38o 
Short Stories. 
An Ohio man has found out judicially 
that, when he marries a woman, it’s for 
better, for worse, lie deserted his wife 
a short time after their marriage, and 
when she sued him for divorce, he put 
in the defense that she had a glass eye 
about which she had not told him at the 
time of marriage, thereby deceiving him, 
and rendering her claims on him null 
and void. The judge granted the wife 
her decree, and held that facial and 
other physical blemishes are not grounds 
for accusation of fraud in marriage con¬ 
tracts. Still the concealment of such 
defects cannot be considered as con¬ 
ducive to that trust and confidence eo 
necessary to the full enjoyment of mari¬ 
tal bliss. 
Big Potato Chop. —From exclusive in¬ 
formation collected at this office, from 
all of the great potato-growing sections 
of the country, it appears that farmers 
are planning to plant a largely increased 
acreage of potatoes this Spring. This 
they should not do, as it is sure to cause 
ruinously low prices. Please call their 
attention to that fact, and to the further 
fact that, although the crop was (per 
acre) scarcely an average one in 1898, 
yet if it had not been for so many pota¬ 
toes freezing there would have been a 
large surplus and very low prices during 
the season just past. Farmers should 
not plant more (if as many) potatoes this 
year than they did last. There is more 
profit in one acre of potatoes at 45 cents 
per bushel than in 20 acres at 22 cents 
per bushel. b. m. vaughan. 
Sec. Central Wis Potato Growers’ Ass. 
Wandering Housekeepers —A writer 
in the Chicago Record says : “ Near Iola, 
we found a father and mother, who bad 
lived in the same wagon for 12 years, 
and seven children. They had spent 
brief periods at nearly all the towns in 
eastern Kansas and Texas. The seven 
children had all been born in that wagon, 
and the whole outfit had slept either in 
or under it every night. The two hungry- 
looking horses were fed from a trough 
attached to the hind board, while the 
food of the family was cooked on a little 
oil stove that was stowed away under 
the front seat when the caravan was in 
motion. The scanty kitchen utensils 
were suspended from the hoops that held 
up the canvas cover; the family ward¬ 
robe was packed away in gunny bags, 
and the food supply, which was neither 
abundant nor attractive, was kept in 
boxes and bags slung underneath the 
wagon box. They had a rocking chair 
and a camp chest with a revolving lid 
that served as a table and a china closet 
at the same time. The man said he 
didn’t like that way of living, but his 
wife was fond of change, so they kept 
wandering year after year, working at 
odd jobs as he happened to find them, 
and cultivating the acquaintance of the 
world.” 
Against Railroads. —In the Chicago 
Record, W. E. Curtis tells of the feeling 
against railroads by a small class of farm¬ 
ers in Oklahoma. A wagon passed 
through a Kansas town bearing this in¬ 
scription : 
THE RURAL¥NEW-YORKER. 
NOT BUSTED! 
Just Doing This to Beat 
The Railroads. 
It is said that the man who can really 
“beat” a railroad, is a hero in that 
country. At another place a freight 
car caught fire, and a raid was made 
upon it. One man was able to secure 
only a leather-covered cushion. “He 
hid it under the straw of his wagon, and 
as soon as the excitement was over, 
drove home. That night his barn and 
all its contents, including his horses and 
the wagon in which he had driven home 
from the fire, were burned, and in seek¬ 
ing for the cause of the conflagration, he 
accurately determined that a fire had 
been smoldering in the stuffing of the 
cushion he had stolen, and had broken 
out after he had taken it into his barn. 
The next morning, he went to town to 
lament his losses, and actually brought 
a claim against the railroad company 
for the value of the property destroyed.” 
Easy Muskmelon Growing. —Mr. 
Stevens, whose method of growing hot¬ 
house tomatoes was detailed in The 
R. N.-Y. of April 8, has what he claims 
is a very superior method of growing 
muskmelons, and one that certainly is 
easy and cheap In an old pasture, he 
struck backfurrows at the ufueI dis¬ 
tance apart of the rows of melons, turn¬ 
ing up a couple of furrows from each 
direction. The rest of the ground was 
left unbroken. The melons were plant¬ 
ed, fertilized and tilled in the usual 
manner. The vines spread over the old 
sod, and here the melons were borne in 
profusion. The product was of such 
quality that it sold at extreme prices to 
one of New York’s swell hotels, a proof 
of the effectiveness of the method. The 
soil is a light, loamy one. 
Problems of Force.— Last year, we 
reported an interview with Mr. C. B. 
Tripler, whose remarkable experiments 
with liquid air have attracted a great 
deal of attention. Since that time, the 
papers have been well filled with a dis¬ 
cussion of this liquid air. We do not find 
that any distinct advance has been made 
in the application of the air for practical 
purposes. There can be no doubt of the 
enormous force possible in the expansion 
of this liquid. It is liquefied at a tem¬ 
perature of 312 degrees below zero, and 
expands to 800 times its size, when pass¬ 
ing back into a gas. This wonderful 
force, if it can be harnessed, would un¬ 
doubtedly completely revolutionize our 
present application of power. Thus far, 
however, no one seems to have shown 
how to apply this force practically. 
In speaking with Mr. Nordenfelt, who 
has introduced the Radiator system of 
buttermaking into this country, we spoke 
of this liquid air. Mr. Nordenfelt is a 
man of years, who has had large experi¬ 
ence in mechanics. He says that a 
Swedish inventor is now at work upon 
a device which, he thinks, will utilize 
the liquid air, and that it will, undoubt¬ 
edly, be, some day, our chief source of 
power. 
Speaking of the wonderful develop¬ 
ments which are likely to crowd rapidly 
upon us, Mr. Nordenfelt says that cer¬ 
tainly long before the coal and oil of the 
world show signs of giving out, this ap¬ 
plication of liquid air for force and 
through force for light and heat, will 
be fully developed. After that, and per¬ 
haps in connection with it, he says that 
a solar engine will, probably, be devel¬ 
oped. This will mean an engine heated 
by direct rays from the sun, the source 
of all heat. 
Even after this is developed, other 
great discoveries may follow. “ For in¬ 
stance,” he said, “ let us imagine the im¬ 
mense cohesive force that binds together 
particles of iron or steel. Some day, one 
of our inventors may discover the secret 
of separating these particles, and then 
turning loose this immense cohesive 
force, and harnessing it for practical 
work. That, perhaps, is no more wonder¬ 
ful than some of our present discoveries, 
in harnessing and managing the forces 
of Nature.” _ 
NOTES OF TRAVEL. 
Whisky and Church. —Out in Ross 
County, 0., there is a remarkable church 
off in the country, in a fine location, and 
well-known throughout southern Ohio. 
The early history of that church is re¬ 
markable. At one time, it is said, from 
the present church site, five whisky dis¬ 
tilleries could be seen. It was proposed 
to erect a church by voluntary contribu¬ 
tion, that all should give articles of 
value, and that these should be sold at 
auction. The first contribution to the 
church fund was five barrels of whisky. 
Other things were added to it, and the 
first auction brought SI,200. Other sales 
were held until, finally, the necessary 
amount was secured. This is, perhaps, 
the only instance on record where an 
American church was founded on a 
whisky barrel. 
“ Tasting a Farm.” —Riding through 
a part of central Ohio, we passed a fine- 
looking farm with dilapidated buildings 
and general run-down appearance. The 
land seemed to be good naturally, but 
the fields were full of weeds, and a gen¬ 
eral lack of thrift and care covered the 
farm. We were informed that it was a 
case of rum drinking. The young man 
received the farm free as a legacy from 
his father, but fast horses and more 
rapid liquor had caused mortgage after 
mortgage to be plastered upon the place— 
like the devil’s internal revenue stamps. 
One noted character in the neighbor¬ 
hood hit the case pretty well, when he 
said, “I think Bill has had more fun 
with his farm than anybody I know of, 
for he has tasted every foot of it.” What 
he meant was that the farm had all gone 
down his throat in the form of rum, and 
to say that “ he tasted every foot of it ”, 
was putting the thing just about right. 
Farm Dramas. —As we drove through 
a fertile farming country, I observed an 
old man walking from a fine-looking 
house down to the barn where the 
thrashing machine was at work. “There 
is a singular case,” said my companion. 
“ That man is one of our oldest farmers. 
He settled on that farm, and paid for it 
by hard labor. His children were mar¬ 
ried and moved away to homes of their 
own. Both his sons died; then his wife 
died, and the old man was left alone. 
Then one of his daughters and her hus¬ 
band died, and the other daughter and 
her husband finally moved back to keep 
house for the old man, and they lived 
happily together. Then the daughter 
died, and the son-in-law married again. 
The old man would not leave the farm ; 
yet there seemed nothing for him to do 
but to give it up and move to town. But 
now, the son-in-law with his second wife 
has moved back to the farm, and they 
are taking care of the old man, and 
treating him as kindly as though he 
were their own father.” That struck 
me as one of the most singular domestic 
combinations that I have ever heard of, 
and as the old man walked feebly along 
to the barn, he gave a good illustration 
of the tragedies and sad life histories 
that are being worked out upon many of 
our American farms. 
May 20 
of each pear was found to be soft and 
mushy—virtually rotten—while the cen¬ 
tral portion was as hard as a raw tur¬ 
nip—utterly uneatable. It is now very 
probable that those Kieffer trees will be 
grafted to another variety in the not 
distant future. 
This experience of mine leads me to 
say a good word for the old Vicar of 
Winkfield, a pear nearly as large and 
fully as handsome as the Kieffer, the 
tree quite as vigorous and productive, 
but which is popularly regarded as in¬ 
ferior and worthless. I have ripened 
the Vicar with the same treatment given 
the Kieffer, and have found the fruit at 
Christmas quite as delicious as the best 
Bartlett, the slight puckery taste adding 
to, rather than detracting from, the 
flavor. Several of my friends who were 
visiting me at Christmas were surprised 
to find the Vicar so good a pear, and 
their verdict was unanimous as to its 
excellence. h. h. boardman. 
Connecticut. 
Sugar Beets — 
the largest yield per acre of the best 
and smoothest form, and very rich in 
sugar are grown by using 
Nitrate of Soda 
as a fertilizer. Apply just when the 
beets are getting well started in the 
row. The results will surprise you. 
Send to John A Myers, 12—O John 
St., New York, for free copy of book, 
“Food for Plants.” Tells about this 
and much else of value. Nitrate for 
sale by 
BALFOUR, WILLIAHSON & CO. 
27 William St., New York. 
TWO SIDES TO A FRUIT. 
A Friend of Kieffer. —I notice that 
The R. N.-Y. takes especial delight in 
“pitching into ” the Ben Davis apple and 
the Kieffer pear. I have a Ben Davis 
tree whose fruit would be very unjustly 
compared to a turnip As to the Kieffer 
pear, I think it must vary greatly with 
soil and climate. I have a tree at my 
backdoor, which is worth having for its 
beauty alone. But aside from that it 
yields from six to eight bushels of fruit 
which, when picked about the last of 
October, and allowed to ripen a few 
weeks in the cellar, is, in our opinion, 
hard to beat. It is coarse, to be sure, 
but extremely juicy, and by no means 
insipid in flavor. For canning it is un¬ 
surpassed. PEARMAN. 
Washington, D. C. 
Kieffer a Turnip. —I don’t like to 
say anything against the Kieffer pear, 
because, for one reason, I planted about 
a dozen trees last Fall. Afterward a 
dealer in this place received from New 
York a barrel of Kieffers—“ Thanksgiv¬ 
ing pears ” he called them. Their nice 
appearance induced me to invest in a 
few at the rate of 60 cents per peck. As 
they were hard and evidently unripe, I 
placed them in a darkened drawer and 
looked forward to a rare treat about 
Christmas. They were examined from 
time to time, but while the surface be¬ 
came somewhat soft, the center was as 
hard as ever. Christmas Day what re¬ 
mained were tested, and about one-third 
B 
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and are always the 
B 
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URPEE’S 
Farm Annual 
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A handsome new book of 176 pages,— tells 
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Beautiful colored plates and hundreds of illus¬ 
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choicest Vegetables and most beautiful Flowers. 
Write a postal card TO-DAY ! 
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_ I -^—Japanese Barnyard Millet 
■ O I Cl I 6 Seed. Address 
Prof. Wm. P. Brooks, Mass. Agr.Col., Amherst,Mass 
FRUIT PACKAGES kinds. 
Also Beekeepers’ Supplies. 
Order now before the busy sea¬ 
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BERLIN FRUIT BOX CO. 
Berlin Heights,Box B,KrieCo., 0 . 
BERRY BASKETS 
We are offering a wire-stapled 
berry basket cheaper than 
ever before. These are stronger and more durable 
than a hand-made basket. Write for our catalogue 
and price-list. WEBSTER BASKET CO., Webster, 
Lock Box 13 , Monroe County, N. Y 
Good Fruit 
always finds a ready market, but to bring top 
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Berry 
Baskets, 
Peach and Grape Crates* 
Buy direct from the manufacturers and 
save money. Write to-day for catalogue and 
new price list. Special price in carload lots. 
A. H. MONTAGUE & SON, 
120 Warren Street, New York City. 
