The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1904-07-07

in rows, one yard or more apart, but
never less than that space. During
the hot months it should be explained
that the plant thrives best in half
shaded location. Such a spot is pref
cradle to the heat and glare of an
open field.
Fall planting does not injure the
shrub, for it is hardy enough to with
stand frost, and although the leaves
and stalks may be destroyed, the roots
will sprout next year. The plant Is
generated from small, black seeds,
which are similar in size and color
to onion seeds.
Besides raising from the seed, plants
may be reproduced from suckers or
sprouts springing from the bosom Of
the mother plant. The little baby
phu-lo, which is so dreaded by the
boldest and most voracious Of the
mosquitoes of the jersey jungles,
grows easily and multiplies abundant
ly when properly watered and cult
waited.
In its youth the plant is between
a tobacco plant and a mullen. 1t is
soft, green and spongy, yet bristling
with coat of hairy down, that must
seem to the mosquitoes like a thicket
of barbed wire fences, with which no
wise or well-bred mosquito would at
tempt to fool. Being a perennial
plant, it generates few seeds, but this
is made up by the multiplicity Of
sprouts that shoot from it's roots.
But the virtue Of the wonderful plant
which Baron de Taillac has imported
from China are not confined to the
ravages it creates among the mosqui-
toes. After doing inestimable service
during the long hot months, when the
mosquitoes are hungry and greedy, the
plant may be used still further in the
service Of men as a fodder for cattle.
Like the marvellous alfalfa plant,
known to the Greeks and Romans,
and now blooming green and beautiful
in the deserts of Nevada and Colo
RADIO, it may be cut four times a year.
furnishing abundant nutriment and
tidious cow or steef. 1t is good beef
maker, and is said to impart a deli
cate flavor to those choice cuts which
bring top prices in the swell res
taurants of the town.
Thus it will be seen that this hum
BILE plant, which an uneducated boy
might take for a mullen, will work
a revolution in the agriculture and
mosquito economics of summer water
ing places.
It is absurd to imagine that there's
any place on this earth except 10
the heart of a living volcano where
mosquitoes are not present. 1t has
ben proven by the most authentic
travellers that the little birds with
wasp stings in their tails flourish
nightly among the higher attitudes Of
the Rocky mountains, where the alder
thickets are filled with their music.
They were also great hindrance to
explorations in the midnight regions
of the arctic circle and in the Klondike
country they are the chief terror of
the gold miner. So this little insect
is a universal habitant of the round
earth, from the tropics to the polar
regions, where neither heat nor Icy
billiards seem to exterminate them.
What the little f1ends live on in the
arctic is not known. They certainly
have few people to bite, and the ice
bergs are more numerous than the in
habitants, so it must be that they are
simply insects of torture that should
be kept at bay or exterminated. Eng
land gets along nicely with no mosqui-
toes, and is a vivid contrast to New
Jersey, where in certain sections they
are found in clouds.
The phu-lo plant does not exactly
catch the mosquito in the coils of its
foliage and squeeze it to death like
those curious plants of the tropics that
lure their prey within reach by a song.
and then spring on it like a trap, suf-
locating It in automatic embraces. The
Tonquin plant is sort of vegetable
nightmare to the mosquito, and, as
previously stated, the insect dare not
pass a dead line Of these plants, nor
frequent the premises where they are
growing.
Baron De Taillac, Of No. 8 Buchanan
place, Astoria, Long Island City, N.
Y, says the New York Herald, Is
prepared to answer further questions
in regard to this remarkable product
Of the TonQuin country.