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2 gpawi-Fogib® J»iC!fcfißßS®* WINTER ON THE FARM. Profitable Employment for the Farmer and His Men. Employment more or less continuous, which common hired men can engage in and carry on alone, may be brushing up and oiling tools and putting them in or der for coming work. Where crude petroleum can be readily obtained a dime’s worth properly applied may be worth dollars to wooden tools and lum ber wagons by preventing cracking and decay. The work of applying it is very simple and easily understood. During occasional mild days, "Should any occur, it may be put on with a coarse brush to gates and various outdoor structures. Drawing out manure and spreading it on the land where it will be needed for future crops as fast as it accumulates at the stables. In this way it requires handling but once, it clears the premises, and the ground being frozen it is not cut up with the wheels as when the work is postponed till spring. Trials which have been made by spreading on snow for the coming corn crop have resulted in fine crops and the best success. Equally favorable are the results from the winter top dressing of meadows. In many localities the work of digging ditches in winter may be carried on with profit and for the permanent im provement of the land. Let them be laid out before the ground freezes, and the digging commenced by plowing sev eral furrows and throwing out the loosened top soil with the shovel. The work may then be carried on in cold weather by loosening the bottom soil be fore each night, which will prevent hard freezing, or by placing small bundles of straw in the ditch. As the work deep ens even this care will be hardly neces sary. Where a ditching plow is used the bottom soil may be quickly loosened and the ditch prepared for a cold night. Drawing the tile for filling may be profit ably done in winter. Where there is no silo, and the owner has a treadpower and cutting machine, a good employment consists in cutting up the corn fodder for feeding to cattle, by which far less will be wasted than by feeding the long stalks to them. Trials which have been made have proved that the fodder was doubled in value to them, and the great superiority was shown of the short manure as com pared with long stalk manure. A winter’s task for man and team con sists of drawing sand for a clayey soil for improving its texture. Fine enrich ing manure for garden work may be provided for spring by drawing the black mold from sheltered places in ■woods and placing it in alternating lay ers with stable manure. When well rotted and thoroughly intermixed it will make an excellent garden fertilizer. It will be improved by a light intermix ture of ashes and bone dust. There are several smaller tasks which should not be overlooked, says Country Gentleman, authority for the foregoing, either for the owner Or his men, among which are shelling corn, assorting apples and re moving rotten ones, picking potatoes, if needed, filling the icehouse, covering strawberry beds with evergreens, cut ting firewood, cutting dead branches from trees and converting them into fuel. An Old Question Reanswered. With each recurring season is asked, “Are bees w.hich have been wintered in the cellar as hardy as those "wintered out of doors?’ As usual, there was not unanimity in the replies given to this query by leading apiarists in Gleanings in Bee Culture. To use Mr. Root’s own words in concluding the matter, these started out, “I think so,” and then, “I think not,” and so on. Then it becomes apparent that locality has something to do with-it. Our good friend Muth, away down in Cincinnati, prefers his bees out doors. Doolittle thinks that where he is— central New York—one is as good as the other. Professor Cook, of Michigan, agrees. Friend France, of Wisconsin, with his great big tenement hives, as I should suspect, prefers outdoor winter ing. So, you see, it depends on the size and kind of hive. And then friend Ma lium, of Vermont, suggests that when taken out of the cellar they should have outside protection. And, by the way, some good friend declares that the best way in the world to winter bees is to put them in ch> ff hives and then carry the chaff hives into the cellar. When you carry them out in the spring they will have the chaff hive protection. Mrs. Harrison, of Illinois, says it depends on how late ycu leave them in the cellar. Taking a thin walled hive right out of the cellar and leaving it exposed to heavy frosts or severe freezing is not just the thing. Dr. Miller, of Illinois, has an uncomfortable suspicion. If he were in our locality—Ohio—l think this “sus picion” would be still more uncomfort able. Plaster and Salt. Country Gentleman says: “Plaster, al though one of the cheapest fertilizers, is quite variable in its effects on the growth of crops on different soils and in different seasons. One hundred pounds to the acre have been as useful as a larger quantity. Salt, like plaster, is uncertain in its action, but is put on more copiously than plaster, at the rate of from five to ten bushels an acre. The value of either can be determined only by making the trial in different locali ties.” Salting Cows. I have found out by experience that cows will give from 10 to 15 per cent. more milk when they have all the salt they will eat. I like the plan of throw ing a small handful of common salt in the manger every time I put them in to milk. If your cows are used to being salted once or twice a week, try my plan and see if it does not increase your amount of milk the most with the least outlay of anything you ever tried.— National Stockman. PACKING PORK AND HAMS. One Method for Insuring Good Sweet Pork. A Pickle for Hams and Shoulders. There is a difference in the methods of packing pork: but the one here given is vouched for by American Cultivator as sure to result in sweet pork if the hogs are well fattened on good food. Have the pork barrel perfectly clean and sweet, scalding and washing it in hot water made strong with soda until it is so, and see that it is well hooped and the bottom braced so that it will not break out. Get the Joest jjt clean .broken jock PEOPLE’S PARTY PAPER, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9. 1892. salt, and to a Half buslieTbf salFadd one ounce of saltpeter, or from two to four ounces of baking soda, mixing it well with the salt. After the animals are killed, allow them to remain in a cool place, but not where it is cold enough to freeze, for about twenty-four hours, for the animal heat to get out. If the out side freezes before this heat is all gone, the inside, especially against the bone in the thick part of the ham and shoulder, will surely be tainted, and salt cannot save it. It is best to guard against any chance of freezing. Cut off the head, hams and shoulders and remove the sparerib and other de sirable lean pieces. If not accustomed to doing this work or to seeing it done, it will pay to get some butcher or old farmer to show you just how to do it. You will then have before you the broad side of pork. Cut each end off squarelv, and then proceed to cut into strips of about four inches in width, having all of one width, and begin packing by cov ering the bottom of the barrel with salt. On that place a layer of pork, beginning at the outer edge and laying the rind of the pork next the barrel and keeping right around the barrel in that way, making snug stowage as possible, and fill the last space in the center with a piece or pieces cut to fit snugly and driven into place with a wooden maul. On this place another layer of salt and begin anew, going On until the cask is full or the supply of pork is exhausted, after which cover with salt and put a cover down upon the pork, and cither press it down or weight it with a heavy stone. Put in no water, as in a short time, if the packing is well done, the water in the pork will make a brine that will cover the pork entirely. In using always keep brine enough in the barrel to cover the pork and kpep it pressed down. Some cut off the belly strips, or thin and partially lean part of the side, and put it in a pickle with the ham, to be taken out and smoked as breakfast bacon, and it is much bbtter in that way. For these and for the hams and shoulders we have used a pickle made by using eight pounds of salt, four pounds of brown sugar, one ounce of baking soda and one half ounce of saltpeter. Some would use more saltpeter, and some would use molasses instead of sugar. Add water enough to dissolve, and put it over the fire to scald, carefully skimming off any scum or dirt that rises to the top. It need not boil at all, but should be made scalding hot. Set away until cold again, and while it is cooling pack the shoul ders, hams and bacon strips in a per fectly clean cask as snugly as possible. This preparation is for 100 pounds of meat, and if there is not water enough to cover it more cold water may be added. Those who like their meat smoked will find the shoulders and bacon strips salt enough in throe or four weeks, but a large ham may need to stay there six or eight weeks. Those who like it without smoking can leave it in the pickle, as it will not get too salt or get hard. This pickle should keep sweet all summer in a cool cellar, but if any signs of spoiling are noticed the meat should be at once taken out and washed in water in which is a little soda to remove the tainted brine, and the brine can be scalded over again and a little more salt added, cr a new brine may be made. Wash out the cask before replacing the meat, and put the brine in cold as before. In smoking use corncobs or hickory wood. The Use of Separators. The subject of separators has been a prolific topic for discussion at the bee meetings and in the bee journals. As is usual, the question, “Separators or not?” calls forth widely varying replies, some beekeepers favoring their use, while others look upon as an unnecessary expense. One correspondent tells why he uses separators; another explains why he doesn't use separators: one favors wood separators and another tin separators, etc. In summing up the matter W. Z. Hutchinson, the editor of The Bee keeper’s Review, disposes of the ques tion as follows: “I think all -will admit that only straight combs ought to be put upon the market. If the condition of the honey flow and colonies or of the management result in straight combs without separators, then they are a use less expense; otherwise they ought to be used. Combs need not necessarily be as straight as a board, but so straight that they may be readily removed from the case without injury. If a beekeeper can secure nearly all straight combs without separators, and has a local mar ket—in which he can sell direct to con sumers—for the few bulged combs that he may have, separators would still be a useless expense. When separators are needed it appears to be settled that wood is preferable for loose separators and tin for those to be nailed fast to wide frames.” Agricultural Brevities. The editor of The Rural New Yorker worked for ten years with seedling pota toes before he produced one that he deemed worthy of introduction. It speaks volumes for the dairy school at the Vermont experiment station that it has now as a student the butter maker who took a prize at the great food show! Peking ducks are the best layers, but do not fatten so readily as some others. It is reported that Wyoming offers a bounty of three dollars for each wolf head, but the pests have lately become so troublesome that the cattlemen havp offered an additional bounty of five dol lars a head. Drying sweet potatoes and grinding the chips into flour promises to become a new industry. A Peculiar Find. Mrs. J. W. Hood had a peculiar ex perience a few days ago. She was searching for a mislaid article and was rummaging about on the closet shelves, when she laid her hand on a lady’s golc watch. It did not belong to her, and she was at a loss to understand how it came there. The incident worried her so that she finally went to the office where Mr. Hood is employed to tell him about it. Mr. Hood was as much sur prised as his wife, and advised her to make a further investigation. Upon her return home she again went to the closet shelf and there found her silver spoons, which she had packed away in a trunk in another room a few days be fore. The only satisfactory explanation they could find was that burglars bad been in the house and had the gold watch with them. They probably found the silver spoons, and were looking in the closet for other valuables when they be came frightened and hurried away, leav ing the watch and spoons lying on the shelf. Mrs. Hood has advertised the watch, but so far has failed to find an owner.—Chicago CHEAP ICEHOUSE. A Structure That Will Hold Forty to Fifty Tons. To cheaply build a good icehouse for forty to fifty tons make it high, so that but little roof is required. The founda tion should be three feet below the sur face to avoid frost. Two stories 15 by 16 is about right. Double doors must extend to the roof. The corner posts must be rabbeted as shown to receive the matched board lining. On the out- Wp-- " " L - 1 ‘ ‘ ■' ■ ■ a Oil PLAN FOR ICEHOUSE. side of these posts a light frame should be covered with heavy building paper inches from the lining and 1% to 2 inches from the paper; the covering should be nailed on lightly. This work leaves two dead air spaces between the sunshine and the ice, and no sawdust packing will be needed. A ventilator in the shape of a blinded window should be placed in both gables under the roof and the best of drainage must be pro vided below. In the cut the outer line shows the covering; the middle one the paper lin ing; strips of plank are spiked over the 4by 4 posts to which to nail the cover ing, and the inner line is the matched lining. Os course the plan can be mod ified to suit circumstances, the main thing being to have the dead air space. An inside tight frame, with the outside partition of sod or adobo bricks, well plastered together with clay mud, would do. If you live on a western farm and have more straw than you can use, build a straw stack right over such a house and ice will keep in it the year round. Straw, coarse hay or chaff can be used in place of sawdust for packing ice if you think any packing necessary.—Farm and Home. Beginning with the Incubator. Those who contemplate using incu bators and brooders need not wait until the time arrives for beginning opera tions, but would do well to conduct an experimental hatch in order to be more familiar with their work. From Novem ber to April is the season for using in cubators, as the chicks that reach the market from January to June bring the highest prices. There is one thing that the hen will not do, and that is to sit before she is in clined to, and this inclination on her part may be postponed so late as to ren der her less serviceable. The only al ternative is the incubator. This can be operated at any time, and will hatch more chicks at one operation than will a dozen hens. The incubator fills a place that the hen has left vacant. Though it entails labor, both day and night, in operating the incubator, as well as in caring for the chicks in the brooders, yet the work is bestowed on large numbers once, and when people of experience jmanage such business they are amply remunerated. There is some loss at times, and for the novice often disappointment. It is not intended to advise an ama teur to venture into broiler raising in the expectation of making it pay at first. But it is well to try an incubator if it is desired to hatch chicks in -winter. Do not venture with a large one. An incu bator holding not over 200 eggs will give the best results. Experiment with it and learn, and use the brooders for the same purpose. The beginner will be surprised on finding how much he will be compelled to learn by experi ence, for no matter how much he may have “read up” on the subject, in actual work hundreds of little details will ap pear of which he -was not before aware. But as all difficulties can be overcome, one need only persevere to succeed. — Exchange. Yearling Hackney. Below, reproduced from The Breeder’s Gazette, is a fine picture of a Massachu setts hackney colt a year old. It is American born, from an imported sire. <7 f YEARLING HACKNEY. It is the fashion of course, but if the fancy breeders would only allow just a little more tail to these fine hackneys it would be a relief to the beholder. The mutilated stump sticking up like that in the picture is both hideous and painful, and we don’t care what anybody says. Otherwise this yearling of a breed of horses fast growing in favor as riders and drivers is a beauty. At the New York food show some of the dairy bulls exhibited were more fit for a fat stock show than to be put up as the head of a dairy herd. One qf the prize Holstein sires weighed 2,790 pounds. The creatures were in some cases too fat and lazy even to stand up right any length of time. Among the qualities such monsters as these would transmit to milk and butter cows would certainly not be those of firm flesh and hardiness. In general dairy bulls get far too little exercise, owing in great measure to the danger of allowing them at large. But in no case should they be kept just tied up by the neck in a stall to get fat and soft. FATTENING POULTRY. Two Weeks Will Make the Birds Fit for Market. Two weeks is sufficient time in which to fatten fowls for the market. But this demands conformity to certain condi tions. The fowls should not have full liberty. At this time it is not economy to give them opportunity for exercise. It is desirable that all the food taken should be used to make fat, not for strength of muscle. Fi'om eight to twelve may be shut in a small room to gether, where there will be nothing to disturb thfinu If the room should.be partially’darßened,; alltile "better. Let the birds have complete repose; let all their powers work toward digestion. The quickly fatted fowl is tenderest and most juicy. If no suitable room is avail able, a large coop may be constructed, with feeding troughs outside. It is important that the feed should be clean, sweet and abundant. For this reason it should not be placed so that they will run over it or defile it. The object is to have the birds cram them selves, sit down quietly and digest, then cram again and so on to the end of the chapter. Now if they are confined in a coop hatung a tight bottom the place will soon become- intolerably filthy. There should be openings or wide spaces in the floor, that it may be cleaned often, then covered with sawdust or some other suitable litter. Kept in this con dition the fowls will take four square meals in a day. If there should be a quarrelsome one in the lot it should separated from the rest. Such a fowl will prevent the others from eating to the full, and dis turb the quiet which is necessary to the rapid digestion of the food. Fighting tends to leanness. Even scolding will use up food and prevent an oily, rotund condition. There is no better food for fattening purposes the world over than sweet, fine ly ground cornmeal wet up with skimmed milk. The mixture need nor be so dry as when meal is mixed with water. There is no danger that fowls will get waterlogged on milk. Some poulterers feed buckwheat meal, think ing that it renders the poultry better in flavor. There is no objection to mixing one-third buckwheat meal with the corn meal as a change. The mixture should be seasoned with a teaspoonful of salt each day. Fowls that have dough for their rations will not require much water, yet fresh, pure water should be supplied, that they may drink when, they thirst. —Poultry World. Consumptive Cows. Os all the human deaths that occur in the world it is reasonably estimated that one in seven is due to consumption or tuberculosis, and at least 3,000,000 persons perish from it every year out of the population of the globe. The recent remarkable development of bacteriology has directed special attention to the in fectious nature of the disease. While in a majority of cases the fatal infection is derived from human beings afflicted with it, it has been amply demonstrated that in many cases it is conveyed to man from tuberculosa cows through the medium of milk. Although in large cities precautions have been taken to prevent or curtail the sale of adulterated, « watered or skimmed milk by means of lactometer tests, there is no practicable method of detecting the milk of consumptive cows after it has reached the city for delivery to consumers. Those who buy can there fore be protected only by sanitary super vision of the dairy herds at the sources of supply and by the eradication of the disease among them. Investigation has shown the existence of tuberculosis in some of the dairy herds that supply milk to the large cities in the eastern states. The most notable inquiries of this kind have been those recently made in the neighborhood of Boston under direction of the health authorities of that ciyy and of the Mas sachusetts state of agriculture. These revealed the i prevalence of the disease on dairy ftyrms in many towns which sent milk to the Boston market. —Hural New Yorker. _r • . Live Stock Points. It was well known that there was an epidemic of glanders in the stables of a New York street car company during the past summer, and it was remarked at the time that there was criminal care lessness in the conduct of those having charge of the stables. The horses that died were dumped into the city dead horse delivery with the rest. The con sequence was that a young German, who skinned one of these glandered beasts, caught the disease by the virus from .the horse’s body getting into a small sore upon his hand. Ke died in horrible agony a few days after, with unmistak able symptoms of glanders. When a horse dies of glanders burn his body and don’t stop to skin it. Ewes bred in November will bring lambs in March. But the ewes must be thoroughly well fed and cared for from the time of breeding till the lambs come. Unless the sheep owner can give this care and has warm quarters for the March lambs and knows just wh'at to do with them, it is better in the northern part of the country to have the lambs come in April. Now look out. Just after the secre tary of agriculture has officially pro claimed there is not a case of pleuro pneumonia in the country is the time for it to appear in some out of the way farm down in nowhere. But the fact that the disease is apparently stamped out is gratifying, showing that the mu tual labors of the government and of breeders throughout the country have not been in vain. Few of the incubator men can raise eggs enough at home to keep their ma chines going, so that raising eggs for the incubator is fast becoming a trade by it self. Last year good Christmas beeves sold in the Chicago markets at from $6 to $7.15 a hundredweight, which was not at all bad. But the beef had to be first class. A Heroic Dancer. One of the dancers in the Black Crook company, who is known by no other name to the employees of the Academy than Annie, or “Walking lady No. 17,” was standing in the wings Friday night waiting for her turn to go on with the rest of the ballet. She wore a blond wig and was costumed in the scant at tire demanded by the exigencies of the occasion. She seemed nervous and looked pale and ill, but nobody noticed it. Sud denly she reeled and felh When a doctor was summoned it was found she was suffering from lack of food. It was also subsequently discov ered from other sources that the young woman had sent all her wages away so her two little sisters who were in want and had reduced herself almost to star vation. These facts I know to be true. —Cor. New York World. Railroads and the Game Laws. A large doe was struck and killed by the night train coming south on the Adirondack and St. Lawrence railroad in the Adirondack's. The carcass was taken to a slaughter house in town and dressed. A question arises as to the lia bility of the railroad company for killing deer out of season.—Cor. Utica (N. Y.) BUTTER BLOOD. A Jersey Sire from Ono of the “Fust Families.’’ Three of the great Jersey butter mak ing families of cattle are St. Lambert, Stoke-Pogis and Matilda. The illustra- BUTTER BLOOD. tion shows a perfect type of a bull of the Matilda blood. If you want to get points as to what constitutes a first class American Jersey sire, here they are. Note them. Aerating Milk. Professor Henry H. Wing, of the ag ricultural experiment station of Cornell university, has been making a series of experiments in aerating milk. He tried the various known methods and the patented aerators that have been put on the market. He also compared the cream raising po-wers of aerated milk and that diluted both with hot and cold water. As to cream raising, the sum of the trials is that the best results are to be had from plunging undiluted milk in ice water at 40 degs. When milk is put Into water as cold as this there is no ad vantage to be got from diluting it, and you get the good skimmilk besides. The milk was allowed to stand twenty-four hours before skimming. Then he tried aerated and nonaerated milk to see which kept sweet the longer. On this point the professor says: “The difference in favor of the aera tion is considerably less than we had expected to obtain; but there were sev eral conditions that are likely to have made this difference less than it would be under ordinary circumstances. In the first place, the air in which the milk was set was comparatively uni form in temperature and free from con taminating odors; in the second place, only a short time elapsed after milking and aeration, so there was little chance for contamination in the stable. Then again all the surroundings of the cattle were kept as neat and clean as could well be done. We believe that under the conditions that affect most dairies the good effects of aeration ■would be more pronounced than those we ob tained. But we are inclined to regard as extravagant the statement recently made in a leading agricultural paper that “aerated milk will keep at least three times as long as nonaerated.” The question is often raised whether milk that is intended for butter making may be aerated and the cream after ward successfully separated by the gravity proceess. Four trials were made in which the milk that had been aerated was set in Cooley cans at 40 degs. side by side with milk of the same lot that had not been aerated. In all cases the temperature of the creamer was from 40 to 44, and the milk set twenty-four hours. The results were as follows: Aerated, av. per cent, of fat in skimmilk... .53 Not aerated, av. per cent, of fat in skimmilk .31 It will be seen that while there was some loss in the efficiency of the cream ing of the aerated milk it was not very great. What is remarkable is that the aerated milk suffered no fall of tempera ture after it was placed in the creamer, and -was more efficiently creamed than the diluted milk set at 60 degs., where the fall of temperature was from 30 to 35 degs. This seems to be in direct contra diction to the theory which supposes that the fall of temperature after the milk is set is one of the chief factors in com plete creaming by the deep setting grav ity process. Dairy and Creamery. A correspondent of Hoard’s Dairyman finds that salt is a good thing on ensi lage when there is not. too much of it. To every foot of ensilage he sprinkles salt about as thickly as he would sow grain in a field at three bushels to the acre. A butter dairyman with a herd of Jer seys in New York the other day tested the milk of ten of his cows just as they came into the stable to be milked, and found it averaged 4.72 butter fat. The richest sample ran 5.8, the poorest 4. The richest milk as ■well as the poorest, it may be observed, came from cows of the St. Lambert family. Blood does not always tell, but it does nearly always, often enough to bet on anyhow. A bull may be bred to two genera tions of cows, mother and daughter; then he should be changed, as inbreed ing should not go further than this. It will be interesting to know who gets some of that $1,250 offered by the American Jersey Cattle club in cash prizes for the best fifty essays on Jersey cattle. The essays were all to be in by Sept. 1, and the result will ere long be known. Whatever breed of dairy cattle fails to be sufficiently advertised and im proved in this country, it is certain that the Jerseys will not get left as long as the American Jersey Cattle club is alive. In localities where it is too cold for Indian corn to ripen it may be grown for ensilage with great profit. A good way to build up a good city milk trade is to give your customers nothing but good milk. Hundreds of city people have concluded they did not like milk and it did not agree -with them simply because they were imposed on by the skimmed and adulterated milk furnished by dishonest salesmen. A hu man being could support life on milk alone and get fat besides if the milk was pure and of rich quality. Cold Nerve in a Robber. The bold thief who a few weeks ago tried to kill Charles Wonnell when the latter refused to quietly submit to see ing his house robbed returned to Won nell’s house about 4 o’clock yesterday morning, and knocking at Mr. Won nell’s window until he was aroused made a proposition to sell the watch se cured upon the night of the burglary. Wonnell replied that he couldn't buy the watch then if he wanted to, as ho had no money in the house, and added that he did not care to buy the watch back. “Well.” renlied the man outside ths window, “you will surely give some thing for it. Will you give me ton dol lars for it?” Wonnell asked how he knew it was the stolen watch, and was told that a brother knight in Wonnell’s lodge, K. of 11., had told him that it was, and that it bad the proper initials engraved upon it. The man said he had bought the watch, but refused to give his name, saying when asked, “Oh, you wouldn’t know me if I told you my name.” Wonnell finally told the man that if he would leave the watch at Frank Hosbrook a grocery he (Wonnell) would leave ten dallars at the same place. The man departed, but the watch was not left at the grocery. Mr. Wonnell thinks he recognized the voice of hu last visitor as that of the burglar, and believes that the proposition to sell the watch was but a ruse to induce him to open the door, when he would be over powered and compelled to submit to an other robbery.—lndianapolis Journal. A Baby Climbs a Ladder. Think of a baby twenty-four hourt old climbing a stopladder! It was rathet an undersized infant for that ago too. Os course it could not climb up by it self, so the nurse carried it inlier arms. It did not cry, but clapped its hands de lightedly. The child was a little boy and the climbing of the stepladder took place in the very room where he wai born. The mother regarded it as an im« portant event evidently. It was by hel orders that the performance took place. Her interest the less becausa it was all for the sake of gratifying an old time superstition. Monthly nurses all agree that if a baby goes down stairs before it goes up stairs its path in life will be downward and ill luck will attend it. Accordingly precautions should be taken against such an omen. In this instance the child having been born on the top floor of the house it could not be carried up stairs, and therefore its mother had sug gested the ingenious plan of having a stepladder brought into the room so that nurse could mount it with baby in her arms. But that was not all. A small Testa ment was attached by a string to th® child's arm and in its chubby little fist was placed a gold dollar. Thus reason able certainty was secured that the boy would grow up both rich and pious. At the same time it seems very odd to see such superstitious observances practiced in the city of Washington in the year 1892.—Washington Star. Recovered After Many Years. The unearthing of a large quantity of stolen silverware, gold lined snuff boxes, etc., in a cave near Jasper, Tenn., has created a sensation. The story beats fiction a long way. During the winter of 1863-4 the Federal soldiers were en camped for some time on Battle creek. Among them was an Ohio regiment. Not long since a gentleman appeared in the neighborhood and told the follow ing story: He was a member of the Ohio regi ment referred to, and in his mess was a soldier who was a born thief, and who never let an opportunity pass to steal anything he could carry. During the time they were encamped at the moutlj of Battle creek he hid his stealings in a cave, and so clever was he in his work that no suspicion ever fell upon him. short time ago the two old comrades® were together talking over their experi- fIE ences, when the story of the stolen sil- ~~1 verware was told and the request made I that the gentleman referred to visit the J locality, search for the cave, and, if pos- fl sible, recover the hidden silverware and J restore the articles to the rightful own- E ers or their heirs. ■ The old soldier who had so many years t| ago gone wrong is getting aged and fee- fl ble, and to ease his conscience and make J reparation, as far as in his power, begged his old commander to do this fed! him. He was successful in finding n<® only the place, but the plunder. least 200 pounds of silverware of evd®Eg kind almost was found in the cave, ® ranging from napkin rings to solid silver 1 water sets. Many o? the articles have f the owners’ initials on them, and all are 1 in a state of good preservation. The i articles have been taken to a store in the village near by, and are being turned over to those entitled to them as rapidly as possible.—Cor. Houston Post. Aerial Torpedoes. The Marine Francaise publishes an ar ticle by Admiral Reveillere, in which he assures his readers that a revolution in naval affairs is approaching not less im portant than that caused by the intro duction of armored ships. The gun will cease its contest with the armor plate in the sense of seeking to penetrate by its shock, and will henceforth scatter de struction by launching explosive shells of large capacity at comparatively low velocities. A shell containing 100 kilo grams of panclastite would, he says, be a veritable torpedo, and would infal libly destroy whatever it fell upon. The gun for this service would be a mortar, such as is used for military purposes, and in the admiral's view a mortar of 22 cm. (8.6 inches) would replace a gun of 14 cm. (5.5 inches), and one of 27 cm. (10.6 inches) a gun of 16 cm. (6.2 inches), wherever those are found. Guns of high velocity, he says, must be reserved for action against the per sonnel; they have henceforth no place against the ship itself. This proposal is but an extension of Admiral Reveillere’s project of swift mortar vessels, analo gous to torpedo boats, but constructed for the launching of aerial torpedoes. Tho Care of the Soldier. “The five years now drawing to a close have been marked beyond any similar period in the history of the mili tary establishment by legislation and modification of regulations calculated to ameliorate the condition and improve the situation and surroundings of th® enlisted men.” This is taken from the report of the adjutant general of the army. New quarters of the most im proved designs have been erected, the vegetable component of the ration has been increased, post exchanges have been established, the clothing has been increased, new barrack furniture and equipments have been supplied, a method of procuring discharges by purchase has been provided and tho enlisted men have the option at the end of three years’ service of re turning to civil life with an honorable discharge, and the existing methods of lighting, heating and ventilation of the quarters leave nothing to be desired. It would seem that the enlisted man has no longer reasonable ground of com plaint. His material surroundings are far in advance of those prevailing in any European army.—Jsew York Tribune.