Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-09-04
encourage them to.know everything

encourage them to.know everything
was in readiness The aloe wa
set in front of the door. l got q
tooth mug of water for it, and NV
wife wiped its leaves with damn
cloth. 1t may seem strange that /
gave it so little water, hut the fact
is We hadns any but what came
from surface well, and after wat
ering my horse, washing the dishes
and filling the kettle, we could
watch the toads wadiug in the bot.
tom, and had to wait till more leaked
IN over night. There were two big
/ bitches somewhere that | had paid
taxes On, but the companies spent
so much time fighting and cutting
off each Others supply. that what
little ever struggled through the
main ditch soaked into the sand or
down gopher holes. We had talked
9 good deal about artesian boripps.
drive wells and wind-m,lls, but Civ
en- them up as impracticabls, when
one evening, as my wife sat in q
coz templative mood, her unseeing
ewes fixed on horned toad supping
off red ants, and winking know
ingly 1t her, she electrified me by
springiug to her feet with the ex-
traordinary exclamation, "water-
melons |" Her plan, when she was
Sufficiently composed to divulge it,
was simply this: Southern Califor-
MIA was not only noted for climate
and cactus, but watermelons in
fact, some think they absorb all the
moisture which should 90 TO the
refreshing of the whole land We
would plant our whole place In wat
ermelNns. | WAS IL clear more cac-
tus land for that purpose. We
would then ,et az expresser, and
hare all The water necessary for our
aloes and mock-oranges through
the dry season. The plan was my
wife's; no need to say il was a sue.
GEES.
10 five years. time our ranch lew
erything from a cemetery lot TO a
thousand acres goes by that name
here) bloomed and blossomed like
the rose. The mock orange clam
bered over the very shakes that
kept our cottage water tight in the
dry season. The birds hoped
among its branches and made our
tins and pots rattle like casianets:
only those chronic cynics, the owls,
booted at everything. But our
century plant 70 How can | con-
vey to your minds an idea OF it's
growth ? We had, as said plant
ed il, a thing of six years. growth,
foot in height and two in circum.
ference, directly opposite our front
door, and had spent many happy
hours seated on the sill watching
the Observation-Disclosures little
butcher bird impaling horned toads,
small lizards, centipedes and tumble
bugs upon its bayonet-like points,
until we possessed private collec.
ton of specimens to rejoice the SOL
entific heart of a naturalist. But
this delight, like all others, proved
transitery. The plant spread and
spread till we could not use the
front path to the melon. patch. but
had to take to the rear, and still il
spread and spread, and we had TO
close the front door and lock it, lest
we, too, should become unwilling
victims to it's museum of natural
curiosities. At last, just as we were
to move the house on to
the next lot, it ceased spreading,
and began to shoot upwards, and il
shot six inches day; it even looked
like a prize asparagus. Excelsior
could not hold candle to 1T; in
the words of our Pike friend, at did
grow terrible" When it got up
forty feet it rested, and broke out
in big pimples all over from the ex-
ertion. 1t was the beginning of
the end. What bliss was ours We
carried our meals out doors so as to
miss nothing; my wife went round
with tipped back head and rolled
up eyes, and reminded mo of st.
Agnes in tho Royal Collection, only
she was not so Dutch. BY and by
the pimpies put out branches, and
the branches dirty yelow-greenish
flowers of the mangiest kind, that
dropped a black sticky fluid on TO
the big leaves below, which turned
leathery and dead, and fell limp on
the sand and our Century plant"
had bloomed. and looked more like
a very tall rack ofvery dirty invert-
ed hcarth-brushes than anything
else in life. The whole thing from
The seed had taken just twelve
years. | know CaIiforDians are
said to live fast but they must go
i terrible, to boil down century
INTO that space of time. MFG.