Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-01-19
THINGS HEARD AND SEEN

The tip that leads to luck may some
times have long lane to travel, and that
without single turn. 1t may be all the
safer and the surer, however, as, for in
stance, was the advice Mr.. Letter gave a
young acquaintance Of his the other day.
They We're talking over their pippins and
cheese about pictures, travel, books, states
men, horticulture ard some other modern
| luxuries. Let me give you tip" said
Mr.. Letter. Buy a farm up in Maryland
or over in Virginia and plant a pippin
acknowledgements pippins. Eth! I mean
just that. You could not enter a surcr
road TO a nice little fortune. was born
farmer, you know, and not SO very far
from here, either. On our old home place
in Maryland the apples in my boyhood
were a staple money crop. and We had no
such monopoly as the man who owns an
Albemarle pippin orchard has nowadays.
IL you will get a good mountain farm any
where along the Blue Ridge, from Freder
| lex, Nd, to Lexington or Charlottesville,
| Va, and plant 500 or 1000 Albemarle pip
| pin trees, and take good care of them for
fifteen years, you will have an absolute
| source OF income, safe and much more
| profitable than government bonds. You
| need to go up on the high mountain land,
where frosts are slow to come in the fall
| and do not return after spring opens. The
red soil there Is especially favorable to
tree growth, and particularly to the Abe
| marie pippin. 1t is slow tree to de-
| velop, and perhaps shy bearer; but such
an apple is like gold when you once get
crop. l cannot get on without my morning
| apple Wherever L am, in New York, Paris
or London, l look up the first thing sup
ply CT apples. They are medicine as We'll
as food. Every fall l send down to Char
lottesville and get a supply of ten or fif-
| teen barrels of pippins. And what do you
| think they charge me? All the way from
| 50 to ST. barrel; and I'm not sure that 1
| haven't paid SIS. And they say they make
| just as much to ship them to England as
| to sell them here. Now, you take an old
agriculturist's advice and get that noun
| tain farm and plant pippins."
Without attempting it here. and only for
purposes of suggestion to some one having
a genius for the thing, let me say that an
analysis should be made of ex-Speaker
Reeds, method Of locomoton. We have
had famous descriptions of the motion of
the horse from the pages of SCOTS Tai
isman" to those of Ben Hur,' and a le-
gion OF writers have fixed for all time the
poetry of the yachts footing over the
waves, to say nothing of more than a few
picturesque realizations of the heavy pro-
gress of great four-masters rolling ponder
ousy across the deep. These accounts, by
their very Intensity and numbers, quicken
the wish that the way great man walks
should be made something of in literature
We know how Napoleon, Washington,
Webster ana clay walked ArC mas tOlQ
how Cleopatra, King David and Moses got
about. Why should an exception be made
any longer of Mr.. Reeds unique system Of
getting there.
One Of the most pleasing phases of auto
graph hunting was revealed to me the
other night during call on one of my up
town friends. He is a lover of books, and
especially of sets-one of those who leave
their names and addresses at their book
store, and have successfully appearing vol
umes of their favorite authors sent up to
their house. This is the way to enjoy
yourself surely, II you are fond of books,
and one can afford to knock off a good
many other things for the sake of good
books. Thus, at any rate thinks my up
town friend, and he has charming little
library looking out to the all-day sun; and
l would rather be there by the hickory On
his andirons, turning over good novel,
than-at work.
But my friend is not content with books
alone or their fine bindings He falls in
love with personalities and Worships his
authors. All the glittering gossip Of the
day. so far as it throws a single golden
CLINT upon any of his particular literary
idols, is cherished as the miner does the
shining atoms that sparkle in and out Of
the black sand In his iron pans. He clips