Newspaper Page Text
Commissioner Le Doc on Agrrioultnral
Matters.
A reporter gives the following inter
' view with W in. G. Le Due, Commis
sioner of Agriculture: The reporter
asked what was doing in the matter of
beet sugar?
• \\ ell, we now have in pres.' a::i article
covering eighteen months’ investigation
of that subject. I would prefer to talk
to you about sorghum as a sugar-pro
ducing crop. The department at Wash
ington is 'experimenting in these things
all the time it is doubtful if beet-sugar
can be profitably made in this country;
of sugar from sorghum there can be no
doubt. Sorghum sugar is made at Ed
wardsville, Illinois, by a farmer named
Schwartz, and also largely manufactured
in Minnesota. It can be made at ten
cents a pound. Now, as 200 gallons of
heavy sorghum syrup can be produced to
the acre, and 160 gallons where the cul
tivation is not specially attended to, and
as each gallon will make ten pounds of
crystalized sugar, it can readily be seen
that the making of sorghum sugar, 1,500
to 2,000 pounds to .the acre, is a very
profitable thing.
“ Indiana has a much better climate
and better soil for the growth of sorg
hum than Minnesota has. Another thing
in favor of sorghum as a sugar crop: it
can be grown over a wide extent of
country, wherever corn is grown. Now,
the beet, for sugar, is restricted to a very
small area of territory, and depends
more on meteorlogical conditions than on
specific properties of soil. Small sugar
refineries,for making sugar from sorghum,
have been erected in several places.
There is one near Chicago, I think an
other at Faribault, Minn., and another
at St. Louis. The sugar is as good as
that from the sugar-cane, and can be
made as white and hard as any loaf-sugar
ever manufactured.”
“ Your tea experiments; what has be
come of them?”
“ We will grow all our own tea in this
country, too, before we have done with
this thing. Those of the Southern
States that have enough rain-fall are
admirably adapted to tea-growing. I
believe at the Government gardens
the—”
“ The botanical gardens,” suggested
the reporter.
“ No, sir; those are kept by a man
named Smith, and used by the Congress
men and executive officers to furnish
them with bouquets and cut-flowers. No,
sir; 1 mean the department gardens, in
which are kept all sorts of plants, native
and foreign. I have at these gardens, as
I was saying, several thousand tea
plants, all raised from seeds which were
gicked from tea-plants growing in the
outhern States. This proves, yon see,
that tea-plants can be grown here. But
they will never be grown in the far West,
lam afraid. The climate is too dry, but
still they can be grown there, and grown
rapidly, too, but the ground must be well
irrigated. The Southern States is the
proper field for this industry in America.
You can grow some tea in Indiana, but I
hardly think that the climate is particu
larly adapted to it. In time every
family in this State may be able to raise
its own supply of tea, and prepare the
leaves for the pot in each house, but I
am sure that it will never be a staple
crop of the State.
“ I am meeting with great success in
the distribution of Fultz wheat for seed
purposes in the State. The farmers can
raise larger crops than from any other
sort of seed. And, although they make
from two to three cents less per bushel,
they raise enough more bushels to the
acre to make a handsome profit from it.
For the new process millers want a
harder wheat for their use. I have re
cently purchased some black-bearded
wheat from New Zealand, which I sent
to Maryland, and in that sandy, sterile
soil it produced the enormous yield of
thirty-eight bushels to the acre. Now,
if it will yield so much as that in Mary
land, it will do equally as well in simi
lar soils in similar climates in other
States. I shall watch that experiment
with great anxiety.”
Garibaldi’s Domestic Troubles.
The old man, says a correspondent oi
the Philadelphia Bulletin, feels his quasi
banishment deeply, and he feels equally
the injustice shown him on the subject
of liis unfortunate marriage, which he is
seeking to have annulled, and which
would be annulled were he any other
man than Garibaldi. You know the
story. He marries a young girl whom
he thinks pure. She has loved and lovei
another; but she marries Garibaldi, wlic
was then a star, a hero. Nor is this all
she is a mother, and even after her mar
riage, continues her love for the father of
her child. She dishonors Garibaldi’?
name in every way, and Garibaldi can
not obtain an annulment of this mar
riage, whereas any other man in Italy
would have obtained it long ago. The
old General, consequently, is not in a
very pleasant mood just now. Victor
Hugo, it seems, knows this, for he lias
invited him to renounce Iris nationality
and turn French, since Nice, his native
town, is French. By this means he
would be free from his wife, who detests
’.even his name, and his present position
would be legitimized and his children
also. But it is not likely that he will
accept this means of freeing himself,
however dear this freedom may be to
him. We are, however, watching the
result of Victor Hugo’s proposition with
some interest.
She was dashing and flirty, and when
she said her father was a broker and was
connected with one of the leading rail
roads in the country, all the men at the
watering place were after her. They
didn’t discover until the end of the sea
son that her paternal relative broke the
trains.
A WA'.:'s word is the main spring of
. •<* character. Once break the main
11 ‘ring, and, like a watch, the man runs
7™
Interesting Wheat Statistics.
A Mr. Scott, a most trustworthy Eng
lish authority on agricultural statistics,
says the Rural Xnc- Yorker , places the
shortage on this year’s wheat crop in
England at 30 per cent, below that of
the average crop. He has been figuring,
from the best attainable data, upon the
probable relation between supply and
demand in the wheat markets of the
world for the present crop, and has given
to the public the result of his calcula
tions in a recent letter to the London
Times. Briefly summarized in a tabular
form for the sake of clearness, his con
clusions arc as follows: The estimated
surpluses of wheat, after repeated re
visions down to the beginning of Septem
ber, are put down for—
The United States and Canada at 192,000,000 bushel*
Russia 40,000,000 “
Turkey Egypt India and Australia 24,000,000 “
Algeria.... 1,000,009 “
Aggregate surplus 157,600,009 M
On-the other hand, to supply their
wants for ordinary consumption, it is esti
mated that there will be needed by
England 136,000,000 bushcla
France 64,0<X',000 “
Raly 20,000,000 “
Belgium with Switzerland, China
and the West ludies, 16,000,-
000 bushels each 48,000,000 “
Austro-Ilungary, Germany, Spain
with Portugal, 8,000, 00 each.. 24,000,000 “
Holland 6,000,000 “
Tolal deficiency 298,0’ o,’ 00 “
Total surplus to supply it. 257,600,000 “
' Deficiency iosupplied 40,400,000 “
From information in our possession,
collected from various sources, we are
disposed to believe that the surplus from
this side of the Atlantic is considerably
understated in the above estimate; but
there is no doubt that the demand will
fully equal the supply, and prices there
fore mu3t be strongly in sellers’ favor.
Continental buyers, especially French,
have hitherto been the heaviest investors
at advanced rates; but English pur
chasers must soon, however reluctantly,
follow their example, and when they do,
the upward movement will be more
strongly felt in our home markets. Al
ready, in face of by far the largest im
portations of grain that have ever oc
curred, prices for wheat are steadily ris
ing in the markets of Great Britain.
Spanish Living and Dying.
|Castilian Days.]
The Spanish father is absolute king
and lord by his own hearthstone, but his
sway is so mild that it ia hardly felt. A
light word between husband and wife
sometimes goes unexplained, and the
rift between them widens through life.
They cannot be divorced—they will not
incur the scandal of a public separation
—and, as they pass lives of lonely isola
tion in adjoining apartments, both think
rather better of each/Other and of them
selves for this devilish persistence.
If men are never henpecked except by
learned wives, Spain would be the place
of all others for timid men to marry in.
The girls are bright and vivacious, but
they have never crossed, even in school
day excursion, the border lines of the
ologies. They have an old proverb which
coarsely conveys this idea—that “A
Christian woman in good society ought
not to know anything beyond her cookery
book and her missal.”
An ordinary' Spaniard is sick but once
in his life, and the old traditions which
represent the doctor and death as always
hunting in couples still survive in Spain.
In all well-to-do families the house of
death is always deserted immediately
after the funeral and the stricken ones
retire and pass eight days in inviolable
seclusion. Children are buried in coffins
of a gray color, pink or blue, and carried
open to the grave.
A luxury of grief consists in shutting
up the house where a death has taken
place and never suffering it to be opened
again. I once saw a beautiful house
and wide garden thus abandoned in one
of the most fashionable streets of Madrid.
The wife of a certain Duke had died
there many years before. The Duke
lived in Paris, leading a rattling life,
but he would never sell or “let” that
Madrid home. Perhaps in his heart,
that battered thoroughfare, there was a
silent spot where, through the gloom of
dead days, he could catch a glimpse of a
white hand, the rustle of a trailing robe,
and feel sweeping over him the magic of
love’s dream, softening his fancy to
tender regret.
The End of tlie World.
A lecture delivered at the Berlin Uni
versity some three months: ago by Pro
fessor Du Bois Reymond bears the omi
nous title, “The End of Our World,” and
says that every movement of our planet,
with the exception of the ebb and flood,
which is caused by the attraction of the
moon, is occasioned by solar heat. As,
however, the sun loses every year a por
tion of this caloric, science has lately
come to the conclusion that he will not
exist as an emitter of warmth more than
seventeen million years to come. During
that space of time our earth will get
colder and colder, in proportion as the
solar heat shall diminish. The ice will
advance from the poles to the equator;
the earth’s population will gradually re
cede before the advancing glaciers; the
sun will become less and less luminous,
until he will present the appearance of
a dark-red ball; and finally ice will an
nihilate all vitality on our planet.
<
Robert Collyer’s Desire.
Robert Collyer said in his last sermon
in Chicago: “ You have never held me,”
he said, “ as one set above you who could
not laugh and enjoy sport and a whole
some play; a man who might stay to
supper, but sure to go out before the
dance began, or who must eat only
lentils and cresses, like the old anchor
ites, and never tell a story not based on
Holy Writ. None of these things; for
it has been my pride to be one with you,
to the peril, perhaps, of ministerial
dignity;! don’t care a cent for that.”
"-bool-House Location Settled.
Yesterrkiv l ™ roit Frce Presa l
in the
said he must have a pK— 1 ]. . ■
with the President if it’’
suspenders. He had come twenty-ejgj, t
miles in a lumber wagon on purpose to
see the “old man ” and have him settle
a neighborhood dispute regarding the
location of a school-house.
“ You see,” he explained to an interest
ing knot of listeners, “ the Thomas crowd
are bound and determined to locate the
school-house down there by the Widder
Huirs, which is the worst place on the
hull road, while the rest of us want it
up on the Jackson hill, which is airy and
salubrious and handy to two creeks and
a mill-pond. The Thomas crowd are
cracking their heels just now, and they
think they’ve got the bulge on us, but I
rather think if the President of the
great United States decides in favor of
the hill the school-house will be planted
there. It’s a little dodge of mine to see
him. The Thomas crowd don’t even
suspect what I’m up to, and when I
reach home to-night there’ll be wailing
and gnashing of teeth, and don’t you rec
ollect it!”
There were men in the crowd who
sympathized with him and were willing
to aid him in securing an interview. It
took only about ten minutes to so ar
range matters that the school-house man
was walked around to the- southern en
trance of the hall and introduced to ex-
Coroner Cahill, who looks as near ike
Hayes as one pea resembles another.
The “ President ” bowed, shook hands,
and with a kindly smile inquired:
“ Well, Mr. Slammer, what can I do
for you? Don’t be afraid to speak right
out. I used to wear out old clothes and
carry a red nose myself, and I am ready
to sympathize with you.”
Mr. Slammer winced a little at this
personal allusion, which was responded
to by a horse laugh from the little
crowd, but he soon got his breath and
began:
“ Well, you perhaps don’t know the
Thomas crowd f ’
“ Yes Id bet I do!” responded
tlie “President,” “ and they are a migHty
good crowd of boys, too.”
“They—are —eh?” slowly inquired Mr.
Slammer. Why, I don’t think so.”
“I can’t help what you think,” blunt
ly replied the President as he cocked his
hat on his ear. il I tell you the boys are
all right, and I’ll bet on ’em every time.
You can’t give me no wind on that
crowd - no sir?”
“Then—then you’ve heard about that
school-house trouble, eh?” grasped Mr.
Slammer.
“ Yes, I have, and you’ve got to come
right down off the roost! That school
house is going to be built down by the
Widow Hull’s, and don’t you forget it!”
“ What! down thar’dn the holler? ’
“Yes, sir—that's the place for it; can’t
get me to favor putting any school
house on your infernal old hill!”
“ Waal, Mr. President, I’m sorry that
>?
“Sorry be hanged!” interrupted the
“chief magistrate” in a gruff voice.
“ What do I care how sorry vou are.”
“Why—why !”
“ Don’t you why at me, sir—don’t you
do it! Although I’m President of the
United States 111 allow no man to why
at me!”
“ Why !”
“You villain!” roared the executive
as he made a grab for Mr. Sammer’s col
lar, but Mr. Slammer stepped back about
ten feet at that moment and was hustled
around the corner.
“ Well!” inquired one of the party as
they came to a halt.
“ Waal, I’ll be durned!” hoarsely whis
pered Mr. Slammer. “ Why, hang it, I
not only got bilked on the school-house
business, hut come mighty near gettin'
blazes knocked out of me!”
“Something wrong, somewhere,” sighed
one of the jokers.
“ I'll tell you what it is,” replied Mr.
Slammer, striking his finger down at
every word—“ he’s been sawn! Some of
that Thomas crowd has got in ahead of
me and cut all the wheat!”
The Right Sort of Men.
[The British Quarterly.
You will find, as a rule, that the men
who are favorites with men are the best
and truest in their relations to women.
Yes, the men who like sometimes to
turn their backs on all women, and go
ott‘ “ with the other fellows,” and have a
good, boyish time on the water, or the
mountain, or in some other man’s “ den.”
Women never need be afraid to trust
their happiness to those whom other
good men esteem good fellows; but if a
man is avoided by men, however much
women admire him, shun him. It is he
who has flirtations that come to nothing,
and has “ not been very nice” to the
girls who have broken their engagements
with him; who, when he marries, wrings
his wife’s heart, if she has one, and
spoils her temper if she is naturally an
angel. Manly men are the best lovers,
the best husbands, the best companions
for women, just as women ly women are
the best sweethearts and wives. What
do we think of women who shun their
own sex, however charming men may
find them? It is seldom, if ever, that
your men’s favoi’ite ill-uses his wife.
Perhaps it may he explained in this
way—friendship of a sublimated sort is
what love becomes after a year or so of
marriage, and he w'ho is friendly to the
very depths of his soul enters into this
state happily, and is ready for all the
delights that follow. But a man who is
capable of nothing but that fleeting af
fection which ever pursues anew object,
and cares for no woman when she is
won, hates the domestic t ies and becomes
detestable in consequence. It is the
man who would die for his friend, and
for whom his friend would die, who
makes a miraculously happy wife of the
woman to whom he scarcely knew liow
to make love when he courted her.
Buffalo Bill’s Yicws.
[Toledo Commercial.!
Born upon the Western prairies, and
reared amid wild scenes of tumult, his
father murdered in their early days
when Kansas, with the struggle of a
voung giant, was shaking off the yoke of
*'V'Hn slavery, a trained Indian fighter,
taking fi * r st scalp at the age of
twelve, ana baying served his young
State in earliest i*-uhood as a trusted
and honored member <A the Legislature,
it is propable that Wm. F. Cody is as
well acquainted with all that pertains
to the West as any other living man.
“ What are your ideas on the Indian
problem, Mr. Cody? In other words,
what would you do to secure a better
and more economical management of
the Indian tribes by the government?”
“ I think I can sum up my policy in a
single sentence. It is this: Never make
a single promise to the Indians that is
not fulfilled. Agents promise too much.
Men of calm, prudent determination
must be sent among the Indians as
agents. Those who are sent, often know
nothing of the Indian character, and
either through fear, ignorance or dis
honesty are led into making promises
which the government cannot or will
not fulfill. Every Indian outbreak that
1 have ever known has resulted from
broken promises and broken treaties by
the government.”
“What do you think of the peace
policy or the policy of encouraging agri
cultural pursuits by the Indians, Mr.
Cody?”
“ It has already resulted in good and
will result in still greater good if hon
estly and intelligently pursued. You
cannot make an Indian work by stand
ing over him with a shot-gun. He must
be taught that it is to his interest to do
so, and brought into it by degrees. Too
much cannot be accomplished all at
once. But if a wise, firm policy is pur
sued the Indians will gradually drift into
agricultural pursuits.”
Speaking of the recent outbreak of the
Utes, Mr. Cody said he thought the In
dians were badly treated. He knew
that for years, miners, contrary to
treaty, had been settling upon their
lands. The Utes had protested and the
government paid no attention to them,
and they had finally taken the matter
into their own hands. Mr. Cody had
been with the Fifth Cavalry for six
years, and he was consequently well ac
quainted with the Utes. He had taken
the first scalp to avenge the Custer mas
sacre. On the same day he also killed
Red Knife.
Mr. Cody was at Cincinnati when he
heard of the Ute outbreak. He at once
went to work to secure some person to
take his part as “ Buflalo Bill” in his
Elay, and telegraphed to Sheridan that
e was at his service, and he will no
doubt be ordered to the West should the
trouble continue. Mr. Cody says he has
no fancy for Indian fighting, but as that
has been his lifelong profession lie sup
poses he can do it as well as any other
man, and if he is needed he is desirous
of giving to the government the best
service he can. He deeply sympathizes
with the Indians, but notwithstanding
all their wrongs, he knows that they
must give way to the whites.
Little by Little.
If you are gaining little by little every
day, "be content. Are your expenses less
than your income, so that, though it be
little, you are yet constantly accumulat
ing and growing richer and richer every
day? Be content; so far as concerns
money, you are doing well.
Are you gaining knowledge every day?
Though it be little by little, the aggre
gate accumulation, where no day is per
mitted to pass without adding something
to the stock, will be surprising to your
self.
Solomon did not become the wisest
man in the world in a minute. Little by
little—never omitting to learn some
thing even for a single day—always read
ing, always studying a little between the
time of raising in tne morning and lay
ing down at night; this is the way to ac
cumulate a full store-house of knowledge.
Finally you are daily improving in char
acter? Be not discouraged because it is
little by little. The best men fall far
short of what they themselves would
wish to be. It is something, it is much,
if you keep good resolutions better to
day than you did yesterday, better thi9
year than you did last year. Strive to
he perfect, but do not become down
hearted so long as you are approaching
nearer and nearer to the high standard
at which you aim.
Little by little, fortunes are accumu
lated; little by little, knowledge is
gained; little by little, character and
reputation are achieved.
Disappearance of a Lake of Lava
One feature of the last eruption of the
remarkable volcano in the Sandwich Is
lands, is the fact that the great molten
lake of lava, occupying a huge caldron
nearly a mile in length, and known as
tlie “ South Lake,” was drawn off* sub
terraneously, giving no warning of its
movements, and leaving no visible indi
cation of its pathway or the place of its
final deposit. “ Other eruptions,” writes
Hr. Coan to Professor Dean in a letter
dated June 20, “have blazed their way
on the surface of the sea, or while on
their subterranean way have rent the
superincumbent beds, throwing out jets
of steam or of sulphurous gases, with
here and there small patches or areas
of lava. But as yet, no surface marks
of this kind reveal the silent, solemn
course of this burning river. One theory
is that it flowed deep into subterranean
fissures, and finally disembogued far out
at sea. Our ocean was much disturbed
during those days, and we had what
might be called a tidal wave of moderate
magnitude.” The old process of replen
ishment which had gone on since the
last eruption in 1868, is reported to have
begun again, and after another decade
another dissrorgement may take place.
Poisonous Articles—Adulterations.
Iu commenting upon an address read
before the facial Science Association,
at Syracuse, N. Y., by Mr. George T.
Angel 1, recently, the Cincinnati Com
mncial editorially says: It would nat
urally be supposed that if a pure article
could arfywhere he found, it would be
in the matter of drugs. Yet Mr. Angell
says he was informed by an eminent doe
toi of Boston that so abominable are
the adulterations of drugs in this coun
try that often the medicine a physician
orders for a patient in extreme danger
possesses only a quarter the strength it
should have, because of its adulterations
and in consequence the patient dies. A
wholesale drug dealer of Boston stated
that the adulterations of drugs was now
so great that it was almost impossible
to make a living by the sale of honest
goods.
Thousands of tons of the meats of dis
eased animals, he said, are annually sold
in our markets, the detection of which,
after they are dressed, is almost impos
sible.
If the statements Mr. Angell makes
in regard to arsenic are true, it is sur
prising that the known cases of arsenic
poisoning are not more frequent. Dur
ing the year ending Ji*ne 20, 1875,
2,327,742 pounds o£ arsenic were im
ported into this county, each pound of
which contained enough poison to kill
2,800 persons.
It is sold in our markets at a whole
sale price of two cents per pound, and is
used in wall papers, paper curtains,
lamp shades, boxes, wrapping papers for
confectionary, tickets, cards, kindergar
ten papers, artificial flowers, dried gras
ses, eye-shades, ladies’ dress goods, veils,
sewing silks, threads, stockings, gents*
underwear, socks, gloves, hat linings,
boot and shoe linings, paper collars,
baby carriages, children’s toys, colored
enameled clothes, wool, silk, cotton and
leather goods, and in toilet powders and
candles. The case of a child in Troy,
N. Y., was cited who died in convulsions
by taking arsenic from a veil thrown
over its crib to keep off the flies. The
largest use of arsenic is in the prepara
tion of our wall papers. The poisonous
papers are of all colors and prices.
There can be no doubt, Mr. Angell says,
that thousands of people in this country
are now suffering, and |pany have died
from the effects of arsenical wall papers.
Lead poison is likely to become as no
torious as arsenic. Hundreds of thous
ands of people are now suffering from
lead poison taken from the water they
drink. But lead water-pipes are not the
worst form of lead poison. Many ves
sels used in the kitchen are manufac
tured from an alloy of tin and lead, the
the latter being used on account of its
comparative cheapness. The alloy is
readily acted upon by acids, and salts of
lead are thus introduced into food.
Cases are known of children having died
of meningitis, fits and paralytic affec
tions caused by milk kept in such ves
sels. The learned university chemist
declared the beautiful mottled ware
called “ marbelized iron ware,” which
has been largely manufactured in the
form of coffee-pots, tea-pots, milk cans,
sauce pans, etc., to be alive with poison.
The cheap tinware now coming into
daily use in our kitchens, our dairies,
etc., is composed largely of soluble lead.
The Journal of Chemistry advises the use
of sheet iron instead of the tinware
found to be so extensively poisonous.
Fatally Bitten by an Insect,
[Montreal Witness.]
This morning a resident of the Tan
neries named Robert Duffin, fifty-two
years of age, died from the bite of an
insect received last Sunday. The un
fortunate man then felt a sharp sting in
one of his arms, but whether it came
from a fly or not he was unable to de
tect. He rolled up his sleeve and per
ceived that the bite was a poisonous one,
and soon sent for a doctor, who did not,
however, apparently apprehend any
serious result. The arm, however, be
gan to swell, and the effect of the poison
began to be felt on the system, where
upon the physician was sent for again.
He cut out the part where the insect had
stung the unfortunate man, but the oper
ation came too late, and he died, as al
ready stated, this morning. A somewhat
similar case, it will he remembered, re
sulting in the death of a young man
bitten by a fly white out driving, oc
curred in this city about two years ago.
She Married the Wrong Man.
/Halifax Dispatch Toronto Mail.]
A curious case occurred here last
night. On Wednesday night a female
sought protection at the police station.
She said she was to be married the night
following to a corporal, of marines.
Last night she turned up at church, but
instead of the corporal, a private of
marines appeared to fill the post of
bridegroom. He had a license, and she
either did not notice the change for a
moment, or did not care, and the cere
mony was performed. It turned out
the corporal was drinking at a saloon to
nerve him for the expected task, while
the private, who had previously arranged
to cut him out, was being married. All
three subsequently met in a bar-room.
The bride was wild with grief, and
throwing her arms around the neck of
the man who was to have been her hus
band, swore she would never leave him.
The successful and unsuccessful suitors
then indulged in a long and hard fistic
combat. The bride refused to live with,
her husband and he left her.
To Kill Bedbugs—Dissolve ten
grains of corrosive sublimate in a half
pint of alcohol. Cork the bottle, mako
a hole in the cork and insert a quill
through which to pour the mixture.
Pour into every crack and crevice; it
will not only kill, but prevent the bugs
from returning. The mixture being
poison, should be labelled by a druggist.
It is the only effectual remedy.