AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
293 
Any quantity of wheat can be had at 50 cents per 
bushel, and potatoes 25 cents. Potatoes are not 
quite as good as usual on account of rains in Au¬ 
gust, but everything is plenty except money. The 
effects of the great “ Panic ” are felt here a little, 
and will, probably, be more so during the Winter. 
Can you tell me who publishes a list of seeds, 
annual and perennial, with prices, time of flow¬ 
ering, &c.l The article in the October number, 
on “ Bulbous Roots,” pleases me much, and I 
must send by some merchants to get some, but I 
would like a list to choose from. 
The first frost came on the morning of Sept. 
30th, heavy enough to “ nip ” the gardens and 
loosen the butternuts. 
I had almost forgotten to mention the Syrup 
made from the Chinese-Cane, and exhibited at 
our Fair. A few miles from here a farmer has 
made several barrels, and says one may sell at 30 
cents per gallon, and then make money by it. The 
lowest price for common molasses has been 
$1 25 per gallon, and hardly fit for use at that. 
The new kind is excellent. 
Mrs. L. A. Mitts. 
Remarks. —Rose bushes are not often raised 
from seed, as it is a slow process, and there is no 
certainty of producing desirable kinds. They are 
usually propagated by divisions of the root, layers 
and cuttings. A sandy loam is perhaps the best 
soil for them, although they flourish well on rich 
gravel lands—in fact they will grow on almost 
any soil. 
Perennials and bulbous roots should succeed 
even in the northern part of Iowa. A moderate 
covering of leaves, or evergreen brush will cause 
them to start earlier in the Spring. If the soil is 
wet, either drain or trench it, or raise the bed a 
ittle above the surrounding surface. We are 
confident with this preparation and a moderate 
covering during the Winter they will succeed. A. 
Bndgeman and J. M. .Thorburn & Co., seedsmen 
of this city, publish descriptive catalogues which 
they mail to applicants upon the receipt of a 
stamp to pay postage. Flower seeds are often 
mailed to long distances. 
AN HOUR’S STRUGGLE WITH 
POISON. 
I was spending some days, not many years ago, 
In a beautiful little country village, and in a family 
that had more than common attractions to one 
who loves domestic life as well as myself. The 
little circle had in it more of real interest than 
I have often seen developed in the same number 
of persons. 
The father of the family—almost too young to 
feel yet that he was entitled to that honorable appel¬ 
lation—was a fine, frankhearted young mechanic, 
with a wide world of bounding life in his veins, 
and energy that, when fully aroused, drove every¬ 
thing before him, and a warmth of disposition 
that won him more friendship than it had then 
given him of the goods of this world. 
His wife, to whom he had been married some 
four years, was singularly beautiful. They had 
two- children—the one a laughing brown-eyed 
and brown-haired little fairy of three years. Her 
name was Eveleen. The second was a crowing, 
laughing, blue-eyed, plump little beauty of less 
than a year, promising to have all the charms of 
the older at her age. 
I was sitting one afternoon in a quiet little 
room, with my feet upon two chairs, reading a 
pleasant little book, in a state between asleep and 
awake—my host away at his shop, a hundred 
yards off, and my hostess engaged in her house¬ 
hold labors—when I was thrown out of my indo¬ 
lence by a ecream that brought me to my feet like 
an electric shock. It was a woman’s voice, and 
had in it an excess of agony that cannot be indi¬ 
cated in words, so loud that it rang over that quiet 
little village, and brought every one forth to as¬ 
certain the cause. 
I sprang to the door that separated the sitting- 
room from the dining apartments, and saw the 
whole at a glance. The young mother stood at 
the door with her first-born—our darling Eveleen 
—in her arms dying. A brief and hurried word 
from the servant told me the sad story. The 
little girl had accompanied a child-uncle up 
stairs, and while the attention of the' older child 
was for a moment turned away, she seized a bot¬ 
tle of corrosive sublimate in alcohol, prepared for 
bug poison, and swallowed enough to take away 
twenty such lives. 
The little thing had tottered down stairs, and 
the mother had met her at the landing with the 
empty bottle in her hand, and the. poison oozing 
from her mouth, and the child all unconscious 
of the fearful thing she had done. Was it any 
wonder that a fearful shriek rang out over the 
quiet village, and that already the occupants ot 
every house near were rushing toward the spot 
where the mother stood. 
But a few moments could possibly have elapsed 
since the poison was taken, and yet the effect was 
already fearful. After the first shriek of terror, 
the mother had quieted to a calm despair for the 
moment, and stood with the child in her arms, 
making no effort for its relief; and indeed it 
seemed hopeless^ for already the subtle poison 
seemed diffused through the frame ; the brown 
eyes had lost their lustre, the face was blackened 
as in after death, and the teeth were tight set in a 
convulsive spasm that evidently would not pass 
away. I examined the little lost darling for a 
moment, saw that it was hopeless, and then 
turned away, nnable' to bear that mother’s agony. 
The little door was already half fillled with vil¬ 
lagers, and sobs, and moans, and lamentations 
over the fate of the dying child were heard in 
every direction, mingled with quick and hurried 
questions as to the manner of iis occurrence, 
and vain attempts at answering, which added an 
oppressiag confusion to the sadness of the scene. 
The little play-fellow’s uncle, who had been 
up stairs with the child, bad run instantly to call 
the father, and but a few moments elapsed before 
he sprang into the middle of the group. He had 
been told all, and asked no questions. I had time 
to remark that his eye was very stern and that 
his lip was very firmly compressed. Others, too, 
remarked it, and I knew afterwards that a mur¬ 
mur ran round the circle of how strange it was 
that he betrayed no feeling. 
He reached out his hands, and took the child 
from its mother. Its eyes were now closed, and 
a white ooze coming from between the blackened 
lips. Was ever death more assured! 1 saw him 
open the eyelids, and heard him give a sigh of 
relief. He told me afterwards that the eye was 
not shrunken, and so death had not begun. He 
then attempted to open her mouth, but the teeth 
were tight set, and they resisted his efforts. But 
with a force that seemed almost brutal he 
wrenched tbe teeth apart, and opened the mouth. 
“ Shame,” cried one of the bystanders. 
The father did not heed them, but motioned to 
a neighbor to take the child in his arms. He did 
so. 
“ Bring me the egg basket,” he spoke very 
sternly, almost without opening his teeth, to the 
servant. 
“ What do you want of it !” What can you 
do with it!” “He’s crazy I” and many such 
remarks followed, but tbe basket was there In a 
.moment. 
He seized one of the eggs, broke it, inserted 
his fingers again between the teeth and wrenched 
them open by force, though they shut with so 
convulsive a motion as to tear the flesh from his 
fingers, and poured the albumen (white portion of 
the egg) into the throat. There was a slight 
strangle, nothing more, and the spectators were 
horrified at the action. 
“ Don’t, the child is dying !” cried one. 
“Please don’t hurt the little thing—it can’t 
live !” the mother found voice to say, laying her 
hand upon his arm. 
“Mary, be still!” he answered sternly, while 
his teeth were relaxing from their clenching, and 
his face as hard as if he was entering a battle; 
“and don’t anjf of you meddle with me, keep 
off.” 
The bystanders involuntarily obeyed, with 
many harsh remarks upon his cruelty—but he did 
not heed them, and went on. Another and an¬ 
other egg was broken, and still there was no sign 
of life. Then the whole body of bystanders broke 
out into aloud murmur, and cries of “brute 1” 
“Let the child die in peace 1” “He is crazy— 
take the child away from him!” were heard 
around him. 
He disisted for a moment from his efforts, and 
turned with a fierceness which had before been 
altogether foreign to his nature—but no one who 
saw him afterwards forgot it. “ Fools,” he 
hissed, “ mind your own business, and leave me 
to mine! Take her away will you! Try it!” 
and he went on emptying egg afler egg down the 
apparently lifeless throat. 
The mother could stand this no longer. Her 
first-born was being tortured to death before her 
eyes in its death, and she imploringly flung her¬ 
self on her knees before her husband’s father, 
who had at that moment arrived. 
“O, father, do stop him,” she gasped—“He is 
torturing that poor dying child.” 
The grandfather started forward a step to inter¬ 
fere, for he, too, thought the proceeding an out- 
ragous one ; but he stopped and said, “ Mary let 
let him alone. The child will die if he does not- 
go on. It cannot do more than die if he does. 1 
would not say a word to him for the world.” 
There was a silence then. In a moment there 
was a quiver of the eye-lids, a convulsive move¬ 
ment of the chest, the teeth lost their tension. 
The father seized his child, turned her face down¬ 
ward, and the poison began to flow from her 
mouth. Again and again, as the retching ceased, 
he repeated the experiment—the life returning 
still more, and the face losing its blank color eve¬ 
ry instant. More than twenty times had albumen 
been administered, and more than half those 
times followed by the expulsion of the poison, 
when the eyes opened, the father desisted, the 
little sufferer lay just alive in his arms, exhaust¬ 
ed, its little life terribly shattered, but saved. 
Then—when the necessity for exertion and de¬ 
termination was over—when the physician had 
been summoned, and they knew that darling little 
Eveleen might live, after many weeks of struggle 
between life and death ; when the relieved friends 
had acknowledged that they had wronged him 
first; when the beautiful and sorrowful wife 
had blessed him through her kisses and tears ; 
and all knew that under God only such an almost 
fierce determination could have saved the child— 
then the father sat down unnerved, and wept like 
a child. 
Not as in “Little Sister Evelyn” did the poi¬ 
son do fearful office. Eveleen is alive to-day. 
and her brown eyes are opened upon a woman¬ 
hood. But there is no hour in my life that brings 
so thrilling a recollection as that of the young 
father’s struggle for the life of his child. 
