Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1888-05-25
A Very Strange Pickle.


tice of Griffin court:
81 wish to call your attention to
one of the most remarkable occHren-
ces of this country; but at the same
time it was very sad. There was
poor man with large family, con-
sisting of his devoted wife and many
small children, mostly boys and girls.
He owned few acres of land, small
portion of which was in rich bottom.
He conceived the idea that by proper
drainage and cultivation he might
raise large quantities of cucumbers,
and by proper management might find
a remunerative market Tor them. So
he made his arrangements according
ly, and raised his cucumbers, packed
them in salt and shipped them to
some northern firm picking. The
first year he was very successful and
sold large quantities of them for fair
prices. The second year be felt so
much encouraged that he increased
his crop and confidently expected a
much larger income. During the
gathering time be was constantly en-
gagged in cutting, sorting and packing
his cucumbers in barrels and ship
ping them to his customers.
Ii is we'll known that when cucum-
bers are first cut from the vine there
is piece which exudes or bleeds
from the stem. One morning the
farmer cut his hand and this juice got
into the cut, and his hand commenced
to inaame, and an eruption similar to
erysipelas made its appearance on his
hand and extended up his arm aad
finally spread over his whole body.
Strange to say there was no pain at
tending these eruptions of erysipelas,
and he continued to gather and pick
his cucumbers and prepare them for
shipment. To the great surprise of
the farmer these little erysipelas pim-
Piles assumed the shape and form of
small cucumbers. and continued to
grow, although the farmer kept we'll
and hearty, he was compelled to strip
himself and take to his bed. OF
course the news of this strange phe-
nomenon spread far and wide, and
the doctors and scientific men visited
him from various sections of the coun-
try. One prescribed one thing and
one another. One wished to bleed
him; one wished to cut the cucum
bers off; another saidfnot let him have
eny water and they would dry up;
another said stick hole in each Gu
cumber and they would die and
new skin form; another wished to
wrap him up in mammoth poultice
of bsrnyard manure and draw them
all to one head; and said they ought
to be scattered. Each bad different
remedy, but all disagreed. So there
was some hope that the patient would
get we'll. AS the summer advanced
the small cucumbers grew into large
ones, and his whole body was COM
pletely covered with them from head
to foot, and they commenced to ripen
and turn yellow ind hang down and
the man assumed the appearance of a
huge bunch of bananas. When they
got ripe they began to shrivel and
dry up, and so did the man. His
sap was gone and he died.
The doctors procured the consent
of the family to permit an autopsy to
be made, for the benefit of science,
and they cut into him with their
knives, and to their amazement found
no fesh-no blood-no muscles-no
sinews-n0 veins-no arteries; but
found only one solid mass of cucum-
ber seeds 1t was 80 remarkable that
it would be useless to have the re.
mains inferred and foolish to have
them cremated, and she concluded
that she would keep them ia the
house She had the corpse hung up
by hair of the head aud veiled.
The next spring some of the chill
dren picked up some of the seed
which had dropped to the floor and
planted them. They grew rapidly
and matured. and instead of being
like the parent stock of cucumbers,
they were pure pickles and needed no
vinegar, no pepper, no salt, nothing
but packing into barrels and ship
ping to market and selling. OF
course news of the discovery spread
rapidly, and myriads OF applications
for seed flowed in like the tide, aud
thus enabled the disconsolate widow
and orphans to turn the cause of
their bereavement into a means of
maintainance and support The. wind
of afflclion was thus tempered to
these shorn lambs They sold small
packets Of seed for big prices, and
could not supply the demand. The
vine grown from the new seed is a
perennial evergreen, aud can be prop
agated from cuttings, blooms in the
spring, and bears in the summer a
beautiful crop of perfect pickles.
The widow sells the seed at one dol
lar paper and hot grown plants at
twenty-five cents each.
The Flint Glass Workers Union
paid out S20O,000 to Its members
during the strike.
"A Cambridge (Mass.) rubber
factory has turned out 1900 pairs
of overshoes in one day.
-Shipbuilders of Schwerin. Ger
many, are on strike, aud 5000 Ber
lin shoemakers are also out.
The two cooperative restaurants
run by the Cooks and Walters Union
at San Francisco have failed.
German furniture workers OF
New York city are subscribing mo-
ney for the strikers IN B.rliu, Prus-
sia.
The report that Michigan man
had twenty wives, ell living and none
divorced, is little bit steep We
are rushers in this State, but we quit
at about fifteen aud give some of 'em
time to die.
The man with Presidential
boom to take care of deserves the
hearty sympathy of the public. A
lopa man ,n+ in oharn., nf E00 anIia. y