Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-02-25
MAINE YARNS.
Girls in Jackson Making Money
Raising Popcorn.
Names Living Skeleton Only Weighs
Eighty-six Pounds.
Tobique Indian Said to be 1o4 Years Of
Age.


more pretty girls than any other place o
IT'S size IN Maine. good number o
them nave gone TO New York and Chi
cago and married millionaires. and sucf
as have stayed at home are now activel,
engaged in solving the problem as to how
single woman can support herself an
make money on rocky hillside farm
To judge from results the women seen
to have hit upon the winning combina
ton. The nest egg of the idea was go;
from reading an advertisement in which
a seed grower offered a cash prize of $40,
to any person who could produce two ker
nels of his popcorn which should be
marked exactly alike.
The girls of Jackson have studied per-
mutation in the back part of the school
arithmetic, and knowing that there could
not be more than a given number of
combinations made with any set of fig
ures, resolved to grow enough popcorn To
get outside the limit and thus carry off
the prize. They purchased great quanti-
ties of seed corn. greatly to the delight
of the scotsman, they planted wide areas
to the crop and they grew binfuls of ripe
ears; and though they did not find two
kernels of identical markings, they dill
solve the problem of making an unmar
ried woman self-supporting without COM
| polling her to go out to work.
After one years trial the girls discov-
cred that in order to win the prize ac-
cordng to the rules of Formulation, they
would be obliged 20 go into the business
| on large scale, and as corn was a sum
| mer crop, they We're naturally led to
| seek some employment in the winter
| This drove them to raising poultry as =
| side issue, and before they knew it they
were making money with corn and hens
The system of culture as pursued In
Jackson consists of dividing their farm
into three equal parts. one for a hen
yard, one for corn and one for clover,
shifting the crop from one area to the
other every year. The woman who ha
a nine-acre farm puts her hen yard Of
last year into corn this season, and
shifts her hen yard to last years clover
patch.
She relies upon the hen-dressing left in
the old yard to furnish fertilizer for her
corn. and when the corn crop is SO high
as to receive its last visit from the horse
cultivatOr the land is sowed to turnir
seed and red clover between the rows,
which come up and grow in the shade.
AS soon as frost comes and the corn is
removed to be husked the turnips occupy
the land. giving a nice shade to the young
clover plants and producing turnips
enough to keep the poultry in green food
until spring. When the popcorn has been
husked and dried for six months, so that
it will pop readily the dealers pay 5
cents a pound for all they can get, buy
ing it on the cob
AS the rate of popcorn harvest is about
5000 pounds to the acre, and as one pound
of popcorn will pay for five pounds of or
binary Western corn, such as is fed to
hens, the girls not only make their pop
corn pay for all their hen food but de-
clare an annual dividend of about 40
per cent.
Some years they make money on their
hens, too, but as the aim of raising poul-
try is to furnish dressing for the land,
and as the corn is the money making
crop, they do not care so much for the
poultry end of the investment. The clo-
yer crop, which fills in the third year in
the system of rotation, is harvested when
in bloom and sold to the farmers as hay
or put in the hen coops for the poultry
to scratch among and eat for luncheon,
as we'll as for a green soiling crop IL
summer.
Among the things that have made
Lazor Jarrett famous throughout all
northern Maine and caused museum
managers and seekers after freaks II
know of and to offer him large sums of
money to go on exhibition in the large
cities, is the fact that he is the tallest
man in Maine, a veritable living skeleton,
with a face so smooth and free from
beard that it would pass for that of a
young girl
Lazor Jarrett. who was once what
might be called a giant. is now merely n
living skeleton. In former days he
weighed 260 pounds, but now his flesh is
so reduced that he weighs only Sc POUNDS.
He wears a No. II shoe and a No. hat.
and stands a little over six feet and six
inches in height.
He is about 50 years old, and in his
young days he was one of the hardest.
toughest men to be found in the lumber
camps of the State. He was tcamster
in the woods for many years. and. in spite
of the fact that he wore neither overcoat
nor undercothes, never complained of
the cold.
Jarrett was born on n small island 100
miles below river de Loup. His father
was an Indian and his mother was
French. There were nine boys. all over
six feet tall, and three girls who were
taller than the average man.
Their father died on the island, and as
the family was very poor, the mother.
four of the boys and two girls. walked
to Limestone. There the people cared
for them until they could get work.
About ten years ago Pete Jarrett AMI
his brother started with his dog team
| for Deer lake. near Patten. There he
bought some soda and went eff on a hunt
| ing trip He was ordered off the ground
where he had pitched his camp by an In
dian, and some time after was found
dead in his bunk 1t was claimed that
| the soda he bought contained poison. and
| the Indian who had sold ii to him was
arrested but subsequently acquitted.
| Jarrett's mother died at Fort fairfield
about seven years ago. She was 8. years
old. and had gained a record as potato
| picker. The doctors claim that II Lazor
| takes good care of his health he will live