The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-08
TOYS AND GAMES OF THE
 GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS

never had been suspected before. al- though so many sharp-eyed persons have watched plants grow for so many cen turies.
 A few years ago the United States government imported the beautiful and valuable date palm hoping to make it grow in the sandy and dry parts of Ari- zona and New Mexico and other spots of the United States where other de- nestle plants do not thrive. The date palms did fairly well. but not well enough to please the department of ag- riculture, so it sent one of it's men away out to Africa and across the desert of Sahara to find the oases and see how palms grow there.
 He found a gorgeous evergreen morn- ing glory twining around the houses of the Arabs. And then he found the beau tifu1 oases. and when he returned 1t waa with many camels, all laden with fine date palms.
 And these are growing finely now in our country. That was a real Arabian Knights play trip that has been worth lots and lots of money to the country
 Some charming toys are those that everybody may see in the many weather observing stations of the government. There are busy little windmills, turning like anything, and funny little round disks on arms that dance all the time. and queer spiral glass tubes that move lead pencils over charts.
 A weather observatory would be the very place of all that any child would se- lect, if it could have its way. for play room. There are so many Funny nstru- ments and scores on scores of quesr-col- ored flags and little gaudy-colored lan- terms, that one's heart quite fills with a desire to play with them.
 Yet even while one Is looking at them turn and dance, those tempting toys may be telling of a storm that is killing folk and blowing houses down far away. The little flags and lanterns, when hoisted, may seem anything but toys to the sailor. For some of them spell hurricane, and others talk of hail and rain, and others warn all human kind to stay snug in shelter.
 There was a learned man in Woods Hole, in Massachusetts the other day, who had great fun with starflsh in little
 
 Woods Hole is the place where tho gov ernment studies fish. This man went out and caught a lot of the beautiful things called starfsh, because they look so much like stars.
 Children who have seen them and played with them and admired them will find 1t hard to believe that they are real. ly first cousins to the devilfish, or octopus as they are.
 The man playSd lots of games with the stars. He put some of them into shallow vessels and found that they had queer habits. For instance, starfish would try to crawl over the side of the dish, but as soon as he found he would have to lift his arms out of the water to do it he would slide right back.
 But if he could get just enough water to keep his arms covered he would crawl away rapidly. quite regardless of the fact that all the rest of his body was sticking out high and dry.
 The man also got many eggs of the star and put them into tiny trays full of salt water and matched out. Gloriously beau tiful little things they were. purple and crimson and scarlet and yellow, each one as tiny as a pinhead, yet each one per feet ffve-rointed star And as soon as each was matched it would hustle right to t'9s bottom and fasten on a bit of green where 1t shone like flashing gem
 Now this was truly pleasant play. But 1t was profitable. too. For the startish is a terrible enemy of the oyster and the clam.
 The starfish used to eat so many oys- ters and clans that the fishermen of Con necticut alone lost more than slOO.OO0. The play of the man in Woods Hole has taught the government new ways of fight ing tho stars, and 1t is now sending tho information to all the fishermen and she'll fish planters.
 So all the playing means vast sums of money saved or earned in various ways.