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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Mammoth Tomato Vine. 



BY H. E. ZIMMERMAN, MT. MORRIS, ILL. 



Santa Ana, California, boasts of what 

 was probably the largest and most pro- 

 ductive tomato vine in the world. It 

 came up spontaneously on the premises 





A TOMATO VINE WHICH GREW TO A HEIGHT 

 OF MORE THAN FIFTEEN FEET. 



of J. M. Feighner during the spring of 

 1916. It grew to a height of twelve 

 feet, and spread till it was eighteen 

 feet across. Had Mr. Feighner's bun- 

 galow not interfered with its growth, 

 it is hard to tell just how far this vine 

 would have gone. Expecting that it 

 would produce unusual results, Mr. 

 Feighner asked the Chamber of Com- 

 merce to take charge of it, see to hav- 

 ing the fruit gathered and the vine of- 

 ficially photographed. Before the vine 

 died six hundred and eleven perfect 

 tomatoes were picked from it, or more 

 than six bushels, worth about twelve 

 dollars. 



The foregoing was referred to Mr. 

 Feighner. He replied as follows : 



"I can verify the statements as to 

 the mammoth tomato vine. At the 

 time the picture was taken the vine was 

 not at its best. It grew to a height of 

 more than fifteen feet. 



"We gathered one thousand good 



sized and perfect tomatoes ; not a de- 

 cayed one was ever found on the vine, 

 and at the time it was taken down (a 

 necessity that we much regretted) for 

 the purpose of building an addition to 

 the bungalow, many blossoms and 

 small tomatoes still remained. We neg- 

 lected to get another picture of it after 

 the Chamber of Commerce photograph- 

 ed it. 



"People that had never seen anything 

 of its kind came from some distance 

 to view it." 



He Had Studied Sheep. 



Teacher : "Tommy, if there are ten 

 sheep in a field and one jumps over the 

 fence, how many will be left"? Tom- 

 my : "None." Teacher : "Why, Tom- 

 my ! I've been teaching you substrac- 

 tion a whole year. Try again. How 

 many would be left"? Tommy: "None, 

 Teacher, you may know subtraction, 

 but you don't know sheep." — Credit 

 Lost. 



An Australian Mouse or Rat Trap. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle (London) 

 reprints from the Queensland (Aus- 

 tralia) Agricultural Journal a sketch 

 and description of an ingenious trap for 

 rats and mice, reproduced herewith. A 

 small board is placed with one end rest- 

 ing on the rim of an ordinary pail near- 

 ly half full of water, and the other end 

 on the ground. A piece of wire is 

 stuck into the end of the board, three 

 cotton spools strung on the wire, and 

 its end turned up, with the bait fastened 

 on the top. The best bait is a piece of 

 cooked bacon or toasted cheese. The 

 trap has been found very successful, the 



AN EASILY MADE TRAP. 



mice standing on the spools in an at- 

 tempt to obtain the bait, and overbal- 

 ancing into the water. — Rural New 

 Yorker. 



