March, 1918 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE, 
103 
good stocks be made. It is a no- 
ble tree. It has been in your fam- 
ily for generations — I know the 
story — and it is like an old and 
dear friend. Rut your people 
and your father’s people came 
from France many years ago to 
help this country when it was 
poor, and the land has blessed 
them and made them rich. Now 
France needs your help — she needs 
your tree. Will you sell it to me 
—to fight for France?” 
The little boy looked with wide, 
startled eyes at his father. “Is it 
true, father, what the man says?” 
“Yes, my son, it is all true.” 
Philip turned to the stranger. 
“Then you may have my tree,” 
he said. “But I will not sell it 
to you; I will give it — to France.” 
“Will you let him do it?” ask- 
ed the man of Philip’s father. 
“It is his, and he has done as 
he wished,” said his father, and 
laid his hand on Philip’s head; 
then he and the man walked away 
together. 
In a week workmen came with 
saws and axes and laid the great 
tree low. Then they brought a 
little mill and cut the log into 
blocks and the blocks into slices 
and the slices into strips, and 
loaded them on trucks and hauled 
them away. And the place where 
the tree had stood was lonesome 
and bare. But as Philip thought 
of the strips of wood that the 
trucks had hauled away, it seemed 
to him that every one of them was 
a tough little brown soldier gone 
to fight for France. 
I do not know who told the 
story, or how it got across the sea, 
but a little more than a year after- 
wards there came to Philip a big 
wooden box with strange, foreign- 
looking labels on it ; and within 
was a case of polished walnut that 
held a wonderfully beautiful rifle. 
The metal parts were richly en- 
graved, and the stock was of that 
lovely curly wood that comes only 
from the part of the tree where 
the trunk joins the roots; and set 
into the stock was a plate of gold 
on which was engraved: 
Never again will the birds sing 
in the branches of the old walnut, 
but in a boy’s heart will sing 
throughout all his life voices 
sweeter than those of bird or flute, 
for they are the voices of patrio- 
tism and sacrifice and service. 
Reprinted from the Youth’s 
Companion, Boston. Copyrighted 
lgl8 by Perry Mason Company, 
Boston. 
Apple Activity in Iowa 
In its campaign to increase 
fruit production as a contribution 
to the nation’s stock of food, the 
Iowa State Horticultural Society 
points out the high percentage of 
sugar in ripe apples. At the re- 
quest of the society, Professor 
C. N. Kinney of Drake University 
has furnished striking figures 
supplementary to resolutions 
passed at the last meeting urging 
extensive fruit-growing activity. 
According to Professor Kinney, 
die best grade of ripe apples runs 
from 15 to 18 per cent in food 
value, mainly sugar; thus in 12 
cars of apples there would be 
something like two cars of sugar 
and other food constituents. If 
1,500,000 bushels of apples going 
to waste annually in Iowa could 
be saved, there would be con- 
served some 12,000,000 pounds of 
sugar and food constituents. 
In calling attention to these fig- 
ures, the Iowa State Horticultural 
Society hopes to overcome the 
popular impression that apples 
are merely a tonic or relish used 
for dessert and show that on the 
contrary they are a valuable food 
product. 
California Returns Gift 
Five and one-half million 
pounds of seed beans and 1,500,- 
000 two-year-old French prune 
trees are being gathered in Cali- 
fornia for shipment to Northern 
France to rehabilitate the fields 
and orchards devastated by the 
Germans in their retreat. 
The beans are pink and black- 
eye varieties, and the quantity is 
sufficient to plant 69,000 acres. 
The prune trees will convert 15,- 
000 acres into bearing orchards 
within two years. 
There is a bit of sentiment in 
California’s sending young orch- 
ards to France, as it was this war- 
torn republic that gave the state 
its .first prune trees. This was in 
1856, and since that time the 
prune orchards cover nearly 100,- 
000 acres and bring to the grow- 
ers more than $10,000,000 a year. 
If an average crop is raised 
from the California seed it will 
mean an addition to the food sup- 
ply of France of more than two 
and one-half pounds of beans next 
summer to each of the 40,000,000 
residents. Shipments will begin 
immediately after the neAv year.— 
Philadelphia Record. 
Go over the celery, cabbage and 
root crops in the cellar and pick 
out any that are starting to decay. 
