The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-05-08

| the forests Tor 1000 ana OT1nK anu raj
ment. Then as he grew older he grew
wiser and carved for himself weapons
of flint and wood, just as the earth man
did million or two years afterward.
Our lunar men were very clever, too
very clever. Not so large or SO strong
as terrestrial man, perhaps, but quicker
to learn. Why, it did not take as more
than 900, 900 years to perfect our civil
cation.
"And what happened thenP was my
next query.
"Ah, there you have asked question
hard to answer quoth the old man
sadly. Cali l know is that one year
there came blight over all things 1t
was not exactly plague. 1t was rather
want of vitality in the atmosphere
that reacted with terrible effect on all
animate nature. Man, being the most
highly organized of all things living,
was the first to feel it's baneful effects,
and he dwindled and pinned and finally
persisted, and the places that had been
wont to know him knew him no more
forever.
"Then as the sunny atmosphere grew
more and more attenuated the man.
mails first and afterward every form Of
animal life grew cold and dead. The
lowest forms of plant life fingered for
few thousand years longer, until the
last drop of water had evaporated into
space, in fact, and then they, too, van
ished, and the moon was left as you see
it today, a dead world, without heat,
atmosphere or moisture.
"A sad fate surely, but you must
have become resigned, l said soothing
ly, for the old man was signing heavily
and gazing fixedly into space as though
he saw again the lost visions Of lone
livers he had been describing.
"No, am not resigned" and he
shook his head slowly from side to side.
"Both myself and my sister look for
ward to better times to come"
"Your sister?' I exclaimed wonder
ingly. Il was not AWARE
''That had sister," he interrupted.
"Oh, yes, have, but forgotl Of course
you have never seen her. She lives on
the side of the moon opposite to the
earth, amid mountains and valleys, up
on whose bold outlines no earthly eye
has ever gazed. 1t is by far the best side
of the moon, too, but she is getting
rather tired Of living there and talks
about changing places with me- l ex-
poet you would be rather surprised down
below there if some fine day-or night,
rather-you found woman in the moon
instead Of a man. Ha, ha, hal" and for
| getful of his recent fit of the blues the
old chap gave vent to a hearty guffaw.
eve should indeed" I replied,
laughing in my turn, "although fancy,
unless your sisters appearance differs in
u marked degree from your own, that
we should scarcely be able to distin-
guish the difference. You must admit
sight to tell man from woman 24O,-
600 miles away
""Oh, but answered the old man,
with touch of family pride, 'she is a
fine womanl Not bent and bowed with
age like me. Indeed she is really 6.0OO,-
900 years younger than am I. Then, of
course, she dresses in-in"-
''The habiliments suitable to her
SEX" ventured to say.
''Precisely, and, like all the women
here, is fond of dress. Why, when last
visited her, some 25, 900 years ago, al
most her first question was, How do the
women dress now on the earth?' OF
course there WASH t much to tell her be-
cause-well. the women of that day