Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1889-01-12
NASSATS CURIOSITIES.
QUEER FRUITS, VEGETABLES, ETo.,
FURNISHED BY DAME NATURE.

Ready Made Frames TOT Houseg-A VeEo-
table Tooth Brush = Marbles Ready
Grown Lace from Bark - Vegetable
spongo-Flowers for Boot Blacking.
Nature in her all enfolding benehcence
here has trees which form roof, corner posts
and studding, only requiring elapboards to
close them in, and as if realizing that fresh
circulating air is best, hints of living under
them lust as they are The giant ceiba sends
out from its base great plank like buttresses,
which form stalls in which to stable cattle.
A wide spreading, low branching tree-it
might be an oaR except for the curious wheel
like fruit tipping the branchlets, green and
poison when young, gray and explosive
when ripe-the fruit is a capsule made up Of
deeply grooved series of nuts, fat and
round, disposed on edge in a circle clinging
to a central disk which is followed and par
titioned when fully ripe the capsule eX-
ulodes with a report like a pistol, and the
nutlets scattered far and wide, open and let
the kernels drop-a reasonable way in which
nature provides for the replanting Of new
trees This fruit is called the sand box"
because in old pre-blotteT times they we're
used to hold black irou ore sand, with which
writing was sanded instead of blotted Even
now 10y loading the fresh dry capsules With
lead, so as to prevent its explosion, they form
quaint paper weights This fruit is also
called the monkeys dinner bell, because
where the tree abounds in the tropics mon
keys abound also, and when they hear the ex'
ploslop they hasten to dinner-it's nuts" for
them
A VEGETABLE TOOTH BRUSH.
The chaw stick is a vegetable tooth brush.
The negroes here noted for fine white teeth,
and often you will see them with piece OF
chaw stick in the mouth. The plant has
flexible stem which climbs by tendrils This
looks like licorice root This cut sintO six
inch lengths the ends chewed, furnish
6brous vegetable brush 1t contains an aro-
matte. slightly bitter principle allied to soap
in its effect, hence chewing it, as we say OF
favorite dentifrice, makes the teeth clean,
the mouth sweet, the breath fragrant The
coIored folks at public festivals sell small
beer of various havors on the street, and with
this chaw stick they give it froth.
The children have a living fountain OF
chewing gum trees There is in the hospital
grounds fine example Of fcus lndica, the fig
which yields India rubber The leaves large,
oval, thick, shining and vivid green, the
roots spread over much surfaca The chill
dren scrape off little bark, the milk flows
and they let 1t run over the fingers and
palms When | saw this done | thought it
would be long job to get those hands free
from the sticky stuff. But loi on exposure
to the air q few minutes, rubbing the hands
together meanwhile, the milk became dark
gray and presently peelec of and left the
skin as clean as II washed with soap vast
Improvement over soap and towels.
a,,I 10 marbles val
low, gray and red, hiding from them in the
thickest of goulanuia, or Bonduc vines,
Each prickly pod has from one to three
"nickers, or nuts-hard, round and smooth.
Necklaces, brooches and ear rings are also
formed of them
NATURES MANY CoNVENIENCEs.
To fish without labor would bruise the
root bark of Jamaica dogwoOd and throw 1t
nUo the water, to be sure Of Supplying all
Tie fish within its influence, without injurtng
them as food This tree is common in Mas
sau-Piscidia erythrina-and It's bark is now
considerably used as an opiate in medicine.
Curiously enough, the odor OF the bark is
similar to that of opium For sponge
need not go to the sea, bur whip against
a stone the ripe fruit of the Egyptian
ufFa which SO commonly here reaches its
SQuuSl ike WING lulO lle oh pNNllllu Nl0CAN LIS
then freed from seed and peel gives me
wash rag or vegetable sponge-for both kit
chen or bath. Bottles, bowls, jugs and cook
Iuu pans grow on trees-the calabash trees.
Rread already leavened, but moi baked,
uangs in great loaves on the artocarpus, or
ut.ld fruit tree-a glorious picture it is,
,yilh its immense, deeply cut leaves So
"a. ,pd strawberries grow like currant clus-
yollOyy NJ rad and
>,u, instead of sweet Would you drink am
rir,r,ia, fit for the godsI Send black Hete
INTO a plumy cocoanut tree to ding down a
nut ''in the milk" Should need light
nave only to rob the bayberry Of its green
ISL wax, or string together some nuts Of the
candle tree with cotton wicking. torch Of
pitch pine need be no larger than pencil
Would have lacel A colored woman win
take "a gray, smooth branch OF the Logetta,
and from the spread peeled bark, moistened
and beaten ON q stone, unfold twenty lay
ers Of white dlmy lace, as delicate and ele
CANT as point Would you have a dowpy
pillowl Watch till the round ovaue pointed
pods Of the silk cotton tree Bombay cribal
ripens, and while you bold II in your hand
maybe it will quietly open, as It did in mine
and out gushing comes a brown, silken misty
cloud, yelling up and over. falling slowly at
your feet With a sigh OF surprise you won
der where OF how that big basket full of silky
down could have been packed into that little
empty pod in your hand ......
There is an exquisitely rich, crimson hibiS
Gus here, called the chAngeable rose, ex-
tremely ornamental on lawns and shrubber>
les, and yet " what base uses may We come"
the flowers bruised are used TO blAcken and
polish boots Frederick SteArns In Detroit
Free PresS
Ultra FAst and Fashionable.
There are ultra fast and fashionable
women, whose salons are entertaining but
not safe Society is a mosaic, in which the
false jewels shine more brightly than the
true An instinctively pure and imperial
nature, however, walks through such . salon
20 repudiate the bad and to extract the good /;