Evening star., 1899-11-07

Just now the buyers are paying from 81 %
to S1.J0 per hundred pounds for the seed,
delivered at the warehouse. The cost of
raising an acre of sunflowers is very much
less than the cost of an acre of wheat or
corn and the crop is much more certain.
This city is the great sunflower seed mar
ket of the world, but small quantities, COM
paratively, are bought at Bridgeport, st.
Francisville, Sumner, Birds and others of
the smaller towns in this county, each sta
ton sending out several car loads a year.
The crop of 1899 is now being thrashed and
sent to market, and in this county will ag-
gregate about 100000 pounds, in the opin-
ion of those most interested. Small guam
titles of sunf1Ower seed are sent to market
occasionally from widely separated points
in the United States, but in other place
is the seed raising made business.
What does the world do with 5000 600
pounds of the seed of plant commonly as
sociated only with an aesthetic craze? Only
a very few men know, and they wont tell
The secrecy which envelops the whole
matter of its use. like the hist of stage
burglar, suggests that 1t Is an adulterant
1t once sold readily at 10 cents a pound.
which was the equivalent of nearly s.
gallon for the oil, and what oil can be used
for an adulterant at such a price? The
same man. Crackel. who started the whole
thing here a farmer, and now handles
nearly the whole crop as a dealer in grain,
thought of all that. He is man who takes
excellent care of his own business, and at
the same time has a philanthropic interest
in the doings of his neghbors down here
where everybody visits everybody else. Some
other people had a casual curiosity about
the matter, but when they discovered that
CrackeI had to shame-facedly admit what
he did not know and could not find out
they let it go at that. Crackel found out
that the oil pressed from the seed and
that was all.
Use of the Seed Mystery.
After several years dealing with the Gin
cinnati firm who buys the seed. finally he
took an excellent opportunity and made It
clear that he thought he might now be ad-
mitted into the degree which enlightened
about what was done with the sunflower
seed. The senior member Of the firm ac-
quieSced. ard after initiatory ceremonies
over an altar with a big mirror behind it.
he gravely told Crackel that the seed was
used to feed canary birds. at the same time
giving a sign by slowly lowering and raising
his left eyelid One of these days Crackel
will take in a capitalist and corner the
market on sunflower seed: then he will
loosen up only on condition that he is al
lowed to see exactly what becomes of the
seed in its final resting place. In the mean
time the public will have to do without
knowing for what the seed really is used
SunfloWers have always dourished here
in this oldest part of the state where
Jesse X. Dubois belongs to its modern his
tory. and George Rogers Clark passed on
on his way to capture the neighboring Fort
Nincennes and the northwest from Great
Britain. But they We're used to feed chick
ems and to keep off 'feverunager' until re-
cent years. 1t is fact that plenty of sun
HoWers growing around a place will lessen
the malaria there. They take up so much
moisture from the ground that the latter is
less healthy culture medium for the plas-
medium malariae. and perhaps the chem
iStry of their own existence and growth is
antiseptic to that queer-shaped germ which
the Italian scietist discovered to be the
essence of malarial poisoning.
As consequence of the great change in
farming in Lawrence county bringing the
sunfiower crop into such prominence, there
is more money and less malaria along the
banks of Muddy creek and in the valley of
the historical Embarras river.