Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE COUNTY RtOBC!L_ Pabiisht ?1 Every Thursday ?AT? K1XGSTREE, SOUTH CAROLINA. LOl'lS J. BK1STOW, Editor and Proprietor. CAUGHT BY THE " REYENl'ERS.'* Ways of so Atlanta Lawyer in Getting a Moonshiner Off. T!i3 "revonuers" caught hini near Atlanta. Oa.. a bit off in- Do Kalb county. They had had liini spotted for a month or more. He was a simple, honest looking fellow, wiih a face full of strength. a face one now ami then runs across among the mountaineers iu north tleorgia. There were only some honest-looking, harmless cans of buttermilk in his piuc-made wagon which he was in the habit of brftiging daily into Atlanta. lie had spied th? revenue officers from the distance on this particular morning, and. halting his team, jumped out. When the officers reached the hilltop he was off i:i | the field at work with the cotton pickers. "Hero, you." thoy shouted. "Me. sir?" he responded innocently, - after repeated calls and gestures from them. "Yes. you. Come over here. Is this your team. sir?" -s t<? It-It Hard- i esty." "Who doos this coat belong 10V* The man was ill his shin sleeves. "Hum." mumbled the ollhvr. "Volt Come aiong with us. brother." The other officer had drawn six hip: kegs of corn whiskey, dripping with j buttermilk, out of the cans. "You'll lay in Fulton County .Tail for ! the next six months, young maiu" An Atlanta lawyer gave bond for i him. "Now. look here, when your time comes. I'll look out l'or you. You go %? i. * "on' !?/ ?. ?Vil (rr.nv <r4?r UUCK UIJllll', It'l t\um >ruin v you :! now suit, ami thou 00:110 to my otfice," said ho. Tlio man promised, and {or two months no moro cans of buttermilk woro oarriod into Atlanta by him- just cracker chickens, which weren't as suspicious looking as l?tittormilk cars. When the voting moonshiner again appeared at his friend's otiiec he wore a new suit a gentleman's suir. "You eotne along with me. sir." Tito lawyer took hint to the Turkish baths. | then to the barber's, where a Van I Dyke cut was given to his beard ami I a curl or two to his hair. .. rtl .. v, ^ ^ ?.iwi, I "Lnaiipt1; iuu ut u-1 .->uvn a change in your life, man." cried the lawyer afterward, telling his "co't friends" about it. "Why. the fellow looked like a young god." In the court room his distinguished * appearance created a stir. The otlieers and informant sat quietly awaiting their man. "Here is Kichard Johnson, indicted for moonsliining." The crowd stared with dropping jaws at "'the gentleman." "He's nut the fellow we arrested. There's a mistake somewhere." cried one of the "rewinters." "That hain't no mo' Dick Johnsing than I be myself." muttered the informant. "This i< Kichanl Johnson of . Pe Kail ? county." "mars me piaee. .iuuge. nui h <4.11 i the man." "Case is dismiss***!." The lawyer took bis man outsaved. Tin* :r.-?n quit "wildcat stillins." at least tlu* lawyer says so. New York Sun. Suicides on German Steamers. It appears from the results of careful investigation's lately made that the average annual number of suicides during the ton years which occurred among all persons belonging to the engine room staffs of German steam"ers was 2.ob per thousand, while the \ average number for firemen alone was "* A- *1. ? fitr* tuinimora J.ua per uiuuNiuu, ui?u ivi uiuiuivio . 9.24 per thousand of the respective categories mentioned: against,"it may i be added. ,4<? suicides per thousand persons of the male population of tiermany employed in various occupations on shore. It will perhaps cause surprise to learn that most of the suicides among the engine room staffs are stated to have taken plafc. not as might be supposed. during voyages to or from the tropics, but in the North American trade, and in the best appointed steamships. viz., in those belonging to the i North German Lloyd Company of j Bremen ana to me iiaiunurg-^vuiencan Steamship Company, where the best possible accommodation and livfrieuie conditions are provided for the men: and it would, indeed, seem as if there must be some connection between the frequency of desertions and of suicides. All these facts are considered to point toward the necessity of seeking j for the cause of these suicides, more especially in the circumstances that a large number of meu engage thoni- I selves for this hard and unpleasant service who have been unable to tud employment in any other way, or who have come to grief, and who are 1 neither physically nor. more especially i in mind, fitted for bearing such severe ' harships. Loudon Times. "Now." said the ""lady who gossips. "I am going to toll you something. Hut , you must remember that it was told nie in coutidence and you mustn't re- ; peat it." "Perhaps," suggested Miss Cayenne, "it would be better for you rot to tell me." "Why not?" was the query, in astonishment. "If a lady of : \eiu" self-command can't keep from divulging it. I shouldn't like to trust myself with It." Washington Star. [ HOUSEHOLD MATTERS. 1*1 iiiii l're?erveg. ^\Iokc and clarify a syrup of sugar and water and pour it boiliug hot over the plums. Let them stand for two days, then pour oil the syrup, heat it to the boiliug poiut, skim and pour it over again. Let the fruit and syrup stand for a day or two, then put the whole in a j^reserving kettle over the fire and simmer gently till the syrup is thick and rich. A pound of sugar is to be used for each pound of the fruit. Economy In Clcnnlns Gloves. The usual methods of cleaning gloves entail more or less expense, and frequently unpleasant odors. Try the following one, which is as successful as it is cheap: Have ready a little in nno Rniieer. a niece'of towel or cloth foldeil three or four times. Ou the cloth spread out the glove smooth and neat. Take a piece of flannel, dip it in the milk, then ruh ofT a good quantity of soap with the wetted flannel and commence to rub the glove downward toward the fingers, holding it firmly with the left hand. Continue this process until the glove, if white, looks a dingy yellow, though clean; if colored, till it locks dark and spoiled. Lay it to dry, and old gloves will soon look nearly new. They will be soft, glossy, smooth, well shaped and elastic. Simple Milk Test*. A quick test of milk is to mix it well and then pour it from a glass Pure, unadulterated milk will leave a thick coating on the inside of the glass, while watered or skimmed miik will run out cleanly. Good milk should contain twelve to fifteen per cent, of cream, and the jiercentnge of cream can be estimated in this way: Take a long, narrow bottle, with a capacity of six or eight ounces. Paste ou the outside a strip of paper, half au inch wide, running from the neck to the bottom of the bottle; divide this strip by pencil marks into ten equal parts, fill the bottle to the five mark with milk, and then to the top of ihe paper with water at a heat which will just allow the hand to be inserted without causing pain, and to which so much sod.i has been added as would cover the end of a penknife. Shake well to mix thoroughly, and place in an icebox. In half an hour observe how much cream has risen, ami measure this off on a piece of paper; double this distance and then tee what part of the total leugth of the paper strip on the bottle this i?. If it is ouetwentieth the milk only contains five per cent, of cream; if one-tenth, then it contaius ten per cent.; if one-lifth, then it contains twenty per cent., and so on. Philadelphia Times. White lied Coverings. Out of date completely iu the best furnished houses of New York and its suburbs are white coverings for beds. With the going out of fashion of these white coverings pillow shams have gone, too. To the opposite extreme has the tendency gone. Beds are this season being covered witn stufFs of a medley of colors, the only limitation being that these colors must bo soft and subdued and tho pattern the reverse of glaring. An Indian shawl is the one extremely proper covering. One bed, at least, in a modem household, should have all its white hidden beneath a shall of this sort. If only one of these is obtainable the other bods she tld be adorned with stutl's somewhat like this. Pillows are very small at present, and these should be covered with covers of Indian silk of subdued tints, the general tones harmonizing with those of the shawl or the stuffs. Yet another bed covering of popularity aud of very good form consists o anft ftimitv that is selected to match the colors of the room. Widths of this are sewn together to make the spread, and over the pillows during the day there are placed slip ccmrs of the same material,decked with either a single ruffle going all around the pillow, or else a single ruffle edged with lace. New York Herald. Kecipet. Beet Hash Cut into dice an equal quantity of cold boiled beets and potn. toes. To a pint and a half of the mix. ture add a half-cupful of cream, a levej teaspoonfnl of salt and a dash Of cayenne. Put into a shallow sauce pan, toss frequently and cook uuti well heated throughout. Serve hot Oyster Croquettes One quart oysters, one cup of cream or milk, one tablespoonful of butter in two tablespoonfuls of flour, pepper and salt to suit the taste. Heat the cream; when it boils add the butter and flour, stirring constautly. When perfectly smooth add oysters and seasoning. Cook live minutes; when cold roll into croquettes. "Wiieu perfectly firm dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs aud fry in boiling fat. Garnish with sliced lemons. Creamed Tongue Heat two cnpfnls of milk and a slice of onion in a double boiler. Cream together a quarter of a cup each of butter and llour and half a teaspoonful of celery pepper and stir into the scalding milk; cook ten minutes, remove the onion and stir in one pint of cold cooked tongue cut in dice. Turn into a buttered pudding disli, cover with a half cupful of crumbs stirred into two tablespoonfals of melted butter. Bake until the crumbs are brown. Bearnaise Sauce As an addition to a broiled steak this sauce has no equal. Put into a small, flat, covered saucepan four teaspooufuls of vinegar, a spoonful of minced onion, parsley, and a little pepper, simmer to half the amount; take from the tire, strain, and add the yolks of three eggs, stirring over the tire until il thickens; remove again, and add one and a half ounces of butter cut in bits and stir again over a slow tire; withdraw again and add the same quantity of butter. # THE DREYFUS AFFAIR^ ! ti most remarkable story of mod- t1 ern military annals. i ti !] J The fvourh Captain'* Conviction.Sentenre, ! it Drcrailution and Imprisonment on k Itcvil'it l-.lnml?.Cxt-itint; Kvent.* in tlie T lCeccnt History of the Case. | 1) The truth about the Dreyfus ease is j ft bursting upon Paris, ami Paris is1 a stupelictl by the sensation. i w Four years ago Captain Albert J ? Dreyfus was found guilty uy a rrencu ? military tribunal of celling plans and j w descriptions of French forts and their , n management to a foreign power. The ; T foreign power wa3 then naturally sup- J n: posed to be Germany. Later there i tl was reason to suppose that it was p liussia, or perhaps Italy. France's a ally, it was said, wanted to know how ! h she was fortified against the enemy [ tl with which she had a quarrel to the J p death, not being willing to engage in j w a fruitless tight for her sake. Ger- ; many denied that she had bought any j p secrets from Captaiu Dreyfus; of; if course, liussia did the same. , ff Dreyfus apparently owed his con- tl viction to the fact that he was a Jew. h Had Dreyfus been a Christian it is : t< probable that he would not have been ti sent to Devil's Island. Germany and j ci Franee may be at odds as nations, but , h as peoples they are united in tlieir ill- j a will toward the Jews. I <1 The story of the conviction, sentence ! w and degradation of Dreyfus was one i h of the most remarknblo known to j ri modern military annals. Suspicion I n fell upon him at first only because he . If visited a resort frequented by known i a spies. He was tried in secret and it convicted on circumstantial evidence J u that, as far as made public, was not ts conclusive. , Suspicion was first fastened on i Dreyfus about a year before his | arrest. There were clubs in Paris to i e which the foreign element, and j v especially the Germans, resorted. So j a to them were sent numbers of War j d Department spies. One of the spies 1 found Dreyfus at one of the most n noted German resorts. It was alleged a that Dreyfus explained his presence n there by saying he was there to prac- fi tice the German language. This was d deemed suspicious, because Dreyfus s spoke German perfectly. The fact1 v that he was a Jew and found people J h of his own religion at the club, in- j i< stead of relieving him of suspicion : ii had the reverse effect. c He was watched carefully, and in j 1< October, 1894, was arrested. It was | tl ! asserted that the proot of his guilt j v which caused his arrest consisted chief- < a ly of copies of documents which he j had furnished the <>nemv and which i b were in his hand, iting. though ua-1 li signed. It was w . :a this statement was made public ihat the people of! C France became wildly iudiguaut against j tl the accused. His assertion that the i o incriminating documents had beeu J v written in imitation of his style of pen- | a manship in order to screen the real ; ti criminal was derided. J o About this time the foreign repre- 's sentatives notably those of Germauy d aud Italy denied re eiving any suc h e documents from the accused or auy ] n other person, but iu reply to that came j n the startling information that the doca- | ft meuts on which the Government relied : t to convict the accused had actually i w been stolen from the desk of the Ger- i g man military attache iu his office in ( s the German Embassy in Paris. C The next thing that happened in- ( flamed the public more than ever. It appeared that Germany had protested, under threat of abandoning all diplo- tl matic relations with France, against 8 using documents obtained by violating p the rights of the embassy. The people o thought that Germany was interfering f< to save a traitor who had benefited her, s and the cry for the head of Dreyfus d was almost incessant, while along with j t< this arose such denunciations of tier- c many as threatened war within a brief o period. a The condition of public sentiment p on one side and the attitude of Ger- ii many on the other seriously embar- u rassed the French Government, and 1< the state of affairs was the worse for d the reason that the Cabinet were not s unanimous in their belief in the guilt I of the accused. However, the trial was brought on s in secret, so that it should not public- s ly appear that the stolen documents h were used against the accused. Drey- a ius denied his guilt and brought ex- ti perts to combat the testimony of those ^ who swore the documents were in his a writing, but without avail. The court, t when the case was ended, retired for t an hour, and then came back to the b place of trial and unauimously declared n that the accused was guilty "of having d eriven to a foreign power or to an agent s of a foreign power documents concern- a ing the national defence." o The public had been admitted to C hear the verdict, although Dreyfus was v not present, and when it was pronounced there were loud cries of "Vive la Patrie!" Then the President of the court said: 0 "The sentence is that Captain Drey- 1! fus be iuij)risoned for life in a fortified s place." s , . C Dreyfus heard both the verdict and the sentence in the courtyard, after | the populace had been sent to the streets. It was then night, and he i ^ was taken to the centre of a hollow '0 square formed by the guards. He listened in silence, but with tears run- ^ ning down his face. This was on December 22, 1804. r Later in January Dreyfus was Q publicly disarmed, las uimiary 111siguia torn off anil bis sword broken ^ in tbe presence of a sqnad of soldiers aud a crowd of Parisians. He cried out that he was innocent, but drums drowned his voice. He was finally j sent to Devil's Island, off the coast of Cayenne. c His wife was not permitted to join t him, as was first expected, and pre- f cautions were taken which rendered b is escape from the one of the Safety stands called l'lle du Diable out of ie question. Nevertheless, about ivo years age a story obtained circulaon that Dreyfus had escaped from le island through the instrumental- j y of his devoted wife, who was j nown to have gone to Cayenne. | hat this story should have obtained ! elief seemed absurb, in view of the t ict that the poor Jew on Devil's Isl!id was more closely guarded than t as Napoleon at St. Helena. No boat , r vessel was allowed to approach ithiu tifteen cables of the island, liieh is about twenty-seven miles . | ortheast of the town of Cayenne. | | he island was formerly a leper settle- | lent. Dreyfus has been for over tree years its chief if not its only risoner. A dozen other Frenchmen re made miserable in order to keep ( im there. The climate is probably le worst in the world, and it is sup- ' osed Dreyfns's accusers hoped it ould drive him to suicide. The world, if not France, might erhaps have forgotten about Dreyfus Zola had not taken up the cudgels >r him last December and challenged io verdict ot tue court inariiai wnieu a?l been presided over by Count Esirhazy. Zola was too late. Dv this ine it was not the guilt or the innoence of Dreyfus, the Jew, but the onor of the French Aruiy which was 1 stake. The French Government, iscerned this, hence the scant justice itk which Zola was treated. Even >reyfus sot more. "Spit on Zola," ^presented the attitude of the Goveruicnt, as it did that of the Paris popuice. France's most popular novelist, Ithongh not in the Academy, is now 1 exile he concluded it would be seless martyrdom to serve the 6eniuce of his second trial. Science a* a Detective. From petty thievery we are never Kempt, and while as a rule it is on y exatious it sometimes requires the bility of a Sherlock Holmes for its etection. A gentleman in this city doing busicss in one of our office buildings was 1 nnoyed from time to time by the lysterious disappearance of choice ruit which he had laid by on his esk for his owu delectation, and the ituation became grave enough for inestigatiou. Was it office boys or luitors? Then occurred a bright lea. Doses of tarter emetic deftly iserted under the riud of several hoice oranges might be the means of jcating the culprit. Xo sooner hough of than executed. Result, a ery sick janitor the next morning nil a vacancy in the jauitorship. The Berlin newspapers have lately een telling with great glee of a like riumph of science over crime. In one of the great offices of the rermau capital a number of petty aefts had been committed, the pockets f coats hanging in anterooms being isited and cigars and small change bstracted. The police were for a ime nonplused and invoked the aid f science. A professor being conulted, he advised the insertion of a elicate aniline powder in the mouth ad of some cigars to be placed at the lercy of the thief. The next mornig a summoning of the clerks and a eneral inspection of their months. >ne unhappy youth was discovered ith aniline tongue and lips! Verdict uilty. Little scientific traps will ometimes beat even the police.? 'hicago Times-Herald. Frightened Into Health. Foar is sometimes curative, aluough vastly less so than the oppoite emotions of joy and hopeful exectation. Dr. Tuko reports the case f a man suffering from rheumatic jver who was instantly cured by the hock and fright * of a railway accieut. Sharp relates a similar hisary. Hysterical paralysis has been nred by sudden fright, although such ccurreuces are rarer thau is generlly supposed. Micheo, a celebrated hysiciau, one of the most profound a the knowledge of mental diseases, sed to write insulting anonymous stters to some ot 111s patients in orer to cure them, and with good renlts in some hypochondriacal cases, 'hysicians have sometimes had reourse in hysterical cases to threats or udden fright to check dangerous ymptoms when all other remedies ave proved useless. Amann tells of hysterical patient who suffered from etanic convulsions and trances, and hose father treated her with blows ud cured her. Pansanicis "relates bat a youth recovered his speech in lie fright caused by the sight of a iou; and Herodotus, in his history, arrates that the son of Croesus was umb, and that at the taking of Sardes, eeing a Persian with drawn sword ibout to kill his father, he cried out, vercome with fright, "Kill not h'oesus!" and from that moment he .as able to speak.?Tit-Bits. Smallpox and Cholera in India. It appears from the vital statistics f our Indian empire for 1896-7, just ;sued, that the year in question bowed a higher rate of mortality from mallpox than any year in the last deade. Some idea of what this meaus lay be gathered from the return of 37,022 deaths from this cause, as gainst only 54,979 in the previous | ear aud 43,023 in 1894-'5. Yet this . My represents less tuan iwo-iuirus er cent, of the registered population, ,'liile cholera, which in 189f>-'7 was ot more than ordinarily deadly, cnried oifover two per cent.,and "fever'' ver twenty per cent, of a registered opulation of some 217 millions. Vestminister Gazette. Fire Burns a Menagerie. A fire occurred in a menagerie in jiverpool, England, and burned to eath more than forty animals, inluding five leopards, four lions, a iger, a puma, and a jaguar, and sufocated a number of other animals and irds. i a bbbi 1 "^"' a'" >,?C_ SSgcsws. >X-s&s\ Af Uainirp 1'rom Straw. j ]j Tlicro is far less superstition than a there used to he among farmers about i e [lie advantage of keeping the straw on ; t' tiie f.,riu to be rotted down as manure. | v tVhat is needed as bedding for stock ' ti should be kept, of course, but tlie g greater economy with straw used for y this purpose, tlie better the manure ! y pile will be, and the greater the far-1 u tucr's protit. Farmers who grow large c amounts of grain cannot use up one- j t liolr <w i.n/..n:iufl<iV lli/? w t i*;i w 11 W*l' r 4 farms produce. This straw should he 1 a sold, ami cither stable manure or t commercial fertilizer he purchased 11 with the money, Grain fanners who ; v live near cities or large villages can a often supply owners of horses with \ straw for bedding or for feed, and take \ their pay iu the manure made from t the animals fed. As horses or cows i will eat some hay and grain as well as straw, this is always a good bargain for the farmer who can dispose of his straw in this way. * Keeping Corn Fodder Ojit of Door*. 1 I think most farmers make a mis- j take in their method of curing their j r corn fodder in this section. It is j , generally cut and laid upon the i ( ground to cure, where it remains ten J \ days or longer exposed to the rains \ and sun until it is thought to be cured ; ( sufficiently to bind in bundles and put j into shocks. Then it is allowed to ( staud until needed for feeding, and the [ result of this rdan is a bleached nrod- < uct of a poor quality. By the method employed I have a 1 superior quality of feed which is the t equal of any hay grown. I take a t pole of any suitable length, set a j crotch one at each end and one about i the middle, and as fast as I cut my ] foduer, rest it against the pole on both 1 sides, making the rick about two feet ; thick. I continue until the corn is all , ] cut. The fodder stands in the field < , until wanted for use. My experience ; , has convinced me that it ? not safe to ; ] put corn fodder into a mow, because t of its liability to mold. j By the plan I have adopted I think < it would be perfectly safe for tko fod- j der to remain in the field all winter, j It does not blow down if properly set ( up against the pole, needs no binding | and I am convinced that it is a labor , saving method as well as the best ( ..e : lLiiiiUJer ui uuuu^ unucu tv/ia xvi iun- ( der. T. Lyon, in the American Agri- . culturist. i J Currant* From Outti?crs. This fruit is very easily grown from i ! cuttings, and for that reason it would seem unnecessary that auyone should J l>e without currants. To get a start I purchased a few choice bushes of the most reliable varieties, set them in rich soil, and by giving extra culture 1 during the summer, secured several 1 hundred cuttings that fall. I cut the sprouts, after growth is 1 completed and leaves have fallen, about nine inches long, tied them in bunches of fifty, aud heeled in for a few days for the raw cut to callous ! over. In taking the cuttings, I took j particular care as to the shape iu which t 't 1 T * 1 1 _ ti. S\ i. t me oi(i ousnes were ieit. uuo musi exercise considerable judgment in this, ' by noting the strongest buds, and ' cutting back so as to leave three or ( four upon each brauch, aud taking I out all stray laterals. It is possible * to so train a bush that it will grow * symmetrically, and will also produce * tine frnit, aud must be much longer lived, if this practice is followed each 1 i year. I cut the wood as diagonally as 1 possible, thus giving a sharpened end to each cutting, which makes it easier to insert them in the soil. The * ground, previously well manured, is c plowed nine or ten iDche3 deep. I trench rows three feet apart, and six or eight inches deep. In the bottom ,)f these trenches I stick the cuttings, about four iuches apart, and at an angle of forty-five degrees along the row, leaving about an inch of the tops protrnding above the ground. In filling the trenches I take extra care to firm the soil at the bottom of the trenches about the cuttings. I use a tamp made from a 2xG inch oak stick, three feet long, fastened to a handle. It is well to ridge the rows a little, so that no water may stand and freeze about the cuttings. Then when the 1 . e T 1,'~l.il ~ I grouuu uegms luircBici tutci ujjuuj i with a coarse mulch of manure to pre-1 vent heaving out B. A. Wood, in American Agriculturist. liaising Potatoes Without Wee:ls. Before this year we planted our potatoes by hand in furrows made with a shovel plow and covered with plow or harrow, but always harrowing ground down level, and if the weather was unfavorable for keeping the harrow going the weeds came up with or before the potatoes, so we had plenty of weeds all through the season. We used a potato planter this year and set the covers so they made a uarrow ridcre directly over the row. The | s field was then left until the sprouts I c on the potatoe.? were well started. ' r Wo then ran through them with a j t five-tooth (lj-ineh wide shovel) eulti: ; vator, running as close to the row as ! i possible not to disturb the potatoes c (the ridge showed us exactly where ! c the row was). Then a slanting tooth 2 harrow was run crossways of the field, tearing down those little ridges and simulv doing away with all weeds f that had started to grow in the row. I c By this time potatoes were nearly 1 $j through. As soon as they could be i seen in the row the slanting tooth ! ? \ ***^?"1: |-Jll i*V/ I =S?i5>' ^ j f arrow was run lengthways of field r> ud killed auy weeds that may have scaped the cross harrowing. After ' his we used a fourteen-tooth culti- J ator as often as we thought necessary jk o keep the weeds down and the round loose. For a dry season we ."onJd follow the cultivator with the reader to level the soil and hold aoisture, but this year we have had uore moisture than was needed, so he fourteen-tooth plow was sufficient i> keep the weeds down and the round loose. You who plant potaoes try and leave a ridge over the row o harrow down and thereby kill the reeds that want to grow in the row, ,nd you will have won a battle you rill be proud of, and your potatoes rill be easily kept cleau the rest of he season. Chas. L. Berry, in Agricultural Epitomist. Good Help. It is not economy on the part of the avmer to hire cheap labor on the farm, luring the busy seasoi at least. In inrvest the work goes on with a rush md push from start to finish,and each nan should be competent to do his lutv without having to be watched or lirecteit too trequentiy. it is some;imes hard to get the best when farm iclp is hired by the year. Good help, can't be picked up just any day we lecd it. and it seems that it is getting scarcer every year, partly,we suppose, jecause the requirements of the farm ire greater than they used to be. Muscular strength counts for much ess than it formerly did; skill and the echnical knowledge needed to do hir'gs easily count for much more :han ever before. A man awkward svitli tools may do more damage in an lour than his wages will come to in a veek. The most of the help we pick lp that is roaming around is worth ittle or nothing when we put it to operating any sort of complicated machinery on the farm. In fact, a man must possess some degree of intellect lud skill to do good ploughing, especially at this season, when the ?rour.d is hard and dry. If the help s to be boarded iu the farmer's fam,iy its moral character deserves some T?.omr>a nu/1 afimnrrnvo rohn rnam **"?? f? :he country, getting in one or two lays' work hero anil there where a ?ood soft job presents itself, or when lriven by hunger or poor clothes to ,'et down to hard labor, cannot be de? pended upon in any sort of emerge ?ncy. Just when you need them most each fellows will find some excuse t^ cave you. Vie think that, so far ad possible, farms should have help hired j ay the year or season aiTdflepend vefy* ittle upon extra help. The profits oi ;he farm depend greatly upon doin^ vork well and at the proper season, rod without good help the farmer ipt to drop behind with his work or leglect something. Farmer's Guide Asparagus From the See:!.' Asparagus will grow on most soils. ind will yield large crops npon stiff 'oils; but for the grower for market, a ight sandy soil of fair fertility is much o be preferred, both because of thel ?arliuess with which it produced ipears and the ease with which it id :ultivated. One pound of seed will >roduce about 3000 sprouts, and iliould be sown in rows about fifteen uches apart and 1} inches deep; so hinly should the seed be sown that he plants will not stand closer than li or two inches, and these should ifterward be thinned to about three nches apart, care being taken to leave he strongest and most thrifty shoots. Careful weeding and hoeing are leeded through the growing season tnd in dry weather irrigation will greatly increase their growth. Waterng between the rows with liqnid manire is great assistance to the young ilants, which must ,be in good condi ion for setting out in the beds early n the spring. In selecting the crowna t has been found better to take those vith few, but well developed buds tnd plenty of roots, rather than those vith numerous buds. One year old :rowus are to be preferred, and at the md of three years they produce much nore thau the older crowns. [Bui. 51, U. S. Dept. Agr.] The area selected should be plowed in the late all or early winter to a depth of at east fifteen inches and then covered vith a good compost or manure, spring is the best time to plant, dthough it can be delayed until the ast of June. Rows should be marked >ff four to six feet apart and opened ip with a large plow eight to twelve nches deep. In these furrows the rows are set, at a distance varying iceordiug to the opinion of the grower, rom eighteen inches to five feet. Rows iliould be run north and south, so hat the full benefit of the sun may >e secured. Careful weeding and ooseniug of the soil are necessary hroughout the entire season. In the all, when the tops are mature, they ihould be cut, hauled off and burned, md part of the soil over the crowns emoved, so that not over two or hree inches remain,that the frost and ains may penetrate the soil. Early a the spring, when plants are old mough to cut, there must be a ridge >ver the rows to blanch the shoots. sew England Homestead. The value of the gold and silver' >roduced in Oregon during the calenlar year 1897 was 81,354,592.43, and S109,963.68 respectively. Correspondng values for the year 1896 were $1,190,963.68 and $71,711.37.