The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-10-18
Making Bird's-Eye Maple.

Milking GBAEG1 S~ELyO 4AHkDAGs
For hundreds of years 1umbermen
and cabinet-makers have been study
ing to learn what causes maple wood
to assume the notified and spotted
form known as "bird's-eye.' In a hun
dred rock maple trees perhaps one is
a bird 's-eye. Nobody can pick the spe-
cific tree out by inspecting the bark or
the manner of growth. Y on may have
to chop 200 trees before you find one,
but it is worth the sacrifice.
Fact is, the woodpeckers make all
the bird 's-eye maple there is in the
world. In flying about the woods they
feon1e to a rock maple tree that yields
very sweet sap in the season when sap
is running. Most birds like sweets
woodpeckers are very fond of sugar.
Having found a tree yielding a large
per cent Of sugar, the birds peck holes
in the trunk and then stand against
the bark and drink the sap as it oozes
out.
After the sap has ceased to flow and
the trees have leaved out, new wood
and bark form in those small holes.
The pecking and sap-gathering goes on
| for years until the tree, having given
up so much sap to the birds, begins to
furnish fluid containing less sugar. II
| ten or twelve years after the birds quit
a tree the holes are all grown up, and
nobody can pick out the big bird s
eyes from other trees that the wood
| peckers did not visit.-New York Sun.
Americans at Arms.
When we read of the devotion of the
| japanese soldiers let US turn to our
history and listen to what General
Hancock had to say of the First Min
nesota Volunteers at Gettysburg:
There is no more gallant deed re-
corded in history. ordered those men
/ in there because 1 saw that I must
gain five minutes time. Reinforce
mentS were coming on the run, but
knew that before they could reach the
| threatened point the Confederates, un-
/ less checked, would seize the position.
4 I would have ordered that regiment in
1 if I had known that every man would
/ be Killed It had to be done, and I
was glad to find such u gallant body
of men at hand willing to make the
/ terrible sacrifice that the occasion de-
/ manded."
The regiment had 215 killed and
wounded in this affair out of 262, or
80 per cent. Setting aside what are
known as massacres, where there was
no escape for the doomed men, what is
there in history to excel this? Dash
ing up to Colonel Colyille, of the Min
nesota regiment Hancock exclaimed,
pointing to the advancing Confederate
| column: do you see those coIOrs
Take them" And take them he did
/ with the terrible sacrifice of life re-
corded. The American have the rep-
lutation of being a boastful people, but
i the recorded facts of history make ex-
aggeration mpossible.-Army and
Navy Journal.
1t Scared Them on.
The shooting of one of Lord LOvat S
gillies, whom they mfstook for a
poacher, by the Phipps brothers in the
Scottish Highlands, recalled to a Pitts
burgh man another poaching episode.
"a San Francisco millionaire" he
said, ''rented an estate in Scotland and
the poachers harassed him unmerci-
fully.
ssHe was too humane a person to
employ man traps or guns. After a
few weeks persecution he resOrted to
trickery to circumvent his poaching
friends
sHe sent to London hospital for a
/ couple of freshIy-amputated legs and
three OF four feet. These, as soon
as they arrived, he nailed to big posts
which he had caused to be set up in
/ prominent places upon his estate, and
underneath each CHASTITY relic he put q
huge notice, saying:
ssThe owner of the above may re-
claim It by furnishing suitable identi-
hcation at the head keepers Office"
/ For fear of man traps so deadly the
lpoachers thereafter kept Out."-Los
Angeles Times.