The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-22
doubt that it would dissolve and disap- pear if you attempted to walk through it. t."-Cincinnati Enquirer.
GOOD WATER FROM TREES.
Why Woodsmen in Some Parts of the South Always Carry an Auger in

Why Woodsmen in Some Parts or the
 South Always Carry an Auger in
 Their Kit,
 In many sections of the forest lands
 of the South during the dry seasons
 man may walk for miles without find
 ing stream of water or spring by
 which to quench his thirst. If, however,
 he is an experienced hunter and woods
 man he will have to drink water from
 the stagnant pools in order to keep life
 in his body.
 Queer as it may seem, an experienced
 man can hunt for days through such i dry tracts and yet experience no incon-
 venience on account of the lack of wa
 ter, Nature has provided means
 which is only known to the initiated Every old huntsman carries with him.
 khen going on a long hunt small
 auger, by which he can secure refresfr- i ing drink and water to cook with at any moment.
 i A cottonwood tree, or willow is the
 well which the mily huntsman taps. He examines each tree until he finds one ! that has what a Woodsman calls
 "vein," It is simply an attenuated pro- tuberance. By boring into this vein stream of clear water will flow out. It is not sap, but clear, pure water. The huntsman say that the water is better than the average to be had from ordinary wells. There is no swedish taste about it, but has q strong flavor of sulphur and is slightly carbonated.
 The reason for this phenomenon cam not easily be explained, but that sup ,N1x ap, ,to,, 1~a fp.t, ,nI i,,o fra is not so surprising. The fact of it's flowing is the wonderful feature, show ing that it must be under pressure, or, in other words, that there Is more at the source of the supply. When it is considered that the trees furnish the water In the dry season, and that the ground is literally baked, it is the more remarkab ble, especially when the roots of the trees do not extend to any great depth into the ground.
 Owing to the fact that water can be obtained by tapping cottonwood and willow trees, very peculiar testimony was recently heard In a case in the Federal court here. About twenty years ago. al certain point on the Mississip- pi river, one of the islands which was formed by the channel forkng and sur rounding a large tract of land, was de- serted by the stream on the Tennessee side. Years afterward this land was claimed by the man who owned proper ty in Tennessee adjoining the former island. His claim was that the island had been washed away and that the present land was formed by accretion.
 The former owner, to prove that the 1 bod Lrn oe1,n A1 off the top of cottonwood stump. that l was on the island and showed that it | contained fifty-six circles, or rings, be- ginning at the heart His statement | was that a ring was formed in the tree | every year, hence the tree was a sapling ! ffty-five years ago, and was conse- | quently growing there thirty-eix years | before the island became part of Ten | nessee.
 In order to prove that a ring was formed every year he testified that while hunting, about twenty miles, from that place in 1865, he had tapped cotton wood tree for water and had put ring in the hole afterward to keep the water from waeting, His theory was that the tree in it's growth would have covered up the plug and that the num- per of rings from this plug to the bark If the tree would be, in the year 1S99 showing that a ring had been formed for every one of the thirty 'our years it had been imbedded in the wood
 The tree was found and sawed up. The plug was discovered and was dis ant from the outside of the tree exact- y thirty-four rings.
 Although such testimony would not ,e doubted by a woodsman, it was not eceived as evidence by the court.-- Memphis Evening Star. {