tem came into her accounts—an ap-
return upon the sale of
bottles, empty cans, old clothes, and
the like.
With this perfect service and de-
votion went a manner toward me
: and sweetly
I was much too simple-
fo: Io see omens oT in
any ese devel ents. was
just fatuously pl
even notice that, in keeping with her
promise, the young woman was fill-
ing out and blooming on unlimited
good food. Once or twice she
out to explore the town and made an
intensive study of the foreign wo-
esis saw. ovlc
“"w ease, excellency, ”
bolding me up one afternoon in the
court; “these clothes are now too
UL od and saw
y, patient
“True,” said 1
some new ones.
want
She mamed a
“You'd better get
How much do you
modest sum,
fairly tottered at
the vision that
the dining-room
oy wack worm, exclaimed,
. made ursel tivel
beautiful!” yo peal y
She reddened and the
filed and glittered with
She had had her hair
fluffed up somehow,
clothes
e eyes
e.
bobbed and
Ch'uag—m ; Worm, or
Sweet prneening Sat Insect as you | and white
I patted her shoulders as I passed
her, which was a mistake, I
as |for she looked up at me with ® ths
eading look in her eyes that T've
pl k
, | often seen in a and she whis-
pered Ruakily dine, T've
grown more than half an "
, for }
give me a often had guests in for meals and
Be guint doings and
spread, where they rested
; but by dint
of much violent language I had my
view of the situation accepted, and
infant class, but
t peared, looking
I did not
that she was in-
iad itself in want
there was no hiding the Fragrant
Worm. Indeed, I made a point of
‘telling everyone about her from the
start, and one of the persons who
got the fullest reports of the Bug's
sayings was
olly.
We weren't actually engaged then,
but we were working up to it pretty
(fast, so I wanted no misunderstand-
? ing stories of the way the Fragrant
Bug looked out for my cash; and
she cften said, “The poor child!”
when I told her how she was try-
ing to improve her clothes and ap-
pearance, and how she went about
town studying foreign women.
She never showed any irritation but
once, and that was when I suggested
that her father--he's professor of
physics in the university, you know
—might help me get the girl into a
schoo! in the fall.
“Bosh!” she cried explosively.
“Piffle! School? Really, William
Jones, you're not the ingenuous boy
that I sometimes think you are.
You're a plain, downright simpleton.
Children go to school to prepare for
life. Are you too blind to see that
young lady's whole trouble is that
she's overprepared? School! Honest-
ly—but what's the use?”
It was shortly after that I gave
the party. Bachelors eat arounda
lot in Peking, and they have to give
a few dinners every year to make it
look as though they were trying to
Square things. I planned to givea
dinner at home and then take the
mob to one of the hotels to dance.
I think there were eighteen invited,
Molly's father and mother were to
get ticre in their roadster, but I
was to go for Molly—early, so that
we could be back before the others
got to the house and she could have
alook atthe table and put her O.K.
on it.
It was on the way up that night
that the question of marriage arose,
and we stopped for what seemed a
few minutes in a dark place under
the Italian Legation wall to reach an
agreement and clinch it, as you
might say.
When we got to the house all the
‘others had, of course, arrived and
the hy and the Fr t Worm
were ing out cocktails. Molly
slipped into the dining room to have
'a look at the table.
Then I found an excuse for slip-
ping after her. I caught her just
around the corner, and I was tight-
ening my hold and silencing protests
in the only effectual way when who
| should barge in, coming from the
(living room with a tray full of
empty glasses, but the Sweet Bug.
She Stopped dead in the open door-
way, in view of the whole com- |
| pany, from whom Molly and I were
concealed, stared at us a second, and |
| then tossed the tray, glasses and all,
on to the neatly set table and bolted
through into the kitchen with a wail |
'that made my back hair rise. Al
most instantly the boy Sppeared with |
‘a frightened look on face.
, re did she go?" I demanded.
“Across the cou to her room,”
' he Raid.
Y gave me a vigorous shove.
"Quick!" she cried tensely,
spring, the end Sos
of a term, and all schools were “Where?” I askea upidly.
closing. Nothing could be done un. “After her, of course!” she snap-
(Hl fall, so the only thing to do was Ped. “You know the Chinese.
to keep the youngster busy and I got the idea and past
taskle the problem again in the the boy, through the kitchen into |
autumn. ‘the court; but he and Molly were
close on my heels. The girl's door |
| was bolted on the inside and she had |
| pushed a table against it, but Chinese |
| doors are flimsy and we fairly pull-
‘ed it to pieces,
We were just in time. She had
looped a rope over one of the low
beams and tied the end around her
neck. As I rushed forward she
kicked the chair away, but I caught |
'her before the rope was taut. There |
| Was some screaming and kicking |
‘while the boy undid the knot. i
“Now get out and leave me with
her,” ordered Molly, with a deter-
‘mined tilt to her jaw. “Tell them |
‘that she was taken suddenly jl.” |
Tae Bask de find the guests
| standing abou perplexed
and uncomfortable; but I got them
: tled Senin, and in a very few min-
jutes Molly, to my surprise, reap-
wise and serene, and
‘We went in to dinner. To my still
| greater surprise the Sweet Bug her-
| self turned up with the soup, a little
‘pale and red-eyed. The women mur.
'mured their sympathy and those who |
| could speak some asked her
| how a i replied that it
i no - “Justa sudden sharp
| in the nether belly,’ she ex-
ed glibly. i
“How did you do it, darling?” 1
| asked Molly a coupte of hours later
‘When I was driving her to the hotel |
Eks
for the dance. “And such quick |
| work, OD." a |
| “I'm surprised that you don't first
want to know what was wrong with
her,” she declared with what was |
‘meant to be a cyni laugh. “I'm |
(glad you don't pretend to be that.
‘dumb, anyway. t you still can't
| guess how I got her quiet :
i "What?" asked in alarm. |
| “Another man,” she replied coolly,
| That. ist ttled on |
i “ », se yet,” she re- |
| plied; “but to go toa foreigner; fail-
| ing that, a general, or a banker, or |
| successful bandit. She says
|and quite rightly, too—that you
{owe her nothing less, since you don’t |
her yourself and since you
{took it upon yourself to rt
| her from one mode of life into |
ano . You owe her—" i
“x
wi
be- |
come of her if Thadn't picked her up |
and t her here? She'd have
had a us life.” i
“Of course she would,” said Molly |
in a tone that meant that she was
condescending to reason
child mind; “but that
What would have
would have
been simply her fate, so now you're
responsible for the fulfillment of jt
at the new pace you've set for her.
That's her argument, and T must say
that I think she's right.”
“But what am I supposed to do
now?” I asked meekly.
“Forget it,” she replied. “What- |
ever's io be done I've now promised |
to do. You. ond. 1 made o bargain|
‘earlier this evening that automa cal- |
| passed
facing the burly general,
la woman to love her man?
ly covers this, so
Worm now becomes the white wo-
man's burden.”
And forget it I did. It was three
o'clock when I rolled home. Some
time in the early morning e
voices and a little bustle in the
courtyard, but I rolled over and slept
again. It was after nine when 1
got around to breakfast, and I was
about to ask the boy, who served
the meal for the first time in many
weeks, what the Fragrant Worm
was doing, when the telephone rang,
It was Molly. We made plans for
the afternoon, and then she sa‘d:
“I rang up earlier than I should
have, after such a late night, be-
‘cause I was afraid you'd miss Hsiang
Ch'ung and be worried. 1 wanted
you to know that she's here with
me, bag and baggage. She's going
to stay here for a while, too. My
plans for her? Never mind about
that. You bungled your responsi-
bility and it's mine now.”
We were married late in October,
and the worst of the commotion was
ever when Molly got me away from
the crowd to havea look at the wed-
ding presents, which ‘everyone had
seen but me. By all odds the
showiest thing of tue lot was a huge
old French clock of the kind that
mandaring used to buy from the
early Canton traders to present at
court, with pounds of gold and
jewels all over it. Propped against
it was the card of General Shang
Tuelang, the bandit adventurer who
had then lately mawe himself satrap
of the Suiyuan district and the
Mongol frontier.
“Why, Molly, how does this high-
binder happen to be favoring us?”
I asked. “This looks like palace
ioot and it's worth a small fortune.
“Oh, he's an old friend of the
family,” she said lightly. “Ffteen
years ago papa happened to en-
counter him when his head was bad-
ly wanted and hid him away. He
functioned as our house coolie for
ten months when I was a little girl
and then got back to his gang
Somehow. He's always -
(ing to do us favors, He did me one
not so long ago, though he thinks I
did him one. Then, his wife hap-
pens to be a friend of mine.”
“Which one?” I asked. “Number
one or number ten?”
“To be exact she's number four
‘and the latest,” Molly replied witha
mysterious half smile, “and the one
who rules the whole roost, I'm
told. You'll see her by and by and
understand why.” And so I did.
At the fag-end of the reception I
saw a big car roll up outside, with
| six uniformed ruffians on the run-
ning board, loaded down with car-
tridge belts and Mauser pistols, and
out of that bus got a stalwart Chi-
nese potentate in gorgeous satins,
and a little woman. She wore a
sable coat and diamond pendants
dangled from her ears. I heard
some one say that they were Gen-
ral Shang an his wife, but I was
called away just then and didn't see
their entrance. Their arrival had
completely out of my mind,
in fact, and I was rummaging for a
‘cigarette for a smokeless guest,
when a light hand fell on my arm
and a familiar voice said in Wo
“Excellency, I have a word to say to
you.”
I swung around and found myself
sta
at attention and displaying fine
teeth ina genial smile. Between us
was the little person of the big dia-
mond pendants. I believe I stag-
gered and that she clutched my
arm to steady me, for I found my-
self looking into the still liquid but
now very merry and self assured
eyes of the tf Worm. 1
mumbled some kind of feeble re-
Sponse to the very correct felicita-
tions that the amiable big brute was
voicing, and was then eaten up
with impatience to separate her
from him for a moment and put
some questions. I thought of the
wedding presents and piloted them
thither. a Na) while Ba was en-
grossed what suppose
was a ol rg | judgment o
the loot, I got her a little aside.
“Are you Py? Do you love
him, Sweet ?" 1 asked in a
whisper. She laughed shortly at a
question which no Chinese would
have asked, and then pretended
dignation.
“What sort of talk is this?" she
demanded. “Where are your man-
ners? Of course I love him! Didn't
Itell you he was my man, and
isn’t it the ancient rule in Clima for
t
honestly,” she went on in a softer
whisper, “my fate is ruled by Sood
stars, not to mention good ends.
He's really a splendid fellow. He's
Just like you foreigners, excellency,
only better. He can laugh at every-
thing as you even himself,
wiles, not afraid. He's fierce.
en wants something he goes
after it in a straight line, just like
“But with women, excellency, he's
different. He's not so soft and
stupid.” —By Rodney Gilbert from
Liberty.
in-
| your people,
~The Mountain Times,” bear-
ing the caption “Special Prosperity
Edition,” has been revived at How-
ard with B. F. Sheetz as editor and
publisher and L. F. Sheetz, associate
editor and advertising solicitor. The
paper came out last Friday, an
eight page six column sheet, and
contains a number of articles tend-
the way, but we are of the o
that the publishers will have a hard
time convincing the man who hasn't
acent in his pocket andno job in
sight that such is the case.
———The Detroit News, in its roto-
gravure section of Sunday, March
1st, contained a large picture of E.
Lloyd Tyson, son of Mr. and Mrs.
known by many Centre county peo-
W. E. Tyson, of Tyrone, and well
ple, who has attained considerable
fame as broadcaster from radio sta-
tion ‘WWJ, in Detroit.
do your job work right.
—We
your Fragrant
nding apply a 4-
—Asparagus seed germinates very
slowly. It is usually two to
from time of planting
plants appear above ‘the
a result it is often difficult to
trol weeds. For this reason and
because there is quite a variation
sow the seed in a small plot and
t the crowns when one
year old into the perms tent loca-
tion. The seed bed shoul. be worked
early in the spring to germinate as
many weed seeds as possible, These
will be killed in the final prepara-
tion of the plot for . .
agus germinates very slowly at 68
degrees.
-—Do not fail to take good care
of your rhubarb plants all season as
well as in the spring when you are
making use of the tender stems for
sauces and pies. After the first few
cuttings of rhubarb stems, many
gardeners neglect this crop until the
following spring.
Harvest of the rhubarb crop
should be completed in from six to
eight weeks’ time. after this per-
iod has passed, allow the leaves to
remain,
Stir the earth around the plants
at least once a week in order that
the weeds may be controlled, and
that the leaves may store plenty of
plant food in the routs without weed
competition. By so doing, the plants
are aided in producing a large crop
of tender stems the next year. Keep
the seed stalks broken off all sum-
mer. If these are allowed to develop,
the plant food will go to seed pro-
duction rather than into the roots
where it is desired.
—
Disgusted with the number of
punctures he was having, Ted
Miller, of Portland, Oregon,
an apparatus on his car that picked
up nails and sharp bits of metal be-
fore they damaged his rubber.
Electromagnets were attached on
either side of the front bumper and
connected with the car's generator,
He found that when traveling at a
Speed of twenty-five miles an hour
the magnets picked up objects as
large as nails from the car's path.
As soon as the motor was s
the metal particles would fall off.
Green feeds must be provided for
the laying hens. During the summer
months it is .a comparatively easy
matter to furnish succulent feeds
from the fields. During the winter
greens must also be provided: hence
| artificial methods of producing
greens must be used.
Sprouting oats affords an easy
method of providing green feeds to
‘poultry. Mechanical oat sprouters
have been developed.
—Do not reduce grain feed for
cows in the flush of production even
though prices paid for milk may be
lower, It is better to weed out the
poor cows in the herd and continue
to feed the good ones up to produc-
‘tion. This practice reduces milk
costs.
. ——Use the best fertilizer for
' garden soil. For light soils with little
manure, use a 4-8-4 mixture; on
‘heavier soils with plenty of manure,
12-4, and for unusually
fertile soils with abundant manure,
use su, . For on
perphosphate e-quarter
lof an acre, or about 100 by 100 feet,
‘apply about 300 pounds.
~If you order trees, shrubs, vines,
‘and perennials early froma reliable
nurseryman, you can specify date of
delivery. Then the suipment will ar-
rive exactly when you want to take
‘care of the materials.
your
~Early hatching of chicks and
propr handling of the pullets will
| them into laying condition
‘next fall during the months of
‘priced eggs, say poultrymen of the
Pennsylvania State College.
Litters farrowed between Jan-
uary 1 and June 30 can be nominat-
‘ed for the 1931 Keystone Ton Litter
See your county agent about
. Ton ' litter meth-
‘ods aid in prod
ally.
{
i 5
ucing pork economic-
, —Efficient potato growers have
| found it helpful to have a sufficient
(supply of lime and blue stone on
(hand before the spraying season
(opens. Plan to have a surplus in-
‘stead of a shortage.
i
| -—~Nearly all the forest tree seed-
lings grown in the State nurseries
have been allotted, according to
Penn State foresters. The late ap-
| plications for Some Species, includ-
ing Scotch pine an orway spruce,
will be held over until the of
11832. There still is a small supply
of white pine, red pine, pitch pine,
‘and black locust.
—~Raise calves from only the ver
best cows. It is better to veal
calves unless their blood inheritance
makes it possible for them to devel-
op into good cows.
- —Dig large holes for plant ma-
| terial. It is a common practice
| to make the holes one foot wider
‘and deeper than the roots of the
material to be planted.
Avoid trouble by carefully reg
ing to prove that prosperity is on ulating the temperature and mois-
ture | conditions for early plants.
| Water only on clear days and in
| the morning. Too frequent, light ap-
‘plications of water cause damping
‘off. Extremely high or low tem-
peratures are dangerous.
—Lime und fertilizer treament on
| poor pasture sods should bring in
| white clover and the better
| thicken the turf, and greatly im-
|prove the quantity and quality of
| the grazing. Fertilization every
five years and liming at longer in-
[tervals will maintain satisfactory
| production.
———
Come to the Watchman office
for your printing jobs.