ODDS AND ENDS. 



AS OTHERS SEE US. 

 While Christian people are prone to tell 

 what thej r think about the heathen, we 

 very seldom have a chance to know what 

 the heathen think about us. We are 

 given this opportunity in an extract that 

 appears in a recent number of the Literary 

 Digest, translated from the Frankfurter 

 Zeitung, giving the opinions of a China- 

 man who lives near Shanghai. We are 

 sorry not to be able to quote the entire 

 extract. 



"We are always told that the countries 

 of the foreign devils are grand and rich, 

 but that can not be true, else what do they 

 all come here for? It is here that they 

 grow rich. But you can not civilize them; 

 they are beyond redemption. They will 

 live weeks and months without touching a 

 mouthful of rice, but they eat the flesh of 

 bullocks and sheep in enormous quantities. 



They eat with knives 



and prongs; it makes a civilized being 

 perfectly nervous. One fancies himself 

 in the presence of sword-swallowers. The 

 opium poison, which they brought us, 

 they do not use themselves. But they 

 take enormous quantities of weskichu and 

 shang-ping-chu [whiskey and champagne.] 

 The latter is very good. They know what 

 is good, the rascals. It is because they 

 eat and drink so much that they never 

 rest. A sensible civilized person does 

 nothing without due consideration; but 

 the barbarians hurry with everything. . . . 



They certainly do not know 



how to amuse themselves. You never see 

 them enjoy themselves by sitting quietly 

 upon their ancestor's grave. They jump 

 around and kick balls as if they were paid 

 to do it." In speaking of our dances he 

 says the women "are dragged around the 

 room to the accompaniment of the most 

 hellish music." 



SUGAR BEETS FOR ALKALI SOILS. 

 According to European experience one 

 would expect that an alkali soil would be 

 among the last to suit sugar beet culture. 

 It is almost a maxim that this culture can 

 not be successful on salty soils, since ex- 

 perience has shown that on such lands the 

 sugar content and purity coefficient of the 

 juice will be low, while the content of ash 

 and saline matter will be high. In Cali- 

 fornia, also, this has been fully verified 

 where the sugar beet has been grown on 

 the seacoast marsh lands; the best seed 

 there produce roots with 5 per cent to 6 

 per cent sugar, and with a purity that is 20 

 deg. * * * It seemed at least probable 

 that Glauber's salts and sal soda (sulphate 

 and carbonate of toda) would also act un- 

 favorably on the quality of the beet for 

 sugar making. The culture experiments 

 made at the San Joaquin Valley Station 

 have confirmed this presumption, in so far 

 that high grade roots have not been ob- 

 tained. As certain alkali soils have been 

 used with excellent results- at Chino it is 

 interesting to learn of the conclusion 

 drawn by the chemists mentioned in fore- 

 going. The data and observations re- 

 corded, while still requiring confirmation 

 in regard to details, prove beyond ques- 

 tion that sugar beets of good, and even 

 high grade, both as to sugar and purity, 

 may be grown on lands containing as much 

 as 12,000 pounds of alkali salts per acre 

 to depth of three feet; provided, that the 

 percentage of common salt in the soil does 

 not exceed an average of 0.04 per cent., or 

 1500 pounds per acre. Even this may 

 not, of course, represent the maximum 

 compatible with good quality, but is the 

 highest figure that has yielded such, viz., 

 good quality is the course of our experi- 

 ment thus far. 



Farmers in pulling their beets shoul 



