COMMENTING ON THE Recent reference in this column to the proposal that the Dionne quintuplets be housed in Castle Loma in the city of Toronto and there be placed on exhibition as a means of enabling the city to obtain revenue from a property now unproductive, Arthur Brusegaard of Gilby gives some facts concerning the history of that remarkable building. Mr. Brusegaard visited Toronto in 1929 and was shown the "castle" on a sight-seeing tour of the city. He writes: "THE MAN WHO BUILT IT, whose name I have forgotten, had been a major in the Canadian Army and had made quite a reputation for himself and his outfit in France. In the fall of 1921, I think it was, he gathered the group of men who had served under him in France, together in Toronto, outfitted them in new uniforms, drilled them an3 took them over to London, at his own expense. Incidentally, he had accumulated a fortune in the market since the war. The reason for the trip was to take part in the Armistice Day parade held in London. King George, seeing the Canadian service men and hearing of the way in which their trip was financed, was so impressed that he knighted the major. Following the knighting ceremonies the major was feted in various parts of the country and also made a trip into Scotland and had occasion to visit several of the old castles there. It was here that the inspiration came to him to build one in Toronto exactly like one of those he had visited.

"WORK WAS STARTED THE following spring but when about half completed he went broke. Getting a new start in business again, he soon made another fortune and was able to complete the castle. He lived in it less than a year and went broke again. The city of Toronto acquired it some time later for unpaid taxes and it seems doomed to remain a white elephant. I am not sure what it cost to build but do remember that we were told the stone fence that surrounds the five acre knoll on which it is built cost $60,000. Am not sure of the size but it was somewhere around 120 rooms. It is situated in an exclusive residential section of the city and the grounds are covered with many large trees and a heavy growth of shrubbery. It was rented to a group of wealthy Toronto business men a year or two before we were there, for a club house but proved too costly to keep up and they had to give it up."

ORDINARILY WE ARE MORE apt to associate Norway with fishing than with fruit-growing, but there are sections of that country where fruit-growing is a major industry. And the quality of some of the Norwegian fruit is said to be exceptionally fine. From one orchard on the West coast, owned by Elling Stene, father of Mrs. George Morkrid, 1218 University avenue, Grand Forks, apples were shipped regularly to London each season for the use of the royal family.

THE APPLES CHOSEN FOR this purpose were Gravensteins, a variety also grown in this country. The Gravenstein is a hard winter apple, at its best in the spring after having been kept for months in cool storage. As with other apples, the quality depends not alone on the variety, but on the locality where it is grown, and the Norwegian area of its 'growth seemed peculiarly fitted to bring out the best qualities of this fine apple.

IN THE STENE ORCHARD great pains were taken to insure the receipt of apples in perfect condition by the royal purchaser. The apples were carefully handled in picking^ so as to avoid bruising, and apples of uniform size and perfect form were selected. Each apple was carefully examined for blemishes and each perfect apple was carefully wrapped in soft paper and then in strong coarse paper. The apples were then packed in layers in barrels, each layer resting on a bed of soft packing, with which the barrel was also lined. Thus the apples arrived in London, unbruised, to be stored in the royal cellar.

GRAND FORKS BOYS ARE TO have a kite-flying contest, enjoying a most fascinating sport. It is, however, a sport which in these days is attended with danger if proper precautions are not taken. If the flying is done in the vicinity of high-tension electric wires, and our light wires which run through the alleys are of that character, there is the possibility of short circuit by kite strings falling across heavily charged wires. If the kite string is perfectly dry there is slight probability of accident, but if it is damp the current may be conducted to the boy at the other end of the string. This risk is increased if metallic kite strings are used, which is done in some cases. Several deaths have been caused in this manner. It is important that there be no kite flying where there is any possibility of contact with highly charged wires. Obviously the best place for the sport is in the open country, but there are localities in the city where kites can be flown with safety.

USUALLY OUR BOYS PREFER the flat kite, roughly diamond-shaped, or with bow top, but there is possible great variety in the design of kites. Chinese and Japanese have flown kites for many centuries, and their designs usually take the general form of birds, and are self-balancing, whereas the flat kite requires the long tail. The box kite is a familiar form, often used for carrying scientific instruments aloft. Then there is the tetrahedral kite, made of two equilateral triangles placed together V-shape and braced apart at the points. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, experimented for several years with this form of kite in attempts to make it the basis of a practical flying-machine. WHILE THE PEOPLE OP THE United States have no immediate interest in the coronation of a British king, the approaching coronation of George VI attracts attention in this country because of the traditions surrounding it and the elaborate preparations which are being made to celebrate it. Thousands of Americans will witness the pageant, and multitudes who remain at home will read of its numerous picturesque features. The event has a certain social and commercial significance which extends into every corner of this country as well as into all parts of the British dominions, for "coronation colors" are now in vogue everywhere, and the coronation influences the attire of the American lady who goes to church or to a party. Manufacturers have adapted their operations to accord with the prevailing fashion, and the goods on the merchants' shelves bear testimony to the far-flung influence of a ceremony on the other side of the Atlantic.

APPROACH OF THE Coronation has also brought its note of dissent. Last week I reproduced in this column the text of a protest against the coronation of George VI and the assertion of the claim of Rupert of Bavaria as the law- ful heir to the British throne. That declaration was signed by C. C. Bagnall, of New Zealand, representing a Jacobite society in that country. In the accompanying comment I gave some facts relating to the Jacobite movement, and the publication brings the following letter from Miss Flora Cameron Burr, of Bottineau, herself of Scottish lineage, and an ardent sympathizer of the exiled Stuarts: "That Reminds Me, is always interesting and to a Scottish Jacobite and Nationalist looking forward to Scottish independence, that of April 25 unusually so. C. C. Bagnall of New Zealand is well known to me as an editor and a leading Jacobite.

"YOU MAY CARE TO KNOW have in safekeeping a photograph of Robert (Stuart) IV, the rightful king of Scotland, sent around as a fiery cross some years ago; also a copy of last issue of Crois Tara (Fiery Cross, published in Scotland by Theodore Napier, Scottish patriot and Jacobite who later went to Australia where he died.

“THE SCOTTISH JACOBITES and Nationalists are today stronger than at any other time since the last gathering with certain Irish patriots for independence, some years after American revolution. Help was once more promised from France but failed through ill-fated circumstances. The affair was stifled in press and textbook as was done after the Forty-five, when the imperialists circulated it was a mere dissatisfaction of a few clans while in reality it was Scotland, renowned centuries B.C., the few years since the last uprising for freedom are as nothing.

"YOUR OBSERVATIONS AS TO toasts and challenge are authentic. As to former may say that one of the favorite toasts of Scotland after the death of William of Orange, occasioned by his horse stumbling over a mole hill, was: "To the little brown gentleman clothed in velvet". Stranger things around us are happening than that the "glove" be lifted at coming coronation, (should there be a coronation). Other ways too there are of accepting the challenge, as the attempt of the "Young Scots" seize the Stone of Scone."

MISS BURR APPENDS THE following poem which she wrote in 1926, and which has been used in many countries as a substitute for the traditional "fiery cross" which in olden days was carried by swift messengers through the Scottish highlands to summon the clans to battle. On last St. Andrew's day it was published in a paper in South Africa:

THE EXILED RACE. By Flora Cameron Burr. As the bonnie braes of Scotland Love the heather and the broom; As her misty isles and moorlands Cherish sunglints or the gloom, So the Celtic hearts of Scotland Ever love and make their moan For the exiled House of Stuart — Chieftains of our own. Refrain They are ours, Oor Ain, no others Fill our hearts or take their place. Brunswick's falling; love remain- eth For the exiled race. As the grim drage lures the eagle Where no human foot may tread; As the banshee calls the hills folk To the corries of their dead; As the Sea her islesmen gathers Safely to their lang, lang hame So the tears of Scotland’s banished Keep the Stuart name.

Empires rise and fall, their builders Pass unwept; unsung by men, While the whole wide world is singing: "Wull ye nae coom back again?" And Culloden's Cairn O Scotland Stands today a sacred shrine; Still the Gaelic heart it kindles To the Stuart line.

Brunswick's falling—the supplanters Mingle with the common clay While the lovely Queen o' Scotland; Martyred Monarch reign for aye. The unlovely, loveless perish Verdict this of age and clime— Love weaves well the Stuart story In the web of time.

HAVE WE A GOLDEN EAGLE in the vicinity of Grand Forks? The possibility of the appearance of one of these rare birds is suggested in the following letter from L. J. Sande, of Grand Forks:

"I READ WITH SOME Interest last night the statement you made in your column regarding the action of birds during the recent storm, and I wish to report that yesterday I saw a bird which I took to be a Golden Eagle.

"IT WAS JUST A MILE NORTH of the junction of Highways 81 and 44 north of Manvel. As I approached the crossing at this point, I noticed what I thought was an exceptionally large hawk sitting on a stump about 100 yards west of the highway. I reduced the speed of my car in order to observe the bird more closely and was struck by its enormous size.

"IT APPEARED TO BE OF A brownish color with a white marking on its breast. I stopped my car nearly opposite and the bird immediately took wing, circling almost over me and flying toward the river as I watched it for some minutes. The wing spread must have been 6 feet or over as it appeared to be larger than the Blue Herons that frequent the Minnesota lakes.

BIRD THIS SIZE IS A RARE sight in these parts, and I was wondering if the storm had driven it to this part of the country, so far from its native haunts. AN INKSTER FRIEND ASKS for information concerning the Fenian disturbances in Canada many years ago, for the suppression of which members of his family volunteered. His family came from Eastern Ontario, near where one of the attempts at Fenian invasion occurred. Here and there are still living in North Dakota men who served in the government's forces during that period. One of them is District Judge W. J. Kneeshaw, of Pembina, who has a medal awarded by the Canadian government for services in the Fenian rebellion, and who was recently made an honorary member of a Winnipeg patriotic society in recognition of his service.

WHILE THE FENIAN Brotherhood had its origin in the desire of many of the Irish people to sever connection between their country and Great Britain, the society itself was of American origin. It was founded in New York in 1858 by William Mahoney, whom after being engaged in a fruitless Irish rebellion in 1848, made his escape from the country and ultimately took up his residence in the United States. His purpose was to organize in the United States men of Irish birth or extraction for co-operation with insurgent groups in Ireland.

FOLLOWING THE AMERICAN Civil war the Fenian society received many accessions from Irish who had seen service with the Union armies in the Civil war, and in 1866 there was organized a Fenian expedition for the invasion of Canada, the expectation being that Canadians would join it in sufficient numbers to separate Canada from Great Britain. That expectation proved groundless. Regular soldiers then in Canada were reinforced by numerous volunteers, and the Fenian expedition, commanded by John O'Neill, which crossed the Niagara river and captured Fort Erie was routed at Ridgeway, and those who escaped surrendered to the American war ship "Michigan," and were deprived of their arms. Some accounts, however, say that their weapons were subsequently restored.

FENIAN PLOTTING ON THE American side continued, and in 1870 another Fenian army under O'Neill, crossed the boundary near Franklin, Vermont, to be dispersed by a single volley from Canadian volunteers. While these at- tempted invasions proved to be of minor importance, the prospect of them Kept Ontario in a state of tension for several years. Volunteers were kept in service only while they were needed, but regulars in their red coats were stationed at strategic points near the border.

BRANTFORD, MY HOME town, was headquarters for one unit of regulars, whether battalion or regiment I do not know, and I can remember, as a small child, admiring the brilliance of the uniforms. I can also remember with what anxiety we youngsters regarded the possibility that "the Fenians were coming," and we sometimes went to sleep in the expectation of being murdered in our beds. Just what Fenians were, or why they should murder us, we hadn't the slightest idea. I assume that m Inkster friend s people were engaged in repulsing the expedition that crossed from Vermont in 1870.

SAMUEL FOSTER, OF Lakota, some of whose recollections were published in this column about two weeks ago, omitted mention of his marriage, concerning which he now supplies the information that in 1887 he married Miss F. D. Unglesbee, who had come to North Dakota with her family from Missouri. That was a year of much rain, and of the rain Mr. Foster writes:

"WE SOWED OUR CROP AND it had not come up, by the 1st of June. Then came this rain, or cloud burst. Never have I seen anything to equal it. The water rushing down the coulies into Stump lake, was deep enough to swim a horse.

'THIS LAKE HAS NOW Decreased in depth to the extent of 18 feet since I first arrived here when I used to spear pickerel, that would swim up into the freshets and coulies. Also there were several little shacks built out on the ice in the winter where the halfbreeds would cut holes in the ice and spear fish.

"FINALLY EVAPORATION caused this water to be too strong for fish to survive, so we were compelled to go to Devils Lake for OUE fishing. The same result occurred there in a short time.

"IF WE COULD OBTAIN Federal aid in diverting the water from the Missouri river, into Devils lake and Stump lake and thence into the Sheyenne river as the topographical contour of the land shows it did many years age, we would have a much better country. In the first place, we would have two beautiful lakes, which at the present time are an eyesore, and a menace to the peoples' health who reside in those vicinities, caused by the dust blowing off the many thousands of acres that were at one time covered with water. In the second place we would have fish, and lastly I am convinced that the drouths that we now suffer from would be greatly eliminated and also give us more water in our wells, which we must have or move out.

MR. FOSTER'S ESTIMATE OF the value of improvement of water conditions by means of the Missouri diversion project are interesting in view of the inability of army engineers to reduce the prospective benefits of the project to a basis of enough dollars and cents to warrant its being undertaken. A COLORED BROTHER Applied for a marriage license at the Chicago license bureau. "Your name?" asked the clerk, with pen poised over the blank. The answer was given without hesitation." Her name?" The applicant looked blank, then confused. "Now ain't that a joke?" he exclaimed. "She's lived upstairs of me for eight years, and I can't remember her name." He seized his hat and start- ed for the door, saying “I’ll be back in a few minutes." In a few minutes he returned with the lady's name.

UNEQUAL, DISTRIBUTION OF wealth is nothing compared to unequal distribution of telephones. With only 6 per cent of the world's population the United States has half of the world's telephones, according to a summary just issued by the American Telephone and Telegraph company. In the United States there are 13.69 telephones for each 100 persons, a little more than one for every other family. In this respect the telephone has not kept pace with the automobile, for in this country we have as many automobiles as families.

NORTH DAKOTA HAS ABOUT 9.8 telephones per 100 people. As North Dakota has no large cities this means that its rural inhabitants are better supplied with telephones than are rural inhabitants of the United States on an average. In the towns and cities served by the Bell Telephone company in North Dakota there are 20.1 telephones per 100 population. The larger cities of the state compare favorably with the larger cities of the country. Bismarck leads with 27 phones per 100. Fargo has 26.2, Grand Forks 22.8; Jamestown 20.6 and Valley City 22.

NEW YORK, WITH 1,503,712 instruments, is the only city in the world having more than one million telephones. London has close to a million in its metropolitan area. In ratio of telephones to population Washington, D. C. leads, with 37 per 100 persons. Then come San Francisco, with 36; and Stockholm with 29. ALL AMERICAN TELEPHONE systems are owned by private corporations. About 20 per cent of Canada's telephones are publicly owned. In Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia, as well as in some of the smaller European countries, all telephones are operated by the government. Rather curiously, Italy, the first of the "corporative" states, has permitted all its telephones to be privately owned, although in Italy all so-called private corporations are under strict supervision by the government.

I HAVE BEEN READING, with a great deal of interest, the longest personal letter that I ever read, or saw. It is a letter received by Dr. E. P. Robertson from a cousin, W. R. Ferguson, of Glasgow, Scotland. It is hand- written, and fills 70 pages of letter-size paper. I estimate that it contains from 12,000 to 15,000 words, or enough to fill about a dozen newspaper columns of ordinary type.

THE MAN WHO WROTE THAT letter, a retired Glasgow clothing merchant, is 80 years old. He was visited by Dr. and Mrs. Robertson on their trip abroad many years ago, and since then the two families have kept up occasional correspondence. The letter contains, naturally, numerous references to family affairs, which are of interest only to the immediate families. As a stranger, I was struck first by the firm penmanship of a man so advanced in years, then by his forcefulness and clarity of expression, and finally, as I read the text, by the keenness and comprehensiveness of his comment on social, political and religious developments in his own country and in the world at large, especially in the United States.

USUALLY WE DO NOT THINK of a Glasgow merchant who has never visited the United States as being specially conversant with conditions in the United States, but Mr. Ferguson's comment shows a broader comprehension and clearer understanding of many phases of American life than are to be found among many of our own educated people.

IN HIS DISCUSSION OF American affairs Mr. Ferguson quotes with equal readiness Emerson and Mr. Dooley, and he makes trenchant observations on the economic problems confronting this country. Briefly he discussed the abdication of King Edward. Of Edward he writes:

"IF HE BE A MAN, WHAT A price he has yet to pay for his madness! "An exile from his country, he may return—there is no bar to his doing so—but it shall be by comparative stealth, no place for him in church pageantry or state function. He can take no part in public life here or in any country in which they exile themselves. "He must perforce consort with those of whom the Archbishop of Canterbury said: 'Within a social circle whose standards and ways of life are alien to the best instincts and traditions of his people.'" Bitter, perhaps, but doesn't it contain a lot of truth? COLONEL, IRVING SPEED Wallace's book, "Mexico Today," is now on sale in Grand Forks. It is a description of Mexico as it is now, by a North Dakota man who has traveled its length and breadth and has observed the varied phases of its life with keen and penetrating gaze and has recorded his impressions in a highly interesting way. Mr. Wallace is a Minot man who for several years has made periodic journeys to Mexico in the interest of air travel between the two countries, of international good roads, in tourist traffic, and generally in the development of intimate friendly relations between the people of Mexico and those of the United States. He has become equally familiar with Mexican officialdom and with the country's commercial and industrial life, and he has come into close contact with life in obscure villages and among the peon population. His book deals in an interesting way with many facts which are often overlooked by books which purport to describe Mexico. Its publishers, the Meador company of Boston, have produced an attractive volume, whose interest is enhanced by its numerous photographic reproductions.

A USEFUL LITTLE BOOK JUST off the press is "The Story of the Constitution," whose author Sol Bloom is director general of the United States Constitution Sesqui-centennial commission, under whose direction the book is published. While its publication is timely, in view of the present discussion of proposed changes in the personnel of the federal supreme court, its publication is not in any way elated to that discussion. The commission was created by act of congress in 1935 for the purpose of making ,provision for the celebration this year of the 150th anniversary of the adoption of the constitution. THE BOOK DESCRIBES THE conditions which existed in the colonies prior to the adoption of the constitution and the proceedings of the convention which framed the document. Arguments which were made for and against ratification are summarized. An analysis of the constitution is given, with an interpretation of some of its more important provisions. The book is liberally and carefully indexed, and it contains several pages of questions and answers which cover many points concerning which the average reader is not well informed. The book comes at an opportune time, when thoughtful citizens are seeking information concerning the government of their country and the principles on which it is founded.

A CURIOUS STATEMENT IS made in the review of a new book in the Minneapolis Journal. The review is of the book "Angels in Undress," by Mark Benny. The author of the book is described, quite correctly, as "born out of wedlock, the son of a cheap street woman in England, and a 'slicker,' who was merely one of many 'fathers' the boy had in childhood." The surprising statement is that of the reviewer that "Alexander Hamilton, the greatest treasury figure in United States history, was born in circumstances similar to Benny's." IT IS TRUE THAT Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock, but there is no parallel between his case and Benny's. Hamilton's mother, member of a respected French Hugenot family, was married in very early life to a Danish planter on the West Indian island of St. Croix, with whom she lived unhappily, and whom she left. She contracted an alliance with James Hamilton, a prosperous West Indian merchant, with whom she lived happily until her death. Her husband had obtained a divorce, but she was not granted the privilege of remarriage. Her union with Hamilton was legally irregular, but it was of a type common to that locality and period, and young Al- exander had the benefit in his childhood of refined family life, good education and excellent surroundings. MR. AND MRS. GEORGE A. Bangs have returned to their home in Indianapolis after a vacation spent in Florida. They will arrive in Grand Forks about May 29 for a brief visit with old friends here. Since leaving Grand Forks in 1933 to take up his duties as president of the United Mutual Life Insurance company of Indianapolis Mr. Bangs has been made managing director of the American United Life Insurance company, formed by a merger of the United Mutual with the American Central Life. He has become nationally known as an authority on various forms of investment, and his address on municipal credit was one of the features of the seventeenth conference of the national association of Mutual Savings banks held in New York April 28-30. Other speakers on the same program were nationally and internationally known figures in the investment world.

THE DUKE OF WINDSOR and his fiancée are said to have discussed at their recent meeting plans for their future residence. Edward is said to favor establishing a home in Austria while Mrs. Simpson is understood to prefer residence in the United States, or "at least" in Canada. The Canadians will like that "at least.' There is something to be said in favor of Canadian residence, for the duke already owns a ranch in Alberta, and there he could at least have an occupation. But what a fluttering of hearts there would be in truly democratic bosoms if the Windsors should decide to make some American city their home! And what a boom there would be in the business of genealogists in examining, polishing up and perhaps pruning family trees to make sure that the right people, and those only, should be presented to the distinguished newcomers.

THERE IS NO ACCOUNTING for tastes. One of the popular features of the old dime museum was the Chamber of Horrors, in which were shown, among other delectable sights, alleged reproductions of scenes from the Spanish Inquisition, with wax figures of victims writhing in torment under diabolically conceived instruments of torture. Those gruesome sights brought forth exclamations of horror from spectators who wouldn't have missed the thrill for the world. Morbidity of a different kind is exhibiting itself in the crowds of people who pay 50 cents a head to visit the house in Baltimore which was the home of Mrs. Wallis Simpson when she was a little girl. There is shown the very kitchen stove on which the breakfasts of little Wallis were cooked and recently contrived decorations in equal taste adorn the walls of other rooms.

IN THIS CONNECTION TWO quotations come to mind. One is that of Shakespeare's Puck: "What fools these mortals be!" and the other Byron's remark about his friend Tom Moore: "Little Tommy dearly loves a lord."

ONE OF NATURE'S Miracles, familiar, yet always new and always wonderful, is her assumption of her new spring dress, and sometimes, as this year, the change from the bareness of winter to the beauty of spring is achieved with startling suddenness. Recent rains have saturated the soil and watered the roots of trees and shrubs. Cool weather has held in check the swelling of buds. Then a few days of summery heat have forced every plant fiber into sudden activity, and vegetation has come to life overnight. Usually the changes come about so gradually as to be scarcely perceptible. This year the landscape has changed in appearance within the space of a few hours.

ALL THE SIGNS THUS FAR point to a fine crop of lilacs this spring. Already the blossom-buds are bursting and exposing their contents which before long will expand into beautiful and fragrant flowers. It is difficult to compare beautiful things which are unlike, and each flower has a beauty of its own, but I think nothing surpasses the beauty of a lilac bush loaded with bloom. One never can tell when devastating frost may come, but the season is now so well advanced as to warrant the expectation that this year the lilacs will escape.

WHEATHER DUE TO SON spots, as some scientists believe, or to some other cause, the Aurora Borealis has been unusually liberal in its displays of late. Not long ago the displays belted the North American continent, and the electrical activity was so great in many localities as to put telegraph and telephone lines out of commission. The activity seems to have been greatest just north of the Canadian border. On Tuesday night at Grand Forks, after a quite brilliant display, there was afforded the rather unusual spectacle of northern lights stretching in a bright band across the heavens from northwest to southeast, with most of the southern heavens decked in splendor, while all the northeast section of the sky was in intense darkness. Usually it is the northern sky that is most brilliantly illuminated. A FEW YEARS AGO A GIRL friend of the family who had grown to young womanhood in New York City had her first view of Northern lights in New York. Think of what she had missed in those years! On the night of her arrival here the elements were kind and gave a display of unusual brilliance which lasted until the small hours of the morning. The visitor was told that we always turned those lights on when we wished to confer, special honor on a favored guest. ONE OF THE INTERESTING articles in this week's Saturday Evening Post is that on "That Ever Normal Granary" by Dr. James E. Boyle, professor of rural economy at Cornell university. Dr. Boyle is well known in Grand Forks, as he was for several years professor of economics at the University of North Dakota, and he has occas- ionally returned to the city to visit old friends. He has been at Cornell several years, and he has won national recognition by his contributions to the study of economics.

IN HIS PRESENT ARTICLE Dr. Boyle deals with the proposal of Secretary Wallace to eliminate the surplus as a troublesome factor in agriculture by the ever-normal granary plan, which contemplates storage by the government of surplus crops in years of abundance and releasing the stored crops in years of scarcity. This plan, thinks Dr. Boyle, reduced to its simplest terms is merely a plan to control prices, which has already been attempted by our own and other governments without much success.

SUPPORTERS OF THIS AND similar plans of government control often refer in terms of admiration to the story of Joseph, chief adviser to the king of Egypt 3500 years ago. Dr. Boyle concedes that Joseph did store wheat during the seven fat years and released it during the seven lean ones, but he says that Egyptologists point out that Joseph really drove a hard bargain with the farmers, buying their wheat at a low price and then selling it back to them at prices which caused them to lose their land and become tenants and serfs. Moreover, he says, they never got their land back.

IN CHINA A SIMILAR Granary attempt was made, but after some years' experience Mr. Lui Pong reported that the granary "is a benefit to the people only in name, but the actual condition is very harmful to the people because the officers are too bad." Of course we in America would change all that.

ANOTHER CHINESE Writer, Kwan Tze, speaking of individual farm granaries in relation to China's major virtue, politeness, wrote: "The best shepherd of the people is one who encourages the people in farming as the season goes, and so causes them to fill their own granary. Because if the granaries have been filled, then the people will have time to be polite."

DR. BOYLE'S ARTICLE IS BY no means devoted to the study of the ancient. It discusses such recent facts as the futile attempts of Washington to control the prices of wheat and cotton, and as to the relation of domestic surplus to price the writer says that every man who was a voter 20 years ago has seen a big surplus of wheat sell abroad at 50 cents a bushel, at $1.00, at $1.50, at $2.00, at $3.00, and even at $3.50. Surplus cotton has sold similarly at prices ranging from 5 cents to 40 cents a pound.

CITING TSE BEHAVIOR OF the crops and the markets in various periods £>r. Boyle reaches the conclusion that the commercial facilities now extant provide the country with the best possible kind of ever-normal granary. Attempt- ed control by the government, he believes, would be injurious alike to the farmer and to the country.

SOME TIME AGO I Referred to a jainting now being made for the World's Fair in Paris and red to a painting now being made largest ever made. I referred to the cyclorama of the battle of Gettysburg as apparently larger. Mrs. Amy Evans Sanderson writes from Atlanta, Georgia, about the cyclorama of the battle of Atlanta, another of the cycloramas produced a generation or more ago. Mrs. Sanderson writes:

"THE CITY OF ATLANTA HAS no figures on the exact size of the cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta. The building that houses it is 400 feet in circumference by 50 feet high, but we know of course that the picture does not occupy all of that space. So my son Bill went out there this morning and estimated by triangulation that the picture itself is 27 feet high by 345 feet in circumference.

"THE PARK DEPARTMENT told me three German artists, Lorenze, Heine, and Loehr worked three years with 10 experts assisting, painting it—using 8,000 pounds of paint. The picture weighs 18,000 pounds—it used to be in a flimsy temporary structure, and was moved about 10 years ago to its permanent fire proof place at Grant park. It was painted in Milwaukee in 1871—the three painters had been in the battle of Atlanta. It was exhibited for 18 years throughout the country under canvas. Brought here in 1889, sold for taxes in 1905. Bought by Gress and given to the city. The WPA has recently completed landscaping the foreground to match up with the picture—so it is almost too realistic." CANADIAN PAPERS LOANED by a friend give extended descriptions of the floods which prevailed through southwestern Ontario, while farther south the Ohio and tributary streams almost repeated the havoc that marked the great floods of January. The Ontario floods were confined generally to the southern portion of that portion of the peninsula lying immediately north of Lake Erie, The two principal streams of that area are the Grand river, flowing south through Guelph, Gait and Brantford and emptying into Lake Erie and the Thames, flowing westward through Ingersoll and Chatham and emptying into Lake St. Clair. Both have their origin in the hilly north country and in their lower reaches flow through relatively level country.

IT WAS THE LEVEL COUNTRY which felt the greatest effect of the floods as the river beds were unable to carry off the waters accumulated by heavy rains through the entire system. London was the largest city affected, and of its 70,000 inhabitants more than 10,-000 were forced from their homes by the flood. Some houses were carried away, and the second stories of many others were flooded. While property damage was great, loss of life directly due to the flood was small.

DISPATCHES COVERING flood news came from many places familiar to many North Dakotans, many from their old home towns. Paris, on the Grand river, former home of Judge W. Keenshaw, of Pembina, had a landslide caused by the flood. An immense section f earth slid into the river, leaving houses perched precariously at the edge of a 60-foot drop. One elderly lady, living in one of those houses, refused to leave when urged to do so, saying that she had lived there for 50 years, knew the ways of the river, and intended to stay where she was.

THREE DEATHS WERE caused at Woodstock by the wreck of a through passenger train which ran into a washout. Ingersoll, St. Thomas, Cayoga, St. Mary's and Stratford all report severe flood damage. The Grand river at Caledonia reached the highest stage ever known there, with a river current of 12 to 15 miles per hour.

THE GRAND RIVER WAS MY river long ago. In it I swam and fished, and on it I skated, and from the top of the hill on which I lived I have watched, spring after spring, flood water cover the level fields on the other side, and the Charlton, Coleman and Tomlinson farms were swept by the angry current. That was long before there was talk of floods being caused by the cutting of forests and drainage of swamps. At that time the forests had barely been touched and the swamps were intact.

I AM WONDERING IF THE last remnant of Newport, the village half a mile from our home, has been obliterated. A century ago the village, which was just a few feet above the normal river level, had a steamboat landing and was a place of some local importants. The railroads killed the steamboat business, but brickyards were started which created considerable business. The place had a population of 200 or 300, with three stores, postoffice, blacksmith and wagon shops and a hotel. A few years ago I drove through that way. The river had taken many of the buildings. Others had been torn down or moved away. The population consisted of one lone family, that of the postmaster, successor to Josiah Woodley, the one-armed postmaster, who had handled the mail therefore nearly forty years. Per- haps the postoffice went this time.

REFERRING TO AN Associated Press dispatch from Salt Lake City describing the invention of two brothers which enables the person riding on a plow to control the tractor which pulls it by means of reins, a local correspondent writes:

"THAT MAY BE NEW IN Utah, but right here, two miles from Grand Forks, Myron Cowell runs a binder with no driver on the tractor. It is steered from the binder seat. Doubtless anyone interested can see it in operation this fall. We didn't think there was anything unusual in such a contrivance." SPEAKING OF WEATHER which we always do when we meet, what an infinite variety of it there is. For instance: Down in Ecuador, through which the equator runs, they have just had heavy frost, floods and drouth. One river was flooded by a cloudburst, causing the drowning of a woman and a child and the destruction of five houses. Bridges went out and crops and even forests were swept away. In the same country, in a nearby district, the rainfall has been the lowest in forty years and recently planted crops have been killed by frost.

DRY WEATHER IN THE east has made the forests like tinder, and fires have swept the Adirondacks and Catskills in New York. Other fires on Long Island got out of control and destroyed several bungalows. In New Jersey forest fires blanked the Lakehurst air station with smoke and hundreds of residents were out fighting the fires. In another section of New Jersey many residents had their belongings packed and were ready to leave their homes at the mercy of the flames.

UP IN NORTHWESTERN Canada the village of Norbuck, sixty miles south of Edmonton, was completely wiped out by a bush fire, of which more presently. The threat to many other Alberta towns was checked when snow began to fall. In the meantime millions of feet of cut lumber had been destroyed and large areas of valuable timber were burned over.

OTHER FIRES DUE TO Prolonged dry weather occurred in Massachusetts, Connecticut and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast. In the meantime residents of Ontario, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky were preparing to re- pair the damage caused by the floods which had just begun to subside. This, at the same time, within this western hemisphere, there were drouth, floods, fire and frosts, in some cases the extreme being separated by but a few miles. And yet there are those who believe that it is possible to tell what the weather is going to be at a given place next month or next year by the behavior of the stars, or the moon, or the thickness of down on a wild goose.

ABOUT THAT WORD "BUSH." Generally in Canada a forest is a bush. It is so in Australia. This indicates the probability that this application of the word came from England, although I do not recall having seen the word used in that way in any English book. A few years ago Canadian friends visiting here were greatly amused to hear us refer to other friends as living in "the timber" on their farm. To the visitors "timber" means logs hewn or otherwise dressed, and in their parlance their friends lived in "the bush." Which is right? Of course one is just as right as the other, and there is not much sense in laughting at each other's provincialisms.

LOCAL HABIT GOCERNS THE use of even such a simple word as "barn." Here a barn is a building used for the storage of hay or other bulky feed and for the housing of animals. Or it may be for the use of animals alone. Thus we have horse barns, cow barns and sheep barns. In my boyhood in Canada we had stables for horses and cattle, but not barns. Barns were exclusively for storage of hay, etc., but a building for animals was a stable, and the terms were never mixed.

A STILL FURTHER Differentiation was made in England. My grandfather kept his horse in the stable, but his cows in the "shippon." That word is quite good English for cow-stable. I had seen the word in print in occasional English books, but hadn't heard it uttered for fifty years until during the war a Welsh Captain Edwards delivered a war address in the city auditorium. In the course of his speech he referred to some military outfit being quartered in a "shippon." I knew exactly what he meant, but I am sure not many others did.

IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR THE wrens to be house-hunting. I have heard of several wrens being seen in the neighborhood, but thus far I have seen none myself. Of the birds that frequent our yards I think their is none more cheerful and sociable than the wren. These birds are so fearless that they will make their homes quite close to human activities, and their building and nesting operations can be observed at close range. And the wren's song is about the sweetest bit of music that comes from a bird's throat. PERSONS WHO ARE IN THE habit of buying lottery tickets, or who may be tempted to do so, may be interested in a news item, which indicates the scope on which the sale of bogus sweepstakes and similar lottery tickets is carried on. New York police recently raided a Harlem place which was believed to be the headquarters of a fake lottery scheme and seized 280,000 tickets which were just being prepared for mailing. The tickets were of the sweepstakes variety, sold at $1.00 each, and represented that 35 per cent of the proceeds would be paid to the famous little hospital at Ste. Anne de Beaupre, Quebec. A capital prize of $125,000 and numerous smaller prizes were offered. Inquiry disclosed that although the racket has been in operation for some time, the hospital authorities know nothing of it and have never received a dollar from it. Further, no prizes have ever been paid to anyone.

A BUNDLE OF PAPERS FROM Brantford, Ont., contain columns of flood news, but, as indicated in earlier dispatches, the Ontario floods were most severe in the extreme southwest section of the province, with London and other Thames river cities the chief sufferers. The Grand river, which flows through Brantford, went on a rampage, but caused only relatively minor damage.

ONE ITEM REMINDED ME of old times. Whiteman's creek, which discharges into the Grand a few miles above Brantford, ran wild, and among other things drained almost dry a large pond which had been full of water ever since the pond was created by building a dam back in 1858. The pond was used as a reservoir to provide power for a 'grist mill. The flood carried away the dam and all the water ran out of the pond.

I HAVE IN MIND A Picturesque spot along Whiteman's creek where the stream flowed through a deep, narrow valley and was crossed high above the water. On journeys which I took with my grandfather, on which we covered the entire distance of 20 miles in a single day, when we came to the creek, which was about halfway to our destination, instead of driving over the ridge it was the custom to ford the shallow, pebbly-bottomed creek and let the horse drink. Often, too, we would break the long journey by pulling up on the farther side of the creek, eating a lunch and feeding the horse. In later years I caught brook trout in that stream and cooked them in front of a camp fire, impaled on a stick. And didn't they taste good!

D. C. M'DONALD HAS JUST submitted for my inspection a copy of Appleton's Introductory Fourth reader, published in 1884, which was the property of his brother, the late N. C. MacDonald, public school teacher and later state superintendent of public instruction. The Appleton readers were standard at that time, and the contents of the present volume are quite similar in style to those in the earlier McGuffey readers. Undoubtedly the McGuffey readers served as models for many of the later series.

COMPARING THIS FOURTH reader with the Campbell Fourth reader in use in Canadian schools in my school days I conclude, from recollection only, as I have not a copy of the Canadian book, that the latter were much more advanced than the American series. This introductory Fourth reader seems to me about the equivalent of our old Third reader. In fact, some of the same selections appeared in both books tells of a young man's adventure with wolves. Skating home on the river one night from a friend's house he was chased by a pack of wolves which gained on him rapidly. He evaded them by doubling quickly, which he could do on his skates, while the wolves could not turn quickly on the slippery ice. I used to wonder why the wolves didn't separate and thus catch him coming or going.

ONE SELECTION APPEARING in both readers is a little poem entitled "The Frost," by Hannah Flagg Gould, several lines of which have run through my mind when the frost has been at work, but only parts of which I could remember. Others may be interested in it, and here it is: THE FROST. The frost looked forth one still, clear night, And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight; So through the valley and over the height In silence I'll take my way. I will not go like that blundering train, The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain, Who make so much bustle and noise in vain, But I'll be as busy as they!" Then he went to the mountain and powdered its crest, He climbed up the trees and their boughs he dressed With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast Of the quivering lake he spread A coat of mail, that it need not fear The downward point of many a spear That he hung on its margin, far and near, Where a rock could rear its head. He went to the windows of those who slept, And over each pane like a fairy crept; Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped, By the light of the moon were seen Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees, There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees, There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and these All pictured in silver sheen. But he did one thing that was hardly fair— He peeped in the cupboard, and, finding there That all had forgotten for him to prepare— "Now, just to set them a-think-ing, I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he; "This costly pitcher I'll burst in. three, And the glass of water they've left for me Shall 'tchick!' to tell them I'm drinking." I SUPPOSE NO Entertainer was ever better known in Canada than was "Jim" Fax. I use the word “was” advisedly because Jim's greatest activity was a good many years ago, and for a good many years I had not thought of him as living until I found in a stray copy of a Toronto paper a two - column interview with Jim Fax, still alive at the age of 84, and still up to his old tricks of making people laugh. Year after year Jim Fax traveled the length and breadth of Canada, with occasional dips into the United States, usually putting on what amounted to a one-man show, although in the interview he says that in playing character parts, as he did, one has to have someone else because he has to change costumes, and the other performer fills in the waits. He gave entertainments in city auditoriums, town halls, village churches and country schoolhouses. He was equally at home in kilts, business attire and southern plantation get-up. There must be several thousand former Canadians in North Dakota who have enjoyed his en- tertainments "back home," and think he has visited North Dakota, though I never saw him here.

THE FAX FAMILY LIVED IN Brantford when I did. There were four brothers and two sisters, who lived, when not away from town,' with their widowed mother, a fine elderly lady with a motherly soul and a genius for generous hospitality. Jim, one of the older boys, had become a professional entertainer when I was in my teens. John was foreman of the department of the store in which I worked. Reuben, youngest of the boys made a success on the stage and twice visited Grand Forks as a member of Stoddart's famous "Bonnie Brier Bush" company, in which he played "Posty." All the members of the family were musical and were featured in church choirs and in public entertainments.

IN HIS INTERVIEW JIM Recalls the ox-cart days at Brantford before the first railroad arrived, and when houses were lit at night —more or less—by tallow candles, of which he says he has made thousands. His father, whom I knew, was precentor in the old Zion Presbyterian church, over which Dr. Cochrane presided in my time. In most churches in those early days instrumental music was anathema, and there was a big fight over the installation of the first organ in the Zion church, Fax recalls that before the first service at which the sacrilegious device was to be used some miscreant poured glue over the keys and put it temporarily out of commission. In my time Lou Heyd, son of a German grocer, was organist. He played well, but some of the older members of the congregation objected that Lou's post-ludes were too lively for a place of worship. In walking out to the music of the organ the more frivolous minded were sometimes strongly tempted to slip into a polka or a schottische.

IN INTERVIEWING FAX THE reporter did not overlook the customary inquiry into the personal habits of an octogenarian, and he learned that Jim had never used liquor or tobacco, which will offset the record of some other oc- togenarian who has used both all his life. Although I knew them all well I never knew one of them to drink or smoke, but I don't know how long the others kept it up. REUBEN FAX, YOUNGEST OF the brothers, was a talented entertainer in his youth. On a brief visit to Brantford after two or three years' absence I learned that he was about to leave for New York to enter a dramatic school. I bought tickets for a benefit concert which was being given him by the community. He had a hard struggle, but he won recognition. Some 30 years later I met him here in Grand Forks as a member of Stoddart's company. On his next appearance here I had quite a visit with him. He said he was tired of touring and intended to quit. I laughed at him. He said, "I mean it. I may not quit the stage altogether, but I am going to quit the road. I will accept only such en- gagements as I can play in or near New York. There will be less money in it, but I can afford it. I want a home, and I'm going to have one. I've never married. What was the use, tramping about the country? But it isn't too late yet. I think this will be my last trip." It was his last trip. He died before it was ended. He never had the home to which he had been looking forward. A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE occurs in the publication this week in the Saturday Evening Post of an article describing the last flight of the American navy dirigible Macon, which was destroyed in a storm off the coast of California on the night of February 12, 1935. The article is written by Lieutenant George W. Campbell, one of the officers on board the ship at the time of her collapse. The article would have been timely and appropriate as a follow- up to the story of the wreck of the Hindenburg. But the Saturday Evening Post is printed two weeks —or is it four?— in advance of its official date of publication. The article describing the wreck of the Macon, therefore, was already printed and bundles of the magazines containing it were on their way to the various distributing stations while the Hindenburg was sailing peacefully across the Atlantic.

IT WAS WHILE SHE WAS ON her way to join the fleet off the California coast that the Macon came to grief. Captain Wiley, her commander, was the only one of her officers who had been an officer on board the Akron at the time of her wreck, but Lieutenant Campbell, two other lieutenants and several petty officers and enlisted men has seen service on the Akron, some on the Los Angeles and one or two even on the Shenandoah. All were confident and enthusiastic and felt that life on a dirigible was the only real life.

LIEUTENANT CAMPBELL'S article could scarcely have been better designed if it had been intended to follow the wreck of the Hindenburg with a realistic description of how things are done on a big airship and of the procedure on board while the ship is breaking to pieces. Of course the two wrecks cannot be compared. The destruction of the Hindenburg' as almost instantaneous. There as no time for maneuvering or attempts to save life. The Macon ad a fin torn away in a storm ,and got out of control, but it was possible to ease her descent to the sea and thus prevent loss of life.

IN CONNECTION WITH THE destruction of the Hindenburg and published pictures of the disaster I have the following interesting letter from J. J. Mealy, of Reynolds:

"I WONDER HOW MANY who saw the picture of the dirigible Hindenburg (Acme telephoto) shown on page 6 of the Herald of May 8, 1937 noted its one striking peculiarity. The flog of Germany has a left-turning swastika! On page 2 of Sunday's Herald, May 9, 1937, is an A. P. photo by Murray Becker wherein the standard is shown with the usual right-turning swastika. "NOW, BY WHAT CAMERA magic was this brought about? Surely the crew of the dirigible didn't alter the emblem while flying over New York City for two hours while waiting for more settled weather conditions while making a landing.

"MOST PEOPLE KNOW THAT the swastika is one of the ancient emblems of civilization, as well as the most representative emblem of the dualism of nature. There are, of course, two. The one turning from right to left is considered lucky. The one turning from left to right is believed to be unlucky. These emblems (most fittingly) have an affinity for incorporating themselves into the plainest forms of man's art. A few examples are basket- weave cloth, a form of wall decoration and a certain pattern of brick or stone work. "THE INCLOSED CLIPPING purports to give a true account of how Adolph Hitler, while attending the monastery school at Lambech, decided this form of the swastika was a lucky sign. After the war he organized a political party to cure the nation's economic ills and placed this emblem on the party banner. When the party grew strong enough to take over control of the German nation this party emblem was, by decree, made the national flag of the German state.

"THERE ARE IN GERMANY, as in every land, men learned in the history of symbolism and its proper use in all the arts. When the time came to adopt a new national standard, surely some of them might respectfully suggest that the right-turning swastika was not a symbol of good luck. Perhaps Herr Hitler decided against anything, even a symbol, that turned toward the left. However, if he sought a lucky sign (and the left-turning sign would look just as well on the flag) he might well consider the belief and practice of nearly 4,000 years. "GOOD AND BAD LUCK AND man's ability to control his life and ultimate destiny, will always be debatable questions. Personally, I believe we all are subjects of the empire of chance. Chancellor Hitler may, like Napoleon, believe that as a man of destiny he may indeed "make circumstances" and even derive good luck from a tra- ditionally unlucky emblem. And again, perhaps the old god's rule may be made manifest." MR. MEALY INCLOSES Clippings to which reference will be made in a later issue. IN HIS LETTER RELATING to the use of the swastika J. J. Mealy of Reynolds refers to the curious fact that in one picture of the dirigible Hindenburg published in The Herald the swastika on the flag of the big ship is shown turning toward the right and on another it is shown turning to the left. The most probable, and almost certain, explanation of this is that in the process of printing from the original film the photographer had reversed one film, thus reversing the direction of everything in the picture.

MR. MEALY SENDS A Newspaper clipping dealing with the origin and history of the swastika. Chancellor Hitler caused the swastika to be adopted as the emblem of Germany, which he insists is and must continue to be pure Aryan. The descriptive article, however, says that the oldest examples of this emblem are found among the remains of the Sumerian race of Babylonia, which was purely Semitic and from which all Aryans were excluded. The figure was carved prominently on the famous old temple at Capernaum.

EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF the swastika are found in many parts of the world. The name is said to be of Hindu origin. Traces of the emblem are found all over Asia and the figure appears carved on a small pendant made by primitive artisans of the Tennessee Indians. It is quite conceivable that a design essentially so simple may have originated independently among many ancient tribes which had no contact with each other. Mr. Mealy has worked out the figure in an ingenious design for a garden trellis.

RESIDENTS OF MANY OF the eastern states, and of southern Canada, are familiar with the horse-chestnut. It is from its fruit, the so-called buckeye, that the state of Ohio gained its nickname. It is not native to this locality, but in the east it is prized as a shade-tree. I have known of a few specimens which have been planted in Grand Forks, and which are still growing, but I was surprised the other day to learn of an entire row of about a dozen trees growing on the berm on the west side of Oak street in the 400 block. The buds are now opening and the trees will soon be in full bloom.

MRS. JOHN SWANSON, Before whose home several of the trees stand, tells me that they were planted some seven or eight years ago, being then mere slips about three feet tall. They are now substantial trees about 4 inches in diameter, 12 to 16 feet tall, and with the spreading, rounded tops characteristic of this species.

CERTAIN VARIETIES OF horse-chestnuts are native to North America, but the Oak street tree] are of Swedish origin. The nuts from which they, or their immediate ancestors grew, were imported from Sweden by the late Oscar Wick, who operated a nursery about a mile south of East Grand Forks. Mr. Wick's father was a man of property in Sweden, and it was from the old homestead that the "buckeyes" were brought to grow trees in the Red river valley. It will be interesting to compare these with native American stock.

IN SOME OF THE EUROPEAN countries the horse-chestnut is used for stock feed, and some chemicals are derived from it. Our streets back east contained many of the trees, and I have sometimes sampled the nuts and found them bitter and not at all pleasant to take. There is a tradition that one carried in the pocket will ward off rheumatism, which I am inclined to doubt.

MRS. SWANSON, B E F O RE whose home several of the trees grow, is, I believe, the oldest resident on Oak street. She has a little garden which is in the pink of condition, and as I looked it over she said, "For 46 years I have made garden right in this spot. When we bought the lot in 1891 it was part of a wheat field, and we had to wait for the grain to be threshed before we could build our first little shack. There was no other house anywhere near." In addition to the Swedish horse-chestnuts she has a caragana hedge, grown from seed imported from Sweden. IN RECENT YEARS IN THE west we haven't had much use for umbrellas, but even in other parts of the world, where it still rained occasionally, the umbrella tended to become a relic rather than a current ornament or instrument of utility. Things are changing. The umbrella is coming back. We have had enough rainy days here to prompt a ran sacking of attics for umbrellas that have long been gathering dust. Elsewhere, regardless of the weather, fashion has brought the umbrella again into favor.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that Queen Mary has had anything to do with the recrudescence, so to I speak, of the umbrella, for the queen has been carrying hers right along. If she didn't take it with her to the coronation it must have been because she mislaid it.

I SEE BY THE PAPERS THAT Umbrella shops are advertising the recovering of old umbrellas. For a merely nominal outlay one can have the umbrella that has been the pride of the family for generations made as good as new, provided the ribs and handle are all night. That reminds me of the sailor whose prize possession was a pocket knife which he had carried in his voyages through the seven seas. It had had six new blades and five new handles, but he wouldn't think of parting with it because it was given to him by his father.

AN ARTICLE DESCRIPTIVE of the great variety of commodities that are shipped by express enumerates among such shipments tomato, white potatoes and sweet tomatoes, white potatoes and sweet so shipped is well known, but I never knew before that there was commercial traffic in either white or sweet potato plants. What's to under planting the tubers a little earlier and let the plants start right in the ground?

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT millions of young chicks and baby turkeys are shipped by express and by mail every spring. In fact, many of these young birds are shipped twice before they get their feathers, once in the egg and again after hatching. Many of the poultry people prefer to buy their young stock from hatcheries to having the hatching done on their own premises, and the hatcheries obtain their eggs often from the same farms to which they ship the live birds a little later.

A SIMILAR DIVISION OF Industry is observed in the production of honey. The percentage of mortality in northern apiaries is high and replacements are in order every spring. Accordingly there are establishments in the south which specialize in the raising of bees, paying little attention to honey. Each spring swarms of live bees are shipped to northern producers of honey, and many ton of this traffic are handled annually. As there are about 5,000 bees to the pound the number of bees shipped each spring runs into fig-tires comparable to the national debt.

HAVING ESCAPED WHAT threatened to be a real freeze near the middle of May, we have now' good prospect of coming through the season without having foliage and early flowers blighted by frost. Lilac bushes are covered with well-developed buds, and before long they will be almost solid masses of bloom. Flowering plums have their branches loaded to the very tips with partly-opened buds, soon to develop into tiny rose-like blossoms. Many of the early tulips have run their course, and the Darwins and Breeders are taking their places. Early June blue iris is a- bloom, and the stately, variegated varieties are developing beautifully.

TENDER ANNUALS, IF Transplanted into the open ground, will give early bloom, provided they are not nipped by frost. But the gardner is pretty sure to have some anxious moments if he sets out such plants much before the first of June. If means are at hand to protect the plants on a cold night all may be well, but covering a whole garden is quite a chore, and one who has to do it several times in a season is apt to swear that he will never do it again. One of the standing arguments among gardners is to whether or not it pays to grow plants indoors and transplant them. Some of my friends say that they have as good results with many varieties by planting seed in the open-ground after danger of frost is over. Much depends on how the in door plants are handled. If they are crowded in the flats and permitted to grow tall and spindly, or to become root-bound in pots, they lose much time in becoming accustomed to outdoor life. But if the plants are sturdy and stocky, with root systems in good condition, they may be transplanted without shock and two or three weeks' time is gained in growth. WALKING IS EXCELLENT exercise. Some authorities describe it as the best of all forms of exercise. It brings into play a great variety of muscles, and it is so elastic that the energy expended in it can be varied according to taste. One may walk so rapidly as to induse rapid breathing and profuse perspiration, or one may stroll at a snail's pace and scrutinize objects in passing with microscopic care. This makes it an exceedingly individualistic form of exercise, adaptable to the needs, tastes and environment of the walker.

AND WHAT IS THERE THAT can be compared with an hour's I walk at sunrise on a warm spring morning? Then, if ever, one can appreciate the poet's wonderful line, "The breezy call of incense-breathing morn." Nature has not yet resumed her energetic activities after her few -hour's rest. Clouds have not yet begun to gather. Yesterday may have been a windy day, and today may be a repetition of it, but just now there is not movement enough of air to stir the most delicately balanced leaf. The rich fragrance of fresh earth mingles with that of growing grass and expanding foliage A rosy glow still clings to the eastern horizon, while the low western sky still retains its deeper blue Just beyond the city limits the morning note of a meadowlark is heard. Red-winged blackbirds mingle their notes with those of their relatives attired all in black. A pair of prairie chickens, startled by the approach of a stranger, fly hurriedly out of danger.

ON SUCH A MORNING THE air is fresh and clean, and one throws back the shoulders and raises the chin, that its stimulation may extend to every corner of the lungs. The feet take a fresh grip on the soil, and every nerve and muscle responds to the influence of the new day. After such a walk breakfast takes on a new meaning. So thoroughly am I convinced of the value of the early morning walk that some day I shall try it.

"SHAFT" IS THE TITLE OF a modest little literary magazine published by the Quill club of the University of North Dakota, the first number of which for 1937 has just been issued. The magazine has the distinction of being issued without subsidy and without subscription list. The members of the club assume full responsibility for its publication, and offer it for sale on its merits as a very modest price. The contents of this spring number consist of short stories interspersed with poems, and a page or two of light verse, all the work of University students. The material is written simply and unaffectedly, and is of a quality which reflects credit on the authors, and no less on the discrimination of the editors. The cover has an attractive design in linoleum print. .

IN A SUMMARY OF Conditions affecting the sale of liquor the Literary Digest presents a table on how the states regulate liquor sales. North Dakota is listed as having prohibition, but with 3.2 per cent beer allowed on license. Evidently the Digest has not yet checked upon all the returns from the election of 1936. At that time North Dakota legalized the sale of hard liquor. The Digest had a lot of trouble with that election,

GLADIOLUS BULBS MAY BE planted at any time now. While the growing plants are tender, there should be little danger of frost damage to them after this time, because, unless sprouting is well advanced before planting the shoots are not likely to show above ground until about two weeks after planting, and by that time no frost need be expected, barring an unseasonable summer frost, against which no provision can made. LIKE THE PEONY, THE Dahlia and several other flowering plants, the gladiolus has be-en made the subject of special study and intensive promotion by societies devoted exclusively to that plant. There are gladiolus societies and gladiolus magazines, and much work has been done by enthusiasts in hybridizing and otherwise developing this beautiful and satisfactory flower. The history of the gladiolus runs back for centuries. One of the parents of the modern plant is the cornflag, which grows wild in England and in some parts of the European continent. Early growers improved this plant by careful selection, and numerous crosses have been made with other wild stock growing in many parts of the world. There are known some 150 wild varieties, and there are now hundreds of names varieties of gladiolus, so many that the differences between some of them are scarcely perceptible. J. EDGAR HOOVER, STAR sleuth, head of the government Bureau of Criminal Investigation lost his hat at the Kentucky Derby, the other day. While the fact has occasioned some comment, interest in it is mild in view of the fact that at the same races several other persons lost their shirts. The hat may be recovered, but the shirts, never.

AN Excellent booklet descriptive of the black Hills in South Dakota is just received. Its distribution is timely, just in advance of the vacation season, and it brings to the attention of readers one of the most attractive scenic districts in America. For residents of this section one of its desirable features is its accessibility, and probably because it is so near comparatively few North Dakotans have visited it. The Black Hills are an easy two-day drive from Grand Forks, yet I lived here all these years without seeing them until last year.

OUTSTANDING AMONG THE scenic features of the Black Hills is the Needles drive, which winds its labyrinthine way through miles of towering rock pinnacles. There one's attention is divided between the magnificence of the scenery and the engineering skill which has found a way through that bewildering maze for a splendidly built road on which one almost meets one's self coming around the next jutting rock or descending the last steep hill. Spearfish canyon is a picturesque gorge through which the stranger should not attempt to drive except in daylight and with plenty of time at his disposal. The road is perfectly safe, but narrow, calling for constant watchfulness. And if one has his trip so timed as to spend a night at the half-way stopping-place, he will find there a comfortable cabin, good bed, and a dinner of trut fresh from the water.

ALL THE BLACK HILLS Publicity material features the carved faces of Washington and Jefferson, to be followed by that of Theodore Roosevelt, on the granite tip of Fount Rushmore. To me that is n unfortunate blemish on a scene of indescribable natural beauty and magnificence. But it is there, and every visitors naturally wishes to see it. The physical work of doing the carving at that dizzy height is something to command admiration, but I wish they had left the mountain as it was.

"NORTH DAKOTA OUTDOORS," monthly publication of the state game and fish department at Bismarck, tells of the vast number of jackrabbits which have been shipped from the state during the past winter. It appears that the animals now have a market value of 10 to 15 cents each, and in some sections of the state rabbit drives have not only decreased the local rabbit population appreciably, but have yielded substantial financial returns.

RABBITS OF ALL KINDS ARE voracious feeders, and one ordinary whity bunny at large in a garden can work a lot of havoc. Whether or not jackrabbits often become so numerous as to damage grain crops to any considerable extent may be an open question, but they can do a lot of damage to young groves in the winter by stripping trees of their tender bark, Rabbits, imported into Australia as pets, threatened to overrun the whole country, and millions of dollars were spent in destroying them. Oft late years nothing has been heard of the Aus- tralian rabbit as a pest. The rabbit has become an article of commerce, valued for its flesh and its hide, and die profit motive, so often decried, seems to have rid the island continent of what was once a pest.

THE NORTH DAKOTA Monthly also tells of the growing use for food of rooks, which, to you and me are just plain black crows. There seems to be no good reason why crow should not be as fit for food as chicken. The magazine tells of an advertisement in a Denver restaurant which offers "dressed rook, 25 cents each."

THE MAGAZINE ALSO HAS this discussion of the weight of some of our familiar birds:

"HOW MUCH DO BIRDS weigh? What, for instance, is the weight of a heron? A good specimen of a heron may be over three feet in length, with a wing span of five feet. Questioned as to its weight, two persons replied respectively, twenty - five and fifteen pounds. These figures are crazy.

"THE WEIGHT OF A FINE specimen of male heron, according to that parochial but patient Victorian observer of English wild life, Rev. F. O. Morris, is only three pounds. For so large and voracious a bird, a heron living on eels, rats, trout . . . and even snipe, the figures seem incredible. Yet, three pounds is a great weight for a bird. The snipe itself, male, weighs only four ounces, the female slightly more. The sparrow haw weighs only five or six ounces, with the female half as large again. A wild pigeon weighs about twenty ounces , , , a herring gull thirty.

"BUT IT IS THE WEIGHT OF the really small birds that is staggering. A nightingale weighs six drams, ... a wren two and three-quarters drams. Even a cuckoo, strong flying, looking almost as large as a pigeon, scales only a quarter of a pound, a fraction more than a blackbird. MY FRIEND THOMS, THE Florist, has enlightened me as to why they ship sweet potato plants by express, or why they ship them at all, instead of just cutting the potatoes into chunks and planting the chunks, as is done with white potatoes. Thorns comes from New Jersey, which is noted for its sweet potatoes, as well as for its cranberries and its mosquitoes. The young plants are started by planting whole are well started each is cut off and planted separately. If the whole potato were used for seed the result would be nothing but stalks. But not even Mr. Thorns knows why white potato plants are shipped unless it is to economize in space and weight in transplanting in small quantities the seed of extra choice varieties.

HERE IS A CLIPPING SENT by J. E. Stevens, now of Lewis-town, Mont., which tells of the part played by John Korst, the illustrator, in popularizing the famous McGuffey readers. Korst is described as the foremost wood engraver of his day. He is said to have provided all the illustrations for the six McGuffey readers, to have planned the pages, and to have had entire charge of the work. He was already famous as an illustrator when McGuffey, then unknown, was preparing the text for his first reader, and his work then appeared in Leslie's, Harper's and Scribners. In another field he was the principal illustrator of the Beadle dime novels, which at one time were considered dangerous reading for boys. But the new readers soon became so popular that the author's fame eclipsed that of the illustrator, and Korst's name is seldom mentioned in connection with the readers.

IT IS SAID THAT M'GUFFEY and Korst together realized only $1,600 from the original publication of the readers, while the publishing houses made millions from them. Korst, however, later bought up copyrights on the readers and made $500,000 on the venture. Most of this he lost in what were considered sound investments in the Jay Gould era.

THE BEADLE BOOKS I think, were popular chiefly because they were prohibited. They were chiefly tales of adventure, including crime. In comparison with much that appears on the screen, in the magazines which load the news stands, and in the Sunday supplements, they were models of propriety and restraint. In them virtue was always rewarded and the criminal came to a bad end. But I have a distinct recollection that many of the properly- behaved heroes were dull fellows, while the bandits were attractive fellows, with whom one sympathized, even though he could not approve of them.

WE YOUNGSTERS HAD FREE access to the books of our Sunday school library, and what trash they were! Many of them were of the sickly, mawkish, sentimental sort which were turned out in enormous quantities about that time. They were fiction of the most glaring sort, but our elders had an idea that they were "founded on fact," and were therefore all right. But "Claude Duval," "Jack Sheppard," and "Deadeye Dick", in their yellow paper covers were much more meaty, and a lot better fun.

"THRALLDOM IN ICELAND" is the title of a new book by Carl O. Williams, professor of modern languages, Grand Rapids Junior college, Grand Rapids, Mich. (University of Chicago Press. $2.50.) It is an interesting study of a species of slavery once common throughout northern Europe, and which was carried to Iceland with the migration of Norsemen to that island.

THRALLDOM IS DESCRIBED as having its origin in birth, in captivity resulting from war, and in debt, and we are given a picture of early Iceland as a country in which most of the labor was performed by persons in this state of servitude, and who were bought and sold, like other chattels. The price of a very strong and serviceable male thrall was about equal to the price of 24 cows, while a man less competent might be had for the price of 12 cows. Prices of female thralls ranged from the value of 12 cows to that of 8 cows.

THE MATERIAL IN THE book has evidently been assembled with great care, and the publication contains extended bibliographies which should be of great assistance to those desiring to make an intensive study of the subject. Numerous anecdotes, gathered from the scanty records, are given to shed light on the social customs and economic conditions in Iceland a thousand years ago, and while these are both interesting and entertaining, the book lacks order and continuity. It contains material for a fascinating volume.

"STRANGE AS IT SEEMS," Thomas Jefferson is said to have written more than 100,000 letters during his long and busy life. Some men have achieved a greater literary output, but it must be remembered that while letter- writing was one of Jefferson's major activities, he was constantly engaged in other work which made great demands on his time and energy. He was a political leader; he served as president of the United States; he founded a university. These, and other activities, made it necessary for him to be continually alert, to hold extended conferences with many persons and to devote long hours to the study of weighty problems. It is a marvel that he was able to find time to carry on in person the voluminous correspondence indicated in the number of letters which he wrote.

THE FULL EXTENT OF THE manual labor involved in such a correspondence cannot be appreciated without comparing the conditions under which letters were written in Jefferson's time with the conditions f in these days of swift action and mechanical aids. Presumably many of Jefferson's letters were dictated to secretaries, but enough of his original letters are still in existence to show that he labored industriously with his own pen, writing page after page in a clear and legible hand. In his day there were no typewriters and no sound-recording devices to make correspondence easy and to serve as an incentive to prolixity. The man who wrote a letter had to form his own characters on paper with his own pen.

THE INVENTION OF THE typewriter has revolutionized the art of recording ideas. In no field has this change been more marked than in that of newspaper work. Today it is taken as a matter of course that even the youngest novice in that work shall do his writing with a typewriter. The compositor was once accustomed to de- ciphering calligraphy which no one else could read. Today the penned piece of copy is such a rarity in the composing room as to cause comment.

MANY NEWSPAPER MEN IN the old days were able to turn out astonishing quantities of clear copy with pen or pencil. Some of the most eminent newspaper men were atrocious writers. It is said that in the offices of the old New York Tribune there was but one compositor who was able to decipher the scrawls of Horace Greeley, and that sometimes he was stumped. If Greeley were now in action he would dictate his stuff to a stenographer and relieve the composing force of a lot of strain.

AN ARTICLE IN THE Scientific American yells of the parasites that attach themselves to worthy inventions and foist cheap and worthless substitutes on the public. Air conditioning is a field into which parasites are entering-in large numbers. Air in business houses, residences and trains can be and is scientifically "condition- ed" in such a way as to govern its humidity and its temperature, summer and winter, but the equipment for this purpose is fairly expensive. But there are being marketed "air-conditioning" devices which do nothing more than spray a little water into the air, and the absurdity of the claims made for some of these -tend to discredit useful and worthy enterprise.

"LIE DETECTORS" ARE Being used in several cities as aids to police investigation. Fiction writers have woven around them a fabric of mystery and sensationalism for which there is no basis of fact. The theory is that the person who tells a lie under examination makes a conscious effort, and that effort is reflected in changes, often minute, in his breathing, circulation, etc. A sensitive mechanical device records such changes, no matter how small, and that record aids in establishing the truthfulness or untruthfulness of the wit ness.

NO SUCH RECORD CAN BE accepted as an absolute indication of truth or falsity. The truthful witness, conscious that his words are being weighed and all his actions noted, may become so nervous under the test that his reactions will be as erratic as if he were perjuring himself. The fact that numerous criminals have confessed after being subjected to the test of the lie detector may be ascribed in many cases to the psychological influence of the test. The subject, becoming convinced that the detector has convicted him of falsehood, makes the best of a bad situation and owns up. THE WELLS - DICKEY Company announces the opening of its new offices in the Metropolitan bank building, Minneapolis. The company will be able in another year to celebrate its 60th anniversary, for it was established in 1878, which gives it a fairly long span of life among northwestern institutions. The company, however, was not originally a Minneapolis concern, as it was established at Jamestown, N. D. It was founded by E. P. Wells, who guided its destinies in person for many years until the weight of years compelled his retirement from active work. In North Dakota the company developed a large business in loans and investments, and in 1903 it moved its headquarters to Minneapolis where it has long been one of the leading financial institutions of the northwest.

FEW DISCOVERIES HAVE been more distorted by fake promoters than has the ultra-violet ray. When scientists learned that this ray possessed properties which made it valuable for the treatment of certain diseases shysters began to the flood the market with "violet-ray" devices, the use of which, according to the claims made, would cure anything from corns to baldness. In general the distinctive feature of these "inventions" was the enclosure of an ordinary electric light in purple glass, which gave the "ultra-violet" effect, and whose curative properties were about equal to those of a cold pancake. Ultra-violet rays are invisible, and their generation requires carefully designed mechanism. Intelligently used they have useful properties, but in the hands of an amateur they may do a lot of damage.

CAN A DOG THINK? EVERY person who owns a dog will say yes. Some scientists say no. Professor G. H. Estabrooke of Colgate is of that number. In an article in the Scientific American he concedes that dogs can learn, but he holds that learning and scientific thinking are two different things. One point which he makes is that the dog is incapable of using a secondary object to accomplish what it desires. In the case of an inaccessible collar button and a stick lying on a table, he says, a man will use the stick to recover the button, but the dog will not. Anthropoid apes, he says, will do this, but apparently not other animals.

I HAVE IN MIND A FRIEND'S dog which has two playthings, a rubber ball and a rubber 'bone.'' When told to play ball the dog will hunt the two objects, seize the bone in his mouth, and with it bat the ball around the room. That doesn't prove much, of course. But persons who have observed the remarkable performance of shepherd dogs in controlling sheep, often on their own initiative, will not easily be convinced that dogs do not really think.

I HAVE BEEN LOANED Copies of the Illustrated Weekly of India, a magazine published at Bombay, by Miss Marycarol Jones, district supervisor for the North Dakota welfare board, who spent several years in missionary work in India. Through the magazine and by means of personal correspondence Miss Jones is able to maintain in some measure her contact with Indian life and conditions, which she found most interesting. Her home is at Hankinson, N. D.

THE COPIES OF THE Weekly, issued in April, naturally contain much material relating to the coronation, which was attended by many Indian dignitaries. Suggested by the approaching event are also stories of famous Oriental pageants, among them those planned to impress upon the people the magnificence of the great Mogul emperors. A description is given of the famous Peacock Throne, which is said to have cost $30,000,000 to $60,000,000.

AMONG THE TREASURES OF the Mogul emperors was the Koh-i-noor diamond, now one of the most valuable of the British crown jewels. With other jewels the stone formed part of the loot won in war after war among the eastern princes. On one occasion it was worn in the turban of a chief who was defeated and taken prisoner by his rival. The successful chief received his defeated guest with elaborate Oriental ceremony, but' he also had an eye to the main chance. Seeing the great diamond gleaming in the turban of his guest he insisted on an exchange of turbans, a ceremony which was supposed to make the friendship between host and guest. The exchange was made, and the Koh-i-noor became the property of the thrifty victor.

DIANA, A COLUMNIST FROM Delhi, begins her column: "The deliciously cool weather we were having was one of my themes a week ago. It was followed by a dust storm, which ended in thunder and rain, and the coolth continued." It seems they have dust storms in India, too, also thunder and rain. And about that word "coolth." It looks funny here, but is it really any funnier than "warmth?" Both are built on the same plan, and why isn't one just as good as the other? Eh, what? IT MAY NOT BE AMISS TO advise persons who set out young elms to watch out for borers. These pests have been the death of several trees of mine, and I know that many others have suffered in similar fashion. In many cases owners have not known what caused the death of their trees and have mistakenly attributed it to weather or soil conditions when the real trouble was the undetected presence of borers.

SOMETIMES THE BORER leaves unmistakable traces of his presence, but often he works so secretly as to require almost microscopic examination to reveal his presence. I have just replaced a beautiful tree, planted last spring, of which I had great hopes. It was well planted within an hour after being dug from its original site. Its roots carried an abundant load of soil, and it was liberally watered through the season. It produced a good crop of leaves, but late in the season these withered and fell off, and by fall it was dead.

THE TREE HAD UNUSUALLY smooth bark, and though I examined it often I saw no sign of borers. This spring I saw on its trunk a slight check in the bark which originally would not have been noticed. Inserting a knife I pried loose a piece of dead bark several square inches in area, and in a tiny hole near the center was a fat borer which had done the job. Further minute examination disclosed several other borers, enough to girdle the tree completely and stop circulation. The new tree will be examined inch by inch and then wrapped with tough paper to prevent the deposit of eggs on its bark.

TREES HAVE THEIR OWN personality and their own habits, and these are often transmitted to their descendants. Some nurserymen of long experience recognize this fact in their selection of seed from which to grow new trees. They have found that under like conditions seed selected from trees of good form and good growing are Likely to reproduce the characteristics of their parent, while seed from scrub trees of the same species is likely to produce scrub stock. Elm or ash seed will yield elm or ash trees, but the progeny may be quite different in character, depending on individual parentage, and the undesirable characteristics cannot be entirely removed by subsequent cultivation or other treatment. THE BEHAVIOR OF FRED Payne's ash trees, just across the way from me is a perennial puzzle to which I have referred before. Five young ash, alike as to size and appearance, were planted on the berm several years ago. All grew and thrived. But the tree at one end of the row grew most rapidly, and today it is twice the size of the one at the other end, and the trees are graded in size in accordance with their position. And each spring those trees put out their leaves in inverse order of their size. Today the smallest is almost fully leaved out, while the largest has only half-opened buds. THERE, ON MY NEIGHBOR'S lawn, just beneath my window, is the first goldfinch that I have seen this spring. Quick, alert, with its black-banded head and golden bronze breast, it is gathering up seeds or minute insects from the grass. Back east we called them wild canaries, and sometimes thistle birds. They resemble canaries in appearance and in the music of their song, but I understand that they are of a different species, and that there are no wild canaries on this continent. I HAVEN’T YET SEEN A wren this spring, although the houses arc all ready for them. Frank Kent tells me that wrens took possession of one of his houses on May 18, which he says is the proper day for them to appear.

PEONIES WHICH ARE WELL budded are loaded with ants, as usual. While ants are often annoying neighbors, they do peonies no harm. Growing peony buds exude tiny drops of honey, and it is the honey that the ants are after, not the buds or the plants.

SOMEONE HAS TOLD ME OF seeing bees on a spree, lying completely helpless in the blossom of Oriental poppies. The idea is that they become intoxicated on the opium contained in the honey of the blossom. Poppy seed is often used in cakes and other confections, especially by immigrants from central Europe, but this is not an opium habit, as, although it is from the poppy that opium is derived, the seeds are said to contain none of it. The opium is in the seed pod, and it is obtained by scarifying the capsule and then scraping off the thin gum with a wooden pad- dle. Opium, so collected by hand, provides many inhabitants of Asia and southeastern Europe with almost their only cash income. THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT is aggrieved because Cardinal Mundelein called Hitler "an Austrian paper- hanger, and a poor paper-hanger, at that." If it will help any our state department might assure Berlin that the American government has no information that Herr Hitler is not a perfectly good paper-hanger. ABOUT THE CLOSE OF THE last century almost every ambitious town had its advantages set forth in an illustrated booklet. The preparation o f those booklets was an industry in which a great many persons found employment who were compensated for their work not so much by the sales returns from the booklets as by the receipts from paid "write-ups" and display advertising. Invariably the compiler was able to figure for himself a handsome profit from his proposed book. Occasionally his hopes were realized. Often he did well to make enough on the job to pay his board.

I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED in looking over a stray copy of "Grand Forks Illustrated," an excellent booklet of the conventional type published by W. L. Dudley in 1897, and to be reminded by its articles and pictures of what Grand Forks was like forty years ago. Dudley served the Herald for several years as city editor, reporter and general utility man, Occasionally he would obtain leave of absence for a few weeks or months and get busy publishing a book. He was an amiable chap an indefatigable worker, and an incurable optimist. Always he could see big profits to be made from the next book, and, while the profits were never as large as he expected, he was always cheerful and ready to try it again. He published several booklets descriptive of Grand Forks and other northwestern towns. The 1897 volume was the last, and best of the series. Looking over it now, after the lapse of years, it strikes one as a decidedly creditable piece of work.

AMONG THE FEATURES OF the booklet which have interested me especially are the group portraits of persons then prominent in the affairs of Grand Forks. One page contains the portraits of six city officials: John Dinnie, mayor; F. A. Brown, city auditor; M. L. Gordon, city treasurer; W. H. Broen, city justice, Hugh Ryan, chief of police and Geo. A. Bangs, city attorney. Though the pictures were taken more than forty years ago, I can recognize them all. Of that group of six only Geo. A. Bangs is now living.

ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION shows a group of men prominent in the Y. M. C. A. The figures are not named, but it is easy to recognize the features of J. E. Clifford, at that time president of the association, M. B. Van Vranken, secretary, R. B. Griffith, T. Carter Griffith, R. M. Carothers, W. L. Gordon, Emmet Fuller, Harry Willson, F. B. Feetham, Sidney Clarke, A. G. Burr, and a number of others whom I cannot place.

WILLIS A. JOY WAS POST-master, and there is shown a picture of him and his entire staff, consisting of Frank Gilby, Bruce Duncan, Will Thompson and George Goheen, carriers, J. J. Dunlop, chief clerk, George Robbins and R. S. Griggs, and Mary Handrahan, general delivery clerk There were two substitutes, Howard D. Stevens and Carl Anderson, and one of these, whom I do not recognize, is shown in the picture. In the preceding year the business of the office had amounted to $20,258.40; total receipts, including money orders, $292,076.44. The office had handled half a million pounds of mail matter, numbering 4,357,960 pieces, and the carriers had delivered 517,840 letters and cards and 733,420 packages and papers. (There was no parcel post at that time.)

A GROUP FROM THE University teachers' training school had posed for a picture. Seated on the ground at the front entrance of "Old Main" are W. L. Stock well, M. A. Brarmon, Joseph Kennedy and St. John Perrott, while teachers and students, male and female, crowd the steps.

THE GROUP OF LAWYERS IS also interesting. These are all named, but most of them could easily be recognized, although so many years have passed. In the group are shown J. A. Rose, R. M. Carothers, O. A. Wilcox, J. P. Galbraith, F. W. Wilder, A. G. Burr, M. J. O'Connor, Sheriff, H. L. Whithed, F. B. Feetham, J. A. Sorley, C. J. Murphy, F. R. Fulton, F. H. McDermot, O. M. Hopkins, Burke Corbet, J. M. Cochrane, J. H. Bosard, W. J. Anderson, J. V. Brooke, J. H. Vosburg, J. B. Wine-man, W. R. Bierly, District Judge C. F. Templeton of Grand Forks, and District Judge W. S. Lauder of Lisbon. Not all of these were engaged in the active practice of law at that time. Less than half of them are now living. And of the entire list only J. B. Wineman and C. J. Murphy are now living and practicing law in Grand Forks. TED AHLROTH REPORTS that on Sunday six wrens inspected the four wren-houses on his premises, but only one pair decided to stay. Presumably the others are house-hunting elsewhere. None have visited our cor- ner yet, although the little houses are ready and waiting. I have disposed of the theory that wrens will not occupy houses placed in trees, or I have had a house so placed for two years, and each time the wrens have taken possession of it and reared families.

MOSQUITOES ARE MAKING their appearance, a fact which detracts somewhat from the pleasures of gardening. Stagnant water, contained in pools, rain-barrels and discarded pails and cans, is good breeding grounds for mosquitoes. But the insects seem to breed where not enough water can be found to wet a finger. Great swarms of them are often found on the open prairie, miles away from visible water. The books say nothing about mosquitoes hatching in soil, but it seems as if they must, sometimes.

W. L. DUDLEY'S BOOK "Grand Forks Illustrated," was by no means devoted exclusively to activities of a commercial nature. It describes the schools, social clubs, music organizations and other societies in which women as well as men played a prominent part 40 years ago. GRAND FORKS HAD THEN three school buildings — four, counting the original high school as a separate building. These were the Central, Belmont and Wilder. J. Nelson Kelly was superintendent, having recently succeeded Superintendent Clemmer. Miss Alien was principal of the high school, Miss Aldrich of the Central grade school, Miss Grant of the Belmont, and Miss Gifford of the Wilder. Members of the Board of Education were W. L. Wilder, president, W. H. Burr, secretary, J. D. Bacon, H. N. Wells, M. F. Murphy, F. S. Lycan, D. McDonald and John Gumming.

THERE WAS NO STATE board of administration at that time, each of the state educational institutions being governed by its own board of trustees. The University board consisted of David Bartlett, Codperstown; William Budge, Grand Forks; Wm. McBride, St. Thomas; Stephen Collins, Grand Forks; and H. T. Helgesen, Milton. Webster Merrifield was president. The other faculty members were Horace B. Woodworth, John Macnie, Ludovic Estes, Earle J. Babcock, Joseph Kennedy, George S. Thomas, Melvin A. Brannon, Vernon P. Squires, Hannah E. Davis and George St. John Perrott. THE PIONEER CLUB WAS the principal social organization of the city. Its club rooms occupied the entire upper floor of what is now the Red River National bank block. The club had then attained considerable age, having been organized in 1880. In 1897 its directors were W. H. Higham, R. D Campbell, W. H. Burr, W. H. Pringle, W. M. Rand, F. R. Fulton and E. C. Carruth.

WOMEN'S CLUBS LISTED were the Pioneer Reading club, Omega, Monday, S. L, the initials of which some facetious member explained stood for "Suppression of Intellect, Mothers, Current Topics, Riverside, Wise and Otherwise, Tourists, Point, and No Name. Most of those clubs belonged to the Federation of Women's clubs, whose officers were Mrs. H. M. Bushee, Mrs. C. C. Gowran, Mrs. J. Nelson Kelly and Mrs. H. L. Whithed.

GRAND FORKS HAD A Baseball association and was a member of the Red River Valley league. Its games were played at the Y. M. C. A. park a few blocks north of the Northern Pacific station. The city also had a gun club, a tennis club and a basketball club. Golf had not yet made its appearance in the city. THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF street fairs, and Grand Forks had started by holding the first street fair in the northwest. One or two of the fairs were very successful, but cold, bleak weather spoiled the last, and the plan was abandoned. For the 1897 fair Stephen Collins was president of the association and Frank V. Kent, secretary.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE Dudley book are from photographs taken by George F. Blackburn, a photographer who was a real artist. His pictures were awarded first prize and a gold medal at the meeting of the National Photographers' association at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1894. TODAY, MEN AND Brethren, and also ladies, we shall drop into poetry for a few measures, in recognition of the obvious fact that this is spring. The first lines to which I shall direct attention are suggested by a glance from the window at a mass of lilacs whose magnificent clusters of blossom are just about to burst into full bloom. Another warm day or two will adorn the whole city with the indescribable beauty of the refrain "In Lilac Time," which occurs in the poem "The Barrel Organ," by Alfred Noyes.

CORONATION DAY IN London this year was a gloomy, rainy day, and they have many of them over there. But London has its pleasant days, and it was of one of those that Noyes wrote these lines: There's a barrel organ caroling across a golden street, In the city as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal, but the world has made it sweet, And fulfilled it with a sunset glow.

And it pulses through the pleasures of the city and the plain That surrounds the singing organ like a large eternal light; And they've given it a glory and a part to play again In the symphony that rules the day and night.

And, running through the poem is the refrain: Go down to Kew in lilac time, in lilac time, in lilac time; Go down to Kew in lilac time; It isn't far from London.

And there you shall go hand in hand With love in summer's wonder land; Go down to Kew in lilac time; It isn't far from London.

AND FOR THE BENEFIT OF those who go a-fishing I reproduce the following:

AN ANGLER'S WISH. By Henry Van Dyke. When tulips bloom in Union Square, And timid breaths of vernal air Go wandering down the dusty town, Like children lost in Vanity Fair; When every long, unlovely row Of westward houses stands aglow And leads the eyes toward sunset skies Beyond the hills where green trees grow; Then weary seems the street parade, And weary books, and weary trade; I'm only wishing to go a-fishing,— For this the month of May was made.

I guess the pussy-willows now Are creeping out on every bough Along the brook; and robins look For early worms behind the plow. The thistle-birds have changed' their dun, For yellow coats, to match the sun; And in the same array of flame The Dandelion Show's begun. The flocks of young anemones Are dancing round the budding trees; Who can help wishing to go a-fishing In days as full of joy as these? I think the meadow-lark's clear sound Leaks upward slowly from the ground, While on the wing the bluebirds sing Their wedding-bells to woods around.

The flirting chewink calls his dear Behind the bush; and very near, Where water flows, where green grass grows, Song-sparrows gently sing "Good cheer."

'Tis not a proud desire of mine; I ask for nothing superfine; No heavy weight, no salmon great, To break the record, or my line. Only an idle little stream, Whose ' amber waters softly gleam, Where I may wade, through woodland shade, And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream. Only a trout or two, to dart From foaming pools, and try my art; No more I'm wishing—old-fashioned fishing, And just a day on Nature's heart. THIS PRAIRIE COUNTRY has never been abundantly supplied with streams and lakes, and swimming holes have never been numerous. The rivers, such as there are, are far apart, and coulees have not been considered first- class swimming places. In recent years the coulees have dried up and the rivers have shrunk, and the remaining water has lost its pristine purity. There are other places, however, where good swimming facilities are not abundant. New York City, for instance, has plenty of water all around it, but most of the water is unfit for either internal or external use. A map just published shows the areas around New York where the water is so polluted as to be unsafe for bathing. Those areas include the entire Hudson river to a point far north of the city, all of the East river, and a considerable portion of the ocean front. The beach at Coney island appears to be relatively safe, but for residents of Manhattan Coney is the better part of a day's journey there and back, and on a hot day one stands in danger of becoming lost in the crowd and being unable to find the ocean. I THE LATE JOHN D. Rockefeller had accumulated a small I collection of stories which he was fond of telling to his friends. He told the same stories many times, but tried not to repeat the same stories to the same people. One of his favorites was of the tramp who worked on the sympathies of those whom he asked for alms by professing a deeply religious spirit, in evidence of which he pointed to the patches on the knees of his trousers, which had been made necessary, he said, by the frequency of his prayers. Being given a donation he turned to go, when the donor noticed also large patches on the seat of his trousers. Asked to explain that the tramp replied, "I have always been a sad backslider."

I HAVE THE FOLLOWING note from Professor H. C. Rowland, which is an interesting contribution to the history of the development of musical instruments:

"IN FRIDAY'S HERALD Feature STRANGE AS IT SEEMS, I was much interested to notice a picture of Henry VIII playing a flute of the transverse type. In his comments regarding that much-married monarch's music-making, Mr. John Hix referred to the fact that Henry played the "recorder" (or "fipple flute") which is a flute of the same type as the old 'penny whistle', i. e., it is held just like the clarinet.

"IN ORDER TO VERIFY MY impression of the nature of the "recorder" I looked it up in Grove's Dictionary of Music and found that I was correct regarding the type of instrument, which is not quite like the modern flute. These "recorders" were commonly used in sets of four,—descant (or soprano) alto, tenor, and bass— each having a compass of two octaves or rather more. One historian describes eight "recorders" of different pitches, from a little flutelet to a great bass flute, and states that as many as 21 were used together. The tone was sweet and solemn and the instrument was held much in esteem not only by Henry VIII but also by Milton, Bacon, Pepyps, and others.

"THE LARGER FLUTES OF the "recorder" type had a mouthpiece similar to the bassoon. With such a variety of sizes available it would be easy to imagine that some very pleasing music could be secured from a large choir of these instruments. The effect would not really be so monotonous as might be suggested from the rather brief note which Mr. Hix appended to [ his interesting drawing.

"THE DOLMETSCH FAMILY at Haslemere, Surrey, England, are makers of old-time instruments. They give concerts of Sixteenth to Eighteenth century music in which they use groups of "recorders". I understand the instrument is becoming quite popular again in England, especially in schools.

ONCE IN NEW YORK, WITH a little time to spare, I visited the Metropolitan museum, an act which, of course, marked me as an inhabitant of the backwoods or the tall grass—real New Yorkers never visit the museum. Wandering through the building I found myself in the section devoted to musical instruments, and there I re- mained, fascinated, for several hours. It is a wonderful collection, with instruments of the most primitive type, such as are used by primitive tribes in mid-Africa, or which were used by other primitive peoples near the dawn of history, and other instruments marking the development to the finished productions of modern times. There may have been flutes of the type used by Henry VIII, but the collection was a wonderful and illuminated one.

HENRY VIII IS NOTORIOUS as the English king who married six wives, divorced some and beheaded others. Unfortunately for his reputation, his domestic behavior has overshadowed the rest of his career. In reality Henry was both scholar and statesman, and he had a real appreciation of music. But he will continue to be known as the king with many wives. IN ADDITION TO BEING Lilac time this is dandelion time, as many persons have noticed. If we could divest ourselves of certain prejudices we should be obliged to confess that the dandelion has much to commend it. It is a thing of beauty. Its golden hue is one of the signs of spring, and in harmony of color nothing can excel a green lawn well sprinkled with dandelions in full bloom. If there is doubt on this point, look out from any window on any sunny morning and be convinced. And what more beautiful and unconscious tribute to the beauty of this flower can there be than the one that is paid by little children as they gather handfuls of the blossoms on their way to school, to take to teacher?

PROM ANOTHER STAND-point the dandelion challenges our respect and admiration. It is one of the most sturdy and persistent of growing things. It is indifferent to the blasts of winter and the burning heat of summer. It thrives where other vegetation will starve. When drouth and heat sear and scorch the grass, the dandelion, drawing sustenance from deeper levels, grows, and blooms, and sends abroad its tiny seeds, each borne on the wind by its delicate bit of down. Its broad leaves make excellent greens; its roots have medicinal properties; its blossoms have provided the base for uncounted gallons of wine. But with all these good qualities we condemn it as an intolerable pest and try to devise ways to exterminate it.

J. B. WINEMAN SENDS ME the following clipping relating to a method of dealing with dandelions concerning which some interest was developed some years ago:

THE LITTLE YELLOW WEED flower which greedily gobbles up the stands of grass on lawns has been put on the run—and by the University of Wisconsin horticultural experts. "Kill 'em with a spray of iron sulphate. "This advice is infallible if precautions are taken, A. L. Stone, the Wisconsin college of agriculture claims. This method of slaying the pestiferous dandelion has been tested over a period of several years.

"FERTILIZATION AND Better seed applications, together with the laborious method of "knifing" the dandelion out by hand, are not to be disregarded, Stone says, but are best used as auxiliaries to the spray process. "Iron sulphate, the Basis of the spray, is commonly known as green vitrol or copperas and may be procured at any drug store for about 2 cents a pound. The spray can be made cheaply at home. "Here's the formula: Dissolve two pounds of iron sulphate to each gallon of water and apply with hand or barrel spray, according to the size of the lawn. "One gallon of the solution will spray 360 feet of lawn. Three applications, one early in May, one a month later, and the third just before the frost comes, will kill the hardiest crop of dandelions.

"CARE MUST BE TAKEN, however, not to spray just after mowing the lawn. Rain within 24 hours after spraying will render the application useless, also, as the chemical is washed off. "And don't get the stuff on clothing, metal, stone or the sidewalk. It makes stains." "The spraying process need not be repeated more than once every three years, Stone says.

THE IRON SULPHATE treatment was once quite strongly recommended, and about 25 years ago the Grand Forks park commission used several tons of the chemical in an attempt to rid Lincoln park of dandelions. Mixed with water and distributed in a fine spray the sulphate is absorbed by the soft leaves of the dandelion, while the leaves of grass, with their hard, glossy surface are resistant to it unless the mixture is too strong. Used at proper strength it discolors, but does not kill grass. It shrivels and dries up the dandelion leaves, after which the roots put out fresh leaves. If these also are burned off, and the process is kept up, the roots must ultimately die of exhaustion.

OBJECTION TO THE USE OF the sulphate are its discoloration of grass, clothing, and almost everything that it touches. I have experimented with it on a small scale on the lawn, but the results have not encouraged me to rely on this method. I shall try it again in a few pet plants and watch the result. SINCE THE DAYS Immediately following the Civil war Decoration day has been observed with patriotic exercises in which special tribute was paid to the memory of those soldiers of the national army who had given up their lives in the great struggle or who had died since the close of the war. In almost every northern community one of the imposing features was the parade in which Union veterans marched. The graves of old soldiers are still decorated with flowers. Taps are sounded and farewell volleys are still fired over their graves. But only a few of the blue-clad veterans are left. In only a few cities are there any to take part in the annual ceremonies, and they are too infirm to stand the ordeal of a march.

ONE OF THE MOST Touching tributes to those veterans was paid years ago by Walt Mason in the following poem, printed, as most of his verses were, in prose form:

THE LITTLE GREEN TENTS. By Walt Mason. The little green tents where the soldiers sleep and the sunbeams play and the women weep are covered with flowers today. And between the tents walk the weary few who were young and stalwart in sixty- two, when they went to the war away. The little green tents are built of sod, and they are not long and they are not broad, but the soldiers have lots of room. And the sod is part of the land they saved when the flag of the enemy darkly waved the symbol of dole and doom. The little green tent is a thing divine; the little green tent is a country's shrine where patriots kneel and pray. And the brave men left, so old, so few, were young and stalwart in sixty-two, when they went to the war away.

BIOGRAPH I C A L SKETCHES of the late John D. Rockefeller refer to Mr. Rockefeller's father as a "farmer and country doctor.” Little else concerning him has been published of late, and for many years the history and even the identity of the elder Rockefeller was shrouded in mystery. Little by little bits of the mystery have been unraveled. Early in 1908 the following news dispatch from New York was published:

"THE BODY OF DR. WILLIAM Avery Rockefeller, father of the oil king, lies in an unmarked-grave in Oakland cemetery, Freeport Illinois. He died in that city May 11, 1906, aged 96 years, 5 months and 28 days. For 50 years he had .ed a double life. Under the assumed name of Dr. William Levingston he farmed and sold medicine of his own decoction in Illinois and North Dakota. During these same years he occasionally appeared at the home of his sons and among acquaintances in the east as Dr. William A. Rockefeller." ATTENTION SEEMS TO HAVE been directed to the history of the elder Rockefeller by a visit made to Park River to ascertain the facts relating to the estate of Dr. William A. Rockefeller, a former resident of that vicinity. No one had been known there under the name of William A. Rockefeller. As John D. Rockefeller was at that time a national figure because of his great wealth and his position in the oil industry, and was known as the son of William A. Rockefeller, the identity and career of the former Park River man became at once a subject of interest.

THE NEW YORK WORLD undertook to unravel the mystery. According to the story published in that paper William A. Rockefeller, who had married Eliza David-son in 1837, left his family and under the name William Levingston married Margaret Alien at some place in Canada not named. In 1867 he appeared in Illinois as an iterant doctor.

IN 1881, AS WILLIAM Levingston, he filed a homestead claim on the northwest quarter of Section 27, Township 157, near Park River. Later he bought other land, but at least some of this was carried on the records under the name of Rockefeller. One quarter was deeded by him to his son-in-law, Pierson W. Briggs, purchasing agent for the Standard Oil company, who appears to be the person who later investigated the status of the Park River estate. WHEN SOME OF THESE facts were published several Grand Forks residents recalled that a good many years earlier Levingston had lived for some months at the Viets house in Grand Forks, which later became the Hall hotel. James Twamley was one of those who remembered him well. Mr. Twamley recalled that Levingston had appeared to have plenty of money, and had spoken sometimes of the ease with which he could obtain funds. It was from Grand Forks, according to Mr. Twamley, that he went to Park River. There he acquired considerable land and erected some buildings. While he was described in some of the articles as an intinerant doctor, the records of his having followed that occupation are only fragmentary. W. W. FEGAN, FOR MANY years in the employ of the Great Northern, recalled that while he was stationed at Larimore, Levingston appeared in his office, saying that he lived at Park River, but had come down to Larimore to send a telegram to Cleveland, as he did not wish anyone at Park River to know anything about it. He dictated to Fegan a message concerning purchases which he wished to make, and these, according to Fegan, included everything from a farm to pigs. The estimated cost was $18,000. The message was a very long one, and Fegan did not suppose that the unknown visitor would pay for it when he learned the price, but would ask that it be sent collect, which Fegan would not do. To his surprise Levingston paid the charge, $27.00, without a murmur. Fegan did not remember to whom the message was addressed, but it was quite certain it was not to a Rockefeller.

CLARENCE A. ALLEN, A Local solicitor for the St. Paul Fire and Marine insurance company said he had known Levingston at Princeton, Ill., and also at Park River. He said that at Princeton the Levingston’s had a fine home, and while a sign bore the name1 "Dr. Levingston," the doctor did not seem to have or need a regular practice. He was described as a fine-looking man who carried a cane said to have cost $300. Mrs. Levingston, said Alien, was a beau- tiful and cultured lady.

AFTER COMING TO GRAND Forks Alien had occasion to visit Park River, and there he heard Dr. Levingston mentioned. Because of the peculiar spelling of the name he recalled his former Illinois acquaintance. He called, was j recognized, and had a pleasant visit. He had known Levingston in Illinois between 1874 and 1876, and I saw him at Park River in 1891 or 1892.

MRS. ROCKEFELLER, THE lawful wife, died shortly before a deed to a parcel of Park River land was made out to William A. Rockefeller, a widower. Mrs. Levingston survived the man with whom she had lived happily for half a century, presumably supposing herself to be regularly married to him. During Levingston's activities in North Dakota she had lived at Freeport, Ill., and he had kept in contact with her and returned to Freeport occasionally.

C. D. LORD, WHO IS STILL engaged in business at Park River, acted as agent for Rockefeller in 1889 in the sale of three quarters of land to Robert Arnot. The deed, signed by William A. Rockefeller, is on file in the courthouse at Grafton. The transaction was for $10,000 cash. An agent of the Standard Oil company came from St. Paul to close the deal and carried the currency back with him in a black valise.