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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 1901)
10 Conservative. Anyone who luis TWO GOOD much to do with SAYINGS. young men who are earning their first money , is likely to be painfully aware how many of them think noth ing of borrowing small sums here and there , which they find it hard to re pay. This is nothing new , however. Benjamin Franklin had the same state of things in his mind when he said "Better go to bed suppcrless than rise in debt. " To the same purpose is the story of the broom-dealer in the old books ' ' A proud , lazy young fellow came to him for a besom upon trust ; to whom the old man said , 'Friend , hast thou no money ? Bor row of thy back , and borrow of thy belly , they'll ne'er ask tliee again , whereas I shall bo dunning thce every day. ' " There is a cy- ANCIENT TREES , press at Somma , between Lake Maggiore and Milan , which has the reputation of being coeval with the Christian era , and , to avoid destroy ing this venerable tree , Napoleon being more careful of vegetable life than of human caused a road which he was making to deviate from its straight course. This cypress is about twenty-three feet in girth , but the average growth of cypress is esti mated as about two feet of girth in a century , though even this is a mat ter of great uncertainty. It is , there fore , quite impossible to say from the size of the tree whether its planting took place in the time of Christ or later , though there can be no doubt of the tree's great antiquity. Tradi tions are of course far more fallible than the condition of a tree itself ; and yet. . it is very difficult not to yield to the seductive voice of legend. One is very liable to accept the pleasing supposition that the aged olives in the garden of Gethsemane are the same trees that witnessed the Sav ior's passion ; and few travellers can resist the temptation to connect the cedars on Lebanon with direct Bibli cal times. An American traveller , speaking of the Gethsemane olives , says"One of these , the largest barked and scarified by the knives of pil grims , is reverenced as the identical tree under which Christ was be trayed ; and its enormous roots grow ing high out of the earth , could in duce a belief of almost any degree of antiquity. ' ' But oven could the trees have lived so long , it is certain that the knives of pilgrims , here referred to , would have destroyed or removed them long ago ; neither is it considered likely , by those who may be called ex perts , that the present cedars of Lib- anus reach a greater age than eight or nine centuries. Another tree that reaches a great age , but an age that is very difficult to prove , is the Spanish chestnut. The difficulties in this case are in creased by the fact that some of the largest chestnuts known often prove to be a growing together of several different stems , which accounts for the enormous bulk and the appearance of vast antiquity. The celebrated Tort-worth chestnut , which lays claim to bo the oldest tree in Britain , is probably an instance of this grow ing together. Though now a mere fragment , it is assorted to have at tained a girth of fifty-seven feet , which measurement has been far sur passed by chestnuts on the conti nent. It is stated that King John held a parliament under this tree , a tradi tion which reminds us that forests and world's earliest groves wore over the iest parliament houses , and that Celt and Teuton alike held their assem blages under the trees or on breezy hillsides. The largest chestnut in the world is the Castagno di cento cavili , in * the forest of Carpinetto on the" slopes of Mount Etna. Its girth is 010 feet , and a kiln for drying chest nuts has been constructed in its hol low trunk. Judging not only by its bulk , bxit by its rings , the age of this gigantic tree has been estimated at from 8,000 to 4,000 years , which takes us back into times that are al most mythical. If such an age be pos sible , the tree at Tortworth is modest in claiming only some eight or nine centuries ; but it is tolerably certain that the tree on Etna is not one , but four or five different trees associated together like one. This must mater ially affect any considerations of its age , as also in the case of the famed Gloucestershire chestnut. The soil of Etna would also prove specially favorable to vast growth. When we come to the oak , our fav orite British tree , wo find the same difficulty in accurately estimating an tiquity. It is certain that sine is not an infallible criterion. Tradition has been particularly busy with the oaks of our woodlands , in attributing to them ages which appear fabulous. The Cowthrope oak is to be the larg est in England ; but it need not there fore be the oldest. Pliny told some remarkable tales of the antiquity of the Quorcus ilex , which , we know in Britain as the Helm oak , but it would seem that Pliny was sometimes either given to romancing or to great credulity. In the second century of the Christian era there was said to be existing in Greece a plane tree that had actually been planted by Menolaus , which is much as if wo wore to assert that a certain oak had been planted by Merlin the wizard , or by King Arthur. London Standard. CORN FIELDS AND DRY WEATHER. From the time when the drouth first began to show its effects to the end of August , a careful watch was kept upon the corn fields with a view of as certaining the amount of moisture available to the crop , how and under what conditions it varied and how the crop was affected. The questions to be answered wore the following : Can a sufficiency of moisture for a normal crop-develop ment bo expected to exist in our soil within reach of the plants under any conditions in such an extremely hot and dry season ? What percentage of moisture is necessary in first two feet of soil to support a healthy growth ? How can this be maintained ? What is the minimum amount of moisture with which the corn plant can con tinue to exist ? The first question was easily an swered by the use of a spade , and it was found that standing water could invariably bo readied at from five to eight foot below the surface. This left not the slightest room for doubt but that a sufficiency of moisture could be kept within easy reach .of the roots where the surface soil can bo kept in a proper condition. In one in stance where the surface soil was in ex tremely bad condition and there was no visible sign of moisture to a depth of three and a half feet , standing water was found at a depth of seven feet. In the face of these facts it is reasonable to state that there , is an inexhaustible supply of water in these bottom lands and within easy reach of the surface , for with favorable ca pillary conditions , such as do exist in these soils , water can be lifted from a much greater depth. But the physical composition of most of our soils is such that in hot dry weather conditions may easily arise under which evaporation becomes so rapid that no moisture can be retained near the surface the con nection between the water and the hot dry atmosphere is too direct. In order to answer the second ques tion satisfactorily , gravimetric soil moisture determinations were made during the end of July and the first half of August in normally growing fields. The average of seven tests showed the water content to bo 14.5 per cent in the first foot and 15.5 per cent in the second foot. Corn under these conditions developed without a chock and made a full crop. These results were found in portions of fields which possessed no advantage other than a mellow condition of the sur face. It was reasonable to conclude that this mellow condition of the surface soil observed in the above experiment had something to do with the reten tion of moisture , and to answer the third question it was only necessary to determine how the surface soil could be kept mellow and free from cracks. A timely and proper use of the culti vator was unquestionably the means. A field was found where 'for s'ome rea * son a strip had been loft uncultivated' after the last rain the heavy rain
