California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



I The child was hiimorecl and 



' the mother and shop-keeper both taught 

 ^ 11 lesson that it would be well for all to 



l.r-ep in mind — to avoid pretending to be 



dift'erent from what you are. 



And now, good-bye all, and be sure 



and see that "Our Comer" is full next 



month. Every month wo want some 



puzzle that will be w-orth a pair of chro- 



mos to beat. 



GRANDMA'S TALKS- 



Easy Lessons from Nature—No. 3. 



Well, children, how many of you are 

 ready to tell what will change ice to 

 water, or to steam? Johnny says if he 

 warms the ice it turns into water, then 

 when the water gets hot enough it turns 

 into steam. Now this is a fact worth 

 knowing and remembering, that lietit is 

 the cause of all the chaiVjcs of matter from 

 the solid to the fluid condition. 



iVfter a shower do you see any of that 

 kind of work done by the sun? It rained 

 last night, and .Johnny and Lucy a look- 

 ing eagerly out of the window to see — 

 what? That steam or vapor is rising 

 from the roof of the barn. Look sharp, 

 children, and you will see vapors rising 

 from the ground, fences, houses and 

 lake, as if hurrying up to make more 

 clouds, which will fall to the earth again 

 in rain. 



Lucy asks what stops the steam np in 

 the air — why it don't go clear np to the 

 Ktars and never come down again. John- 

 ny calls her a "goosie" to ask such a 

 ([uestion. But can you answer her,mas- 

 ter Johnny? Then you want to know 

 the reason, too, don't you? 



Breathe on the window glass, Lucy, 

 and what is the result? Oh! you cannot 

 see through the glass; you have made a 

 tiny cloud there. You may laugh, but 

 it ii' a real cloud. Now breathe ten or 

 twelve times in the same place. You 

 see the little cloud is beginning to rain. 

 At first the drops were so very small they 

 scarcely appeared to be water, but by 

 adding more steam or breath they have 

 increased in size until too heavy to stick 

 to the glass and are falling like rain. 



If heat causes water to change into 

 ^tfam, what happens when heat is taken 

 liutof the steam? Johnny says truly 

 tiiat it will turn into water again. What 

 cliauges your breath (which is vapor or 

 steam) int*water on the window pane? 

 That is I'ight, Lucy. Feel if the glass is 

 cold. You have found out the reason, 

 now. And if we took a great deal more 

 heat out of those drops, what then? They 

 would turn to snow or ice. That is Jack 

 Frost's work on the window panes in 

 freezing weather. Perhaps you have 

 never seen his beautiful work in this 

 mild climate. 



I must tell you now that even in coun- 

 tries where the weather is always exces- 

 sive warm the tops of the highest moun- 

 tains are covered with snow; also, that 

 the people who travel in balloons always 

 notice that the air grows colder as they 

 rise higher and higher (for balloons fre- 

 quently sail into and through the clouds) . 

 Now, children, what stops any vapor 

 or steam from rising and turns it back to 

 the earth in rain? You are right, little 

 Lucy. The cold air, stops it, for that 

 takes the heat out of the steam, which 

 forms into clouds of tiny drops of water, 

 falling in rain when they become heavy 

 enough. And now Johnny will not call 

 you a "goosie,' so readily again, I think. 

 Thus, you understand that the atoms 

 composing water are not destroyed, but 

 are continually taking one of the three 

 j forms wc have mentioned: solid, liquid, 

 or vapor. For instance, fresh falling 

 tain is forrard of the water-atoms which 



have fallen over and over again; for 

 since the creation of the earth not an 

 atom has been destroyed of any kind of 

 matter. 



Lucy says Bridget has certainly de- 

 stroyed her dolly's hat, for she threw it 

 in the fire and it is gone entirely. Not 

 so, Lucy; the form only is changed. Y'ou 

 can't fit it on your dolly now, I know. 

 It has certainly lost its fashionable shape 

 and all its beauty as a hat; but every 

 atom still exists, and perhaps takes more 

 space than it did before, only your little 

 eyes can't see it. In the bright flame it 

 vanished from your sight, turning into 

 smoke or gas, leaving only a few ashes 

 visible. 



Here I have a little toy called "Pha- 

 raoh's serpent's egg." It is no larger 

 than a white bean. I light it carefully 

 with a match. See it burn! Children, 

 dont think it is really growing into a live 

 snake, though it looks very much like 

 one as, fold after fold, it wriggles out of 

 the burning egg. That is only the ashes 

 you see forming, and some portion of 

 that little egg has also passed off in 

 smoke. 



I suppose you consider smoke " noth- 

 ing," but you really h.ave seen some- 

 thing, Johnny and Lucy, that increases 

 in size by burning. The ashes are 

 formed by a new combination of the 

 atoms in the egg and the atoms in the 

 air, caused by applying heat. 



Our lesson to-day has been about a 

 property, belonging alike to all matter, 

 which philosophers call inckslmchbility . 

 Lucy says it is too long a word for such 

 a little girl to remember, but as it has 

 only seven syllables, by taking two syl- 

 lables a week I think you can learn it 

 well during the month. 



€nxt^mU\iU. 



A POLITICAL ENIGMA SOLVED. 



BY UNCLE SAM. 



Dear Editor: An article in a San 

 Francisco paper accounting for the pres- 

 ent hard times by the fact that our taxes 

 exceed our exports, suggests to me a few 

 thoughts that possibly you may find 

 room for. 



A heavy tax is not necessarily detri- 

 mental to the prosperitj' of the country. 

 If the money raised by taxation is 

 promptly and evenly distributed among 

 the people, and in such a manner as to 

 help the work of the country, it may be 

 a great benefit. 



I have a force of men working my 

 ranch, and tax them ten dollars each for 

 a "Hail Columbia" fund. It looks like 

 a heavy tax; but if I pay each man a 

 dollar every time he whistles or sings 

 "Hail Columbia" the men soon have the 

 money in their pockets, and the place is 

 benefitted by the cheery influence and 

 patriotic suggestions of that good, old 

 tune. Should I insist upon a stave of 

 "Dixie Land" being sung or whistled 

 before, each bar of "Hail Columbia," my 

 men w-ill probably discuss, quan-el, and 

 raise more discords than there are in both 

 tunes kept apart, and ni}' "Hail Colum- 

 bia" fund will come to grief. 



It is better that Congress should refuse 

 to vote a Centennial fund, than to force 

 ■'Hail Columbia" and "Dixie" on the 

 same platform. 



Should I pay the "Hail Columbia" 

 fund to a baud of Chinese musicians, and 

 thus send it nearly unbroken across the 

 Pacific, my men would feel the discord 

 of the transaction, and there would be 

 less money to carry on business on the 

 place. 



Should I give it to any one man in 



such a shape that he could hire my men 

 at increased wages to build some orna- 

 mental work that would return no equiv- 

 alent to the country, both ranch and 

 men would eventually suft'er a loss, as 

 during this absence my ranch has not 

 prospered, and where the ranch or coun- 

 try goes down hill, the workmen follow. 



Some of my men on the south side of 

 the ranch got dissatisfied, jumped the 

 ranch, stole the stock and tools, and 

 elected another boss. I was obliged to 

 detail a jiart of the workmen from the 

 north side to stop these irregular pro- 

 ceedings, and so much labor being with- 

 drawn from producing, I had to borrow 

 money and issue notes. 



This being so easily done, I pay my 

 faithful men large wages, and they go 

 into many enterprises on thei. ow'iihook. 

 They gi-ade a railroad across the middle 

 of the ranch, and make me responsible for 

 most of the work. They spend vast sums 

 of money, and withdraw much labor 

 from production, on a railroad at the 

 northwest corner of the ranch that, at 

 present, is dead capital. They have 

 erected a great many very costly build- 

 ings all over the ran^h, most of them 

 good to have, but will not pay this gene- 

 ration for building. Up the stream from 

 one camp called New Y'ork City, they 

 have built summer camps and laid oiit 

 pleasure grounds that have cost millions 

 of dollars, but return but very few dol- 

 lars for the mass of the people to live on. 

 Plenty of my promises-to-pay circulating 

 among the men stimulated trade most 

 unnaturally. Stimulated trade fairly in- 

 toxicated manufacture, and my ranch is 

 piled up in places with boots, shoes, 

 woolen and cotton goods, wagons, plows, 

 etc., begging for a market, while those 

 that made them are begging for employ- 

 ment, and those who need them have no 

 money to buy them. 



My dissatisfied workmen on the south 

 side, I am glad to employ to build up 

 the country they have so badly damaged. 

 But if they insist on my sliding alomj to 

 let their whipped boss draw his stool up 

 to my desk, handle half the money, and 

 make half or more of the laws, I must 

 firmly say. No. I had rather he would 

 keep out of sight or emigrate. 



I would say to my men, north, south, 

 east and west, be industrious and work 

 at such work as will pay; don't fool away 

 your time at fancj' work for a few years, 

 and we will pull through all right. I 

 have been learning a good lesson watch- 

 ing my good friend Johnny Crapaud, who 

 has a ranch over east of the big pond, 

 and who so kindly lent me a helping 

 hand nearlv a hundred years ago, when 

 I had a little difliculty with my mother. 

 Johnny has had a tough lesson to recite, 

 but his boys have taken hold with such 

 good grit, and used so much economy, 

 and paid their bills so promptly, that it 

 is more than an even chance that they 

 will, morally, be victors over their phys- 

 ical victors. 



LETTER FROM CASTROVILLE. 

 MONTEREY, COUNTY. 



Deep-Plowing Controverted. 



Ed. Agricultuelsi: I have noticed ar- 

 ticles on deep and shallow plowing in 

 late numbers of the AGKicn-TURLST. 

 During an experience of nine years farm- 

 ing in California, I am convinced that 

 thorough surface cultivation is the best. 

 Good crops do not depend upon deep 

 plowing in dry years, and in wet seasons 

 they do as well upon shallow as upon 

 deeply plowed land. i 



■Where the soil is shallow, as upon 

 poor hill land, it will not do to plow deep. 



as the only good soil is on top, where it I 

 belongs; to turn it under and bring up 

 coarse material ruins it. Early seeding, 

 as a rule, works best, and is better than 

 all theories about deep plowing. 



I have plowed my ground deeply after 

 rains, when I could, and the light plow- 

 ed, early sown has always yielded the 

 best. The soil is lighter, liner and better 

 for the germination of the seed when 

 worked shallow and thoroughly. 



In 1870-71 I plowed both deep and 

 shallow, and I saw the wheat on the deep 

 plowed soil dry out, while on the shallow- 

 worked it made a good crop, lly neigh- 

 bors have experienced the same. On 

 the deep plowing the grain was slower 

 in getting a start, and as the plowed soil 

 dried out the roots perished, while on 

 the lightly tilled they reached for moist- 

 ure sooner and grew right along. 



A gentleman in Pajaro valley plowed 

 deep and sub-soiled with a small plow 

 following the large one. In sandy sedi- 

 ment tlie plows ran very deep, and in 

 other places a poor sub-soil was stirred 

 up. He did not get as good grain from 

 his deeply plowed land as from that 

 which w as lightly worked on the surface 

 alone. 



Potatoes and beans need deeper idowed 

 soil than grain, but not too deep, either, 

 but thoroughly working of the soil. I 

 have tried it during the last nine years 

 with potatoes, barley, wheat and oats. A 

 good, early start is the best for all grain 

 crops, and in all seasons, wet or dry, I 

 find deep plowing not so good as tho- 

 rough surface tillage, not over three or 

 four inches. 



It is not safe to plow adobe land over 

 five or six inches, and it takes a good 

 deal of extra power to do it. Your cor- 

 respondent, "Mechanic," who speaks of 

 plowing fourteen inches, must be in 

 error. This rainy season it may do to 

 plow some classes of soil deep, such as 

 black adobe on clay snb-soil. Such soil 

 is the best and most enduring grain land 

 in the world. 



The farmers in Europe do not get their 

 best crops from real deep plowing, but 

 from heavy manuring and working into 

 the soil ingredients to make it light, ro- 

 tation of crops, changing to green crops 

 and pasture, etc., two plowings a year, 

 careful harrowing, and fine tillage gener- 

 ally. As they have small farms, and 

 naturally a shallow soil, it has paid them 

 to deepen it artificially, underdrain it, 

 and renew its fertility with manures, 

 plowing under green crops, etc. They 

 have a sod to turn under, rains every 

 month in the year, and must farm differ- 

 ently. 



Here, before the heavy fall rains, we 

 cannot plow deep — and if we do, we get 

 no better crops. But with shallow cul- 

 tivation we can get in our crops early, 

 and in better condition than at any other 

 time. And if not drowned out, we get 

 the best crops. 



On rich land the only danger is that 

 the grain will grow too rank and lodge. 



ScBSCBIBEK. 



In the Common Lot of Man. 



Wheeeas. In the inevitable course of human 

 events, another link has been dropped from our 

 fraternal chain in the death of our worthy and 

 youthful brother, C. "W. Keith, and our Grange 

 Bhome of the promise of support and greater 

 usefulness in a more mature age; be it 



Resolved, That in the death of our youthful 

 brother this Grange has lost a worthy member 

 and his parents a beloved son. 



Resolved, That wc extend our heart-felt and 

 fraternal sympathy to the bereaved parents and 

 friends. 



Resolved, that this preamble and resolutions 

 be spread upon the records, and a copy be sent 

 to the California Agbicultctust and Rur.il 

 Press for publication. 



Z. L. Gabwood. '\ 



J. Knowles, J Committee. 



.\ . B. HtJXTEn, ) 





