Birmingham age-herald., 1894-10-19
THE LAND OF SLEEP.
6onnolent Fife cts of Northern
 New York Hop Fields.
Wayfarers and Natives Succumb to the Drowsy Infiuehce-Tau stories Told About This Pecul-
 far Region.

ln the me11OWs L1lSJy utyb Ol duJuluh wayfaring strangers in either 0tsego or Schoharie county are certain to be overcome by a surprising drowsiness which commonly makes them think that they have been drugged in some Gnaccountable fashion. But when these dozing travellers observe that this apparently uncomfortable desire to slumber weights the lids of natives as well as their own, the ramblers att tribute their somnolence to some un- known soporiflc quality in the prevail ing haze. That, says writer in New York exchange, is about as far as they ever penetrate the phenomena. If journeying on horseback or in wagons they are soon snoring, while if they are travelling on Shanks' mare they drop along the roadside and fall fast asleep. No matter how wide awake they may be, they are powerless to re- sist the drowsiness when they enter either of these counties.
 The same thing prevails in that part of the D. & H. railroad which cuts through Schoharie and Otsego coun- ties. Conductor Jim Thomas, and all the train hands for that matter, have to use drugs to keep from falling asleep while they are in this torpescent region. All the passengers sleep like dormice. There they sit, pipe in mouth, at card tables and paper in hand, as if suddenly struck dead. But their snores proclaim that they are only benumbed by sleep.
 One might think that these slumber- ing passengers would be ''soft marks" for train robber, but ex-Assembly- man o. F. Lane, of Otsego, tells story which proves exactly the reverse. A thief did clean out the pockets of some twenty passengers. But when, after passing outside the counties, the pas sengers came to, they found the luck less thief, loaded with booty, stretched snoring in a corner. He had got with in step of the door when the sleep fever hit him and he fell snoring in his tracks.
 With all the trouble Conductor Thomas has prodding slumbering way passengers into partial wal1efulness, his friends wonder that every hair in his head hasn't turned white. Still, at
  Acadia to which flock many persons suffering with insomnia.
 It cures, but the cure is even worse than the disease. At-least that is what W. H. Bum, appraiser of the port of Oswego, thinks. Hard work aggra- vated by too many warm bottles and cold birds, left Mir. Bum a martyr to insomnia. Urged by friends, he sought relief in Cobleskill, Schoharie county. Even before he got settled there he be- came dead to all surroundings. No one, not even himself, knows how long he slept. Some say forty-nine hours right off the reel. Anyway, after week of it he went home cured. But he became such a sleepyhead that he is said to be seeking something that will bring on mild form of insomnia
 Ex-Congressman Pendar tellsa story of 8 stump speaker in Schenevus, Ot- eego county, who fell dead asleep right 1n the middle of his oration. He was struck with one hand aloft like pump handle. In that preposterous attitude and still snoozing he was carried to the nearest tavern. The political cam pdlSu was over Uc1oro uc DoCdue WIuc awake.
 Every one, scientific or otherwise, who has investigated the matter agrees that the drowsiness which becomes epidemic in this region every fall is caused by the intoxicating aroma from the hop fields, which, with the almost ,ihpalpable yellow dust blown from the hops, gluts the atmosphere. Hop pill lows have long been recognized as 8 sovereign cure for sleeplessness. Yet if the stufing of a million hop bolsters were scattered to the winds they could not as richly impregnate the air as do The Worlds Fair Tests
 showed no baking powder
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