772 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



keeping his lands under wheat. The land occupier has seen his 

 profit wiped out, and has been forced to obtain a reduction in rent, or 

 to migrate to the towns, colonies, or foreign countries. The farm 

 laborer, never in even a good position, has found precarious work, 

 and has become migratory in his restlessness. This has been fol- 

 lowed by a rise in wages, through the scarcity of farm hands, but 

 the employers complain that under higher wages less and therefore 

 more costly results are obtained. The value of land in the return 

 for taxation shows a great shrinkage. In 1872 the value of lands 

 in England so returned was £48,964,149, and it increased each year, 

 reaching a maximum of £51,811,234 in 1877. In 1895 it had 

 fallen to £39,680,346 — a decrease of twenty-three per cent, or nearly 

 one fourth. This becomes the more striking when compared 

 with the rise in the value of houses from £76,475,194 in 1872, to 

 £133,511,890 in 1895. From these figures it may be judged how 

 severe has been the crisis in English agriculture, yet a crisis that 

 has not permanently increased the cost of wheat and thus burdened 

 the other industries of the empire. 



A SPKING VISIT TO NASSAU. 



By EMMA G. CUMMINGS. 



^YTT~ITHOUT indulging in too familiar details of an ocean voy- 

 V V age, let me briefly sketch some interesting features of my 

 visit to Nassau in the month of March, for the island of New Provi- 

 dence is unique and interesting on account of its wonderful flowers 

 and trees as well as the curious customs of its picturesque natives. 



One interesting bit of the voyage from New York was the sight 

 of the " Sargasso Sea," which we reached the third day out, after 

 crossing the Gulf Stream. We came upon water of an intensely 

 dark, indigo blue, filled with lovely delicate floating seaweeds, such as 

 we had never seen before. It seemed impossible to believe that the 

 water itself was entirely colorless, and one young lady on board in- 

 sisted that the captain must be wrong in saying it was the same as 

 the rest of the ocean; whereupon the captain ordered a bucketful 

 to be dipped up, when it was found to be no bluer than the rest. 



The next da}' we reached Nassau. Clad in our thinnest summer 

 clothes, we left the steamer outside the bar and were taken on a 

 tender up to the wharf, where the usual crowd of natives had gath- 

 ered to see us land. For the most part they were a leisurely and 

 good-natured lot of colored people, for negroes far outnumber the 

 whites. Looking over the rail on the other side of the tender, an 



