OCTOBER 1, 191S 



699 



Tami)a. Florida, ai'e prepai-ing- to send seed 

 tubers by parcel post. If you want a peck 

 or a bushel or more I think you had better 

 write to the Brooksville Development Co., 

 Brooksville, Fla. That is where I got my 

 five bushels. 



Just one more word, dear friends. In 

 writing- up these articles on high-pressure 

 gardening and developing God's gifts it 

 would be out of place for me to have any- 

 thing- to sell. There would be a temptation 

 to exaggerate, and ] should not feel free to 

 commend or criticise as I do now ; therefore 

 please do not ask me to sell duck eggs, But- 

 tercup eggs, dasheen tubers, or any thing- I 

 have mentioned here. 



THK oi:ai)A bean, or solomox's i.slands 



GOURD. 



We are pleased to notice in the Florida 

 Times-Union a picture of the guada bean 

 that I have several times spoken of. Below 

 is what is said of them : 



Mr. Davis has proved that these strange vegetables 

 will grow in Florida, and of them he says, facetious- 

 ly, in his paper. The Winter Garden Times, " Beans 

 is beans. We now have on two vines of the guada 

 bean or Solomon's Islands gourd, seventeen pods 

 which measure from a foot to 44 ^^ inches in length, 

 which certainly strengthens our claim that ' Beans is 

 beans.' 



" We overcame our scruples Sunday, and cut 

 three small ones that had curled up, and which we 

 thought would not make good seed, and cooked them. 



They \ter*> exi-ellent, and remind one of the string 

 bean or asparagus. We cooked in salted water; and 

 with some creamery butter at 45 cents a pound, and 

 pepper, they were good eating. It took about fifteen 

 minutes to cook them tender. 



" We have demonstrated that these beans could be 

 grown in Florida during the hot summer months, 

 and now we wish to try them for September, Octo- 

 ber, and November. We have two vines just coming 

 through the ground ; and if they mature in two 

 months they might be ready for shipment in Novem- 

 ber. We expect to ship on a flat car and cord them 

 up like cord wood. Nothing smaller than five-foot 

 beans will be shipped." 



I think it is now pretty well demonstrat- 

 ed that this bean can be grown in Ohio as 

 well as in Florida; for notwithstanding the 

 exceedingly cold and backward spring, and 

 the further fact that we did not get the 

 bean in time to plant early, we have now 

 several pods big enough to cook. Very 

 likely they will not grow long enough to 

 be "corded up" as mentioned above; but 

 if they are as good as asparagus they are 

 certainly a great acquisition. 



Later. — To-day, Sept. 17, our good friend 

 Henry Borcher, of Laredo, Tex., has sent 

 us a guada bean, by express, 30 inches long. 

 We had a part of it for breakfast, and I 

 should say it tasted like something halfway 

 between a summer scjuash and asparagus; 

 and it is, without question, a very pleasant 

 and nutritious food. I imagine it wants a 

 good rich soil; but it promises to be quite 

 an addition to our list of garden vegetables. 



Temperance 



Perhaps I should explain, before giving 

 the following, that Akron, Ohio, is a big- 

 city with between 200 and 300 saloons. 

 With this in mind, read the following from 

 the Ohio Messenger: 



DOUBLE ST.\XDARn .\T AKRON, OHIO. 



Up at Akron, Ohio, the addle-pated men have li- 

 censed a lot of saloons to spread disease and degra- 

 dation among the people. 



The taxpayers make it a condition of conducting 

 the infamous business that the saloonkeepers deliver 

 over a part of the profits of the traffic. 



In the nets thus spread, a lot of young people 

 have been caught, and sent reeling toward the Pit. 



Many of these are young girls, lured into these 

 traps designed by fool men for that purpose, and 

 there their lives have been wrecked. 



It appears that since .January 1 twenty-four men 

 have pleaded guilty to or have been convicted of con- 

 tributing to the delinquency of young girls. The sa- 

 loon was the chief instrument through which these 

 vipers operated. 



Out of the twenty-four, only seven are undergoing 

 punishment. The others are under suspended sen- 

 tences in whole or in part, or are running around 

 on bond. 



Swift punishment was the invariable fate of the 

 girls. 



The women of Akron are up in arms at this, and 

 demand the punishment of the men along with the 

 women. 



Bnt justice in Akron wears pants; and, being a 



part of the electorate, it shares in the miserable 

 guilt. It is part of the body politic that votes to li- 

 cense the business, and then goes around snivelling 

 about the natural, unerring results. 



If the women could make any worse mess of 

 things than the men have done, if given the ballot, 

 tlien popular government is, indeed, in a sorry plight. 



'' something's the MATTER WITH KANSAS." 



We make the following extract from an 

 article in the American Advan-ce for Sept. 

 6, copied from the Philadelphia North 

 American. 



A few days ago, when the whole country was wor- 

 rying about the unprecedented heat and drouth in 

 the West, the governor of Kansas issued a public 

 statement saying he hoped no one would waste pity 

 on the people of his State. 



" With more than 1200,000,000 on deposit in our 

 State and National banks, we could weather a worse 

 storm than this without hardship," he said. 



And when you stop to think that this money, di- 

 vided equally among the men, women, children, and 

 babies of Kansas, would give each of them $118 in 

 cash, not to mention the tidy sum of $1684 each is 

 credited with as his or her share of the State's as- 

 sessed wealth, you can see the force of the argument. 



As a matter of fact, Kansas, which last year pro- 

 duced $325,000,000 worth of farm products, can 

 better afford such a roasting and drying up than 

 any other State in the Union, for her per capita 

 wealth is larger than that of any other State. 



