about half the labor we did before we got 
them. Formerly, while the team was gone 
to market, the men dug the potatoes and 
carried them together into a pile, and then 
to get a load they had to be all picked up 
by hand agaiq. Now, they are all picked 
up in boxes, and 1 can get a load in ten 
minutes when wanted. If it is likely to 
rain, an empty box turned bottom up over 
a full one will protect it. Or two or three 
full ones may be set one above the other, 
and an empty one turned over them. If 
desired, a larger pile may be set up together 
and covered with a rubber blanket. By 
picking up four rows at once, a man can 
fill a box without moving it much. When 
filled, they can be emptied into the wag¬ 
ons to draw to market (it does not pay 'to 
draw them very far to market in the boxes, 
when they are ripe, on account of the dead 
weight to be moved each way—40 boxes 
weighing some 300 pounds), or, if you wish 
to pit them, set the boxes into the wagon 
and draw them to the pile and empty them. 
Do the same way if you wish to put them 
in the cellar. It saves shoveling and 
bruising. 
These boxes are equalty good for hand¬ 
ling apples. After one is through using 
them in the fall, they can be filled with 
apples or potatoes and put in the cellar. 
They should hold a bushel level full. The 
size I use is 13 by 16 inches, by 13^ inches 
inside measure. The bottoms and sides 
may be made of three-eights stuff, and the 
ends of five-eights. The lighter the wood 
the better. Hand holes should be cut in 
each end, and the corners bound with gal¬ 
vanized hoop iron. I paid $30 for 100 last 
year. They were made at a box factory. 
We find a great many uses for them in the 
course of the year.— T. B. Terry in Country 
Gentleman. 
THE LIFE OF MAN. 
Man, born of woman, is of few days and 
no teeth. And, indeed, it would be money 
in his pocket sometimes if he had less of 
either. As for his days, he wasteth one- 
third of them, and as for his teeth, he has 
convulsions when he cuts them, and as the 
last one comes through, lo, the dentist is 1 
twisting the first one out, and the last end 
of that man’s jaw is wmrse than the first, 
being full of porcelain, and a roof-plate 
built to hold blackberry seeds. 
Stone bruises line his pathway to man¬ 
hood, his father boxes his ears at home, the 
big boys cuff him in the play ground, and 
the teacher whips him in the school room. 
He buyeth Northwestern at 110, when he 
hath sold short at 96. If he wear sack¬ 
cloth and blue jeans, the men say, ‘“He is 
a tramp,” and if he goeth forth shaven and 
clad in purple and fine linen, all the people 
cry, “Shoot the dude!” 
He carryeth insurance for twenty-five 
years, until he hath paid thrice over for 
all his goods, and then he letteth his policy 
lapse one day, and that same night fire 
destroyeth his store. He buildeth him a 
house in Jersey, and his first born is de¬ 
voured by mosquitoes; he pitcheth his tent 
in New York, and tramps devour his sub¬ 
stance. He moveth to Kansas, and a cy¬ 
clone carryeth his house away over into 
Missouri, while a prairie fire and ten million 
acres of grasshoppers fight for his crop. He 
sett-leth himself in Kentucky, and is shot 
the next day by a gentleman, a Colonel 
and a statesman, “because, sah, he re¬ 
sembles, sah, a man, sah, he did not like, 
sah.” Verily, there is no rest for the sole 
of his foot, and if he had it to do over 
again he would not be born at all, for “the 
day of death is better than the day of one’s 
birth .”—Robert J. Burdette in Philadelphia 
Press. 
-—--- 
A Connecticut man says he caught 430 
trout in one afternoon. The trout lie. 
“Lost—A brindle pup, belonging to Pat- 
trick Neil with his ears slit.” Fact. 
An old bachelor'down east w-ants to adopt 
a girl baby, eighteen years old. 
The man who ‘went back’ on his principles 
has since travelled by another route. 
Misers are like patent leather boots; the 
longer they last the tighter they become. 
The great number of divorces indicate that 
people put too much brimstone in their 
matches. 
The bank where the wild thyme grows 
has declared a dividend of ten “scents,, to 
the share. 
