1884.] 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 
173 
TAME alligators. 
In the sixth paper of Dr. Henshall’s “ Trip 
Ai-onnd the Coast of Florida,” ho speaks of 
“ Alligator Furgesson,” wlio, iu one of liis 
yarns, remarks that ho novor killed a ’gator 
that measured over twelve foot in length. I 
would like to ask the reader what was the 
longest alligator known to have Loon lulled ? 
I have throe small tame alligators, which 
have been about a year in my possession. 
They are three feet long, and have grown 
six inches in that time. They are quite tamo, 
and will come eagerly hustling along when 
I commence tapping on their box or calling 
them to feed. They are more spry than I 
would suppose possible. I have held a piece 
of meat over their box and have seen them 
jump so that theu- heads would .appear above 
the box two feet high trying to got it. Put¬ 
ting one on the ground so as to give him a 
chance to run away, I have been surprised 
into a very fast walk to catch him again. 
When I stand and talk to them awhile they 
will rise on (heir feet, keep up a constant 
hissing and whisking of tails, as if they like 
to be noticed and talked to. Altogether they 
show more brightness and intelligence than 
I thought the species had. 
I feed a little fresh meat twice a week in 
summer ; in winter none at all, as they will 
not eat. At least these do not. Last winter 
I have several times found them frozen fast 
in the ice when the water was low in the 
tank. If large ones are correspondingly as 
quick and fierce as these little fellows, I 
should not care to be taken by one. Putting, 
a small piece of meat on the end of a stick, I 
have several times had the stick twisted 
forcibly out of my fingers. They have a 
way of rapidly rolling over and over when 
they bite anything, until the piece is twisted 
DUt. 
The little swamps had been dry so long 
that the water was all gone except in the 
alligator holes. I saw something swimming 
about in a little pool about six feet in diame¬ 
ter. I sat down on the sand bar thi-own up 
around the hole, which had probably been 
there for years, the work of the alligator when 
digging the hole. Soon the nubby nose and 
little green eyes of a young alligator popped 
up; then another, until I counted six or 
Bight. I was not more than fom- feet from 
the water, but, as I kept still, the i e e 
lows did nothing but eye me sharply. Pre y 
soon I heard a strange clucking 
big bunch of a nose and a pair of huge green 
goggle eyes were thrust up a litt e oo c ose 
and familiar, I thought, 
acquaintance. I sat quite ® , . , ^ 
ready to take leave in case the old lady should 
harbor a notion to scoop me ° 
•M,. Th« ot 
™ 8nb»r«s,iiig, “ “y c«ullou.ly I 
expect something from me. 
backed down and out, and th 
denly and out of the 
snare the old one, but she p^l^^ 
noose I fixed, and was not a,t 
for several weeks. By fixing 
water and pulling which are the 
behind three of the little one , 
pets I now have; three feet eao 
‘.KmcK,” in Fo^-est and Stream. 
THIS LIFE IS WHAT WE MAKE IT. 
Let’s ol't’nor talk of iiohlo deeds. 
And rarer of the had ones, 
And sing about onr happy days. 
And not about tlui sad ones. ' 
Wo are not made to fret and sigi], 
And when grief sleeps to wake it, 
Bright happiness Is standing by — 
This life Is what w'e make it. 
Lot's find tlio sunny side of men. 
Or bo believers In it; • 
A light there Is In every soul 
That takes the pains to win It. 
Oh! there's a slnmbcrliig good iu all. 
And we perchance may wake it; 
Our hands coiitoin tlic magic wand; 
This life is wliat wo make it. 
Then liore’s to tliosc whose loving ]ieai*t8 
Shed light and joy about them ! 
Thanks bo to tlicm for countless gems 
AVo ne’er would know witliout them. 
Ob! tins should be a happy world 
To all who may partalce it; 
The fault’s oim own it it is not— 
This life is wliat we make it. 
GROWING PLANTS IN MOSS. 
Plants grown in moss have lately attracted 
considerable attention, and a special prep¬ 
aration, for which a Frenchman, named 
Dumesnil, has obtained a patent, has been 
extensively sold here as a wonderful dis¬ 
covery. This prompts Mr. A. S. Fuller to the 
following pertinent remarks : 
“ As we do not know the date of M. 
Dumesnil’s patent, we cannot say whether 
he was first in the field or not; but we do 
know that Mr. Alfred Chamberlain, of New¬ 
port, R. I., obtained a patent for growing 
plants in baskets of moss, and a fertilizer, 
nearly or quite twenty-four years ago, and 
while visiting Washington with a specimen 
of his work, in 1801, he presented a hand¬ 
some basket of Grapes growing in a -ndre 
basket to Mrs. President Lincoln. Mr. Cham¬ 
berlain afterward e.xhibited various lands 
of fruits raised in the same manner; even 
Peach-trees laden with ripe fruit were ex¬ 
hibited at horticultm-al fairs in New-York 
and Brooklyn. It is rather strange how soon 
a man and his works are forgotten; at least 
men will pretend to forgot them when it is 
for them interests to do so. 
“ There must be, at this moment, hun¬ 
dreds of persons in this city and Brooklyn 
who remember the exhibitions of Mr. Cham¬ 
berlain’s fruits grown in moss-filled baskets, 
and the illustrations ot them that appeared 
in the horticultural journals at that time; 
but, for some reason, none of his old con¬ 
temporaries and competitors have seen fit to 
refer to them dmdng the recent revival of 
this system ot gi’owing house-plants.” 
HAWAIIAN FLOWER-GIELS. 
The Hawaiians are passionately fond of 
flowers. Bevies of happy, rollicking native 
girls climb the sides of the mountains or 
explore the picturesque gorges in search of 
tho choicest specimens, and, having gathered 
enough to supply the market for the day, 
they dash down to Honolulu, riding horse¬ 
back, man-fashion, at a terrible gait. They 
are sure to bedeck themselves first with 
“leis,” or wreaths of flowers, which encircle 
their foreheads and hang suspended from’ 
their necks like so many necklaces glittering 
in tho sunlight. Suspended from tho neck, 
also, and flowing down their backs are great 
streamers of “maile” wreaths, plucked 
from a deliciously fragrant and perpetually 
green plant, without the aid of which no 
Hawaiian belle is robed in the height of fash¬ 
ion. Ai-riving in town the flower-girls select 
some shady nook along the public streets, 
sitting by the half-dozen or more, dexterously 
assorting the flowers, and making “leis” 
with great rapidity, and spreading them out 
fantastically, so as to attract attention and 
invite the jmblic to patronize them by its 
most Platonic form, and their love-chants 
are usually successful in drawing custom. 
At the time that the famous Count Rochefort 
went through the Hawaiian capital, he was, 
while walking along, literally covered with 
wreaths by a charming native beauty. 
THE WORLD SUPPLY OF AMBER. 
1 This appears to be inexhaustible. The 
“blue earth” of Samland — the most im- 
I portant source of the supply — extends along 
the Baltic for sixty miles, and possesses a 
breadth of about twelve miles and an aver¬ 
age thickness of ten feet. Bunge estimates 
that every twelve cubic feet of this earth 
contains a pound of amber. Tliis gives a 
total of some 9,600,000,000 pounds, which 
at the present rate of quarrying is sufficient 
to last for thirty thousand years. Amber is 
the fossilized gum of trees of past ages; and 
on the supposition that these trees had the 
same resin-producing capacity as the Norway 
Spruce, and that the amber was produced 
iu the spot where it is found, Goeppert 
and Menge, in a new German work, esti¬ 
mate that three hundi’ed forest generations 
of one hundred and twenty year’s each must 
have grown on the Samland blue earth to 
give it its present richness in this product. 
It is much more probable, however, that the 
amber came from a large area, and has been 
collected in its present position by the action 
of water. It is also probable that the trees 
were more resinous than the Norway Spruce. 
— The Continent. 
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timely suggestions when it does not come.— Q. R. 
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0., BrtsUam, Queensland, Australia. 
