The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1918-02-01
Howard Smith, Of lansing, came t

Smith, Monday evening. wednesday
morning he left for Tennessee to visit
his sister for couple of weeks.
l. r. Field recently brought to our
Office an interesting old almanac, pub
lished at Utica, N. Y. in 1919. James
Monroe was at that time president of
the United States and John Quincy
Adams, secretary of state. We were
surprised to learn from the little book
let that sead selection is not a new
thing in agricultural science, as an art
icle in the almanac tells how a farmer
greatly increased his yield of Indian
corn by selecting seed ears from the
most prolific stalks in his fields.
We had a shoveling "bee" in Clio
last week. Bill Hopkins got it up for
the purpose of removing the big snow
drift from Vienna St. Three teams
were on hand to haul away the snow
without charge and the rest of the bee
Bill had all to himself. as he was the
only man who reported with shovel.
Not being able to shovel for three
teams and deliver the Grafton that the
circumstances seemed to inspire the
bee was declared off and Bill told about
how Ananias couldn't qualify as an
errand boy in Clio.
A curious incident of the recent big
snow storm took place on the farm of
Walter Franklin, where one of the
flock of ducks was missing after the
storm subsidized. When two or three
days had elapsed. Mr.. Franklin decided
that the duck was dead duck" and
dismissed the matter from his mind.
Two weeks later he was cutting path
through snow bank and on throwing
out shovelful of snow the missing
duck stretched his head above the
surface and gave lusty quack of well
come. Mr.. Franklin thought that, as
matter of course, the duck must have
frozen feet and be nearly dead, but
such was not the case. and after it had
been given good warm supper it was
apparently as well and lively as ever
We have suspicion that Corp.
Floyd Goodfellow sent us a relic of the
battlefields of France. We couldn't say
positively, but know we have the relic,
which is the shell of one of the hand
bombs which are used with such deadly
effect in trench raids. 1t is about the
sze and shape of a goose egg and is
traversed by little grooves so that
when it bursts it flies into small, jagged
pieces of iron which go in every direc.
ton. carrying death with them. The
bomb which was sent to us bears the
letter "F" and it's grooves are filled
with mud, all of which indicates that it
may have been picked up on the battle
field. The bombs are loaded with an
explosive far more powerful than nitro
glycerine and it is said the conclusion
alone, when one explodes, will kill a
man several feet away.
Marshall Smith, Jr., is a skeeist, or
rather, he was. Skees are long curved
Stats which are strapped to the feet
and enable one to slide down hill quick
er if not farther than a poker game.
They have been popular in Canada for
long while and Marshall now wishes
their popularity had been confined to
that big place. But the snow and cold
weather and the fine coasting that has
resulted. brought the skees to the front
in Clio and Marshall was one of the best
demonstrators. He was coming down
| the school house hill at an awful clip
last Saturday when something happen
ed to the skees and then the bottom of
the hill seemed to slide right up. to
meet the top and the next thing that
Marshall knew he was taken home with
badly dislocated shoulder and a doc
tor was feeding him ether through his
nose, preparatory to pulling him back
into shape and fixing him so he would
grow that way. 1t was all nicely done,
except the skeeing part of it, and Mar
shall will be as well as ever within a
couple of weeks. Glenn Wagner was
rendered unconscious when his sled
bumped into tree, on the hill, shortly
after Marshall was hurt.