1892,* WEST MICHIGAN PRINTING 00. GRAND RAPIDS JL2b'3'2f l K -K -K -K -~ -r -K -K -K K -: ~e -K - -K -K -K -C -K -K -K -K -K~i *R * *( * * *g * *~/ * *lJzrsr l~llll nllll 1111 11111 11 11111 ll~llilllf 81113111 1lilli~~~lr11 1111111 1 * *EI ETT * *flllf)11Illl~lllllf * *t >1 IO z~z H O 0 o A6,o HOMES FOR ALL IN MICHIGAN I MPROVED Fruit, Stock, Grain Farms TIMBERED LANDS, TOWN AND CITY PROPERTY. A Description of the Resources, Productions, Advantages, Soil and Climate of the Peninsular State, with Some Useful and Instructive Information for All. By ABEL T. PAGE, DEALER IN All Kinds of Real Estate, Loan and Collection Agent, GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN. 1892I WEST MICHIGAN FRINTING CO., GRAND RAPIDS, MIOH. I NTRODUCTORY. I RECEIVE MANY LETTERS from persons in other States contemplating settling in Michigan, inquiring about its advantages of soil, climate, water, timber, farms, fruit, health, and many other questions regarding the productions and resources of the State. As I could not answer all of the inquiries in a satisfactory manner by letter, I determined to publish a general description of the State, with some of its many resources and advantages, It could not be expected, in a pamphlet of this size, that a full account of S the State would be given. Enough will be found, perhaps, to induce further S investigation, and cause some to come and see for themselves. In making up this description I have gained information from a number of sources, and must give credit to the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railway Company for some very interesting and truthful articles, published in their pamphlet of Northern Michigan. This company have a number of thousand acres of good unimproved land along the line of their road north of Kent County. The company are offering great inducements to settlers desiring to purchase homes in the northwestern portion of the State. After a residence in Michigan for over forty years, making my home a large part of the time in Grand Rapids, watching the growth and prosperity of the State, with all its, diversified interests developing-farming, fruit-growing, mining, manufacturing, lumbering, and many other kinds of business that are prosperous and money-making, I am forced to this conclusion: That there is no other State in the Union with so many natural advantages. Its undeveloped resources are truly wonderful and varied. This is the State of all others for a poor man to settle in, no matter what his occupation. There is business for all, and land enough for all a farm. To men of means, Michigan offers particular attractions for the profitable investment of capital. How much money is lying idle in Eastern banks that could be invested to profit in the purchase of real estate, manufacturing, lumbering, mining railroading, salt and plaster business, fruit culture, farming, and many other branches of business where capital could be invested so as to produce from ten to fifty per ceit.? It has been done; it is being done all over the State. Grand Rapids is a live, growing city, full of thrift and enterprise, with a population of 75,000. This is an attractive city for business men with capital to make money, and have a home in one of the pleasantest cities in the Northwest. There has not been a time, since the settlement of the place, when property and homes could be purchased at so goodn an advantage as at the present time. Real estate is low and advancing. We have room for everybody. Come and see, and be convinced. -6 -GRAND RAPIDS AS IT IS. We have a Population of 75,000. We have the largest factories, and are the Largest Furniture Manufacturing Center in the world. We have the Largest Carpet Sweeper Factory in the world. We have the Largest Shingle Machine Factory in the world. We have the Largest Pail and Tub Factory in the world. We have the Largest Land Plaster Deposits in the world. We have 400 Factories, employing 14,000 people. Our factories sold $30,000,000 worth of goods in 1891, and shipped to all parts of the civilized globe. We have seven Railroads, and more coming. Our railroads carried in and out of Grand Rapids, in 1890, 700,000 passengers; and the number of passenger trains daily was 60. We have 20 miles of electric Street Railway. Grand River flows through the city and is navigable to Lake Michigan. We have one Gas and two Electric Light Companies. We have a New City Hall worth $300,000. We are building a Court House, to cost $300,000. We have 25 Public School Houses and a large Public Library. We have 52 Churches, embracing all the leading denominations. We have the Michigan State Soldiers' Home with 400 inmates. We have 70 Jobbing Houses who sold $13,000,000 worth of goods in 1891. Grand Rapids is the centar of the famous Fruit Belt of Michigan. Grand Rapids is heaaquarters for many of Michigan's heaviest Pine Lumber Manufacturers. Grand Rapids has Lowest Death Rate of any city of the U. S. We want men with brains and capital to locate and establish new enterprises here, and grow up rich with the country. Real Estate is low in price, and a safe and sure investment. For further information address ABEL T. PAGE, REAL' ESTATE DEALER, Grand Rapids, Mich. FARMS AND CITY PROPERTY FOR SALE. I have thought best not to publish a full list and description of the farms, town and city property I have for sale, as I am continually selling and changing property and taking new.descriptions on my books, and a list of lands and farms published in this pamphlet would be imperfect in a very short time. To keep the descriptive list of farms and other property as correct as possible, I publish every few months a catalogue of the real estate I have for sale. FARMS. I have many hundred farms for sale; some for exchange. These farms are located all over the State, and in different counties. I have improved farms in some of the Western States. The most of my farms for sale are in the Western portion of this State; the larger number in Kent County. Some in the counties of Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Allegan, Ottawa, Barry, Ionia, Montcalm, Mecosta, Osceola, Newaygo, Oceana, and other counties -7 -north and east. I have farms of all sizes and all prices,-large farms with large improvements and costly buildings, and land in a high state of cultivation. Then I have small farms with cheap buildings and small improvements; others with but a few acres cleared, and balance new land. I have large stock and grain farms, and fruit farms, located near towns and railroads. I can furnish a farm with almost any number of acres desired, from ten to five hundred. The price of farms depen'ds upon the size, location and improvements-from $10 to $100 an acre. I have farms with good soil, both heavy and light, water and timber,-beech, maple or oak. The soil of the opening lands is mostly sandy loam; timber, oak and hickory. The timbered land sold is usually dark sandy loam and clay; timber beech, maple, ash, elm, basswood, butternut, some blackwalnut and cherry. Good, improved farms of forty, eighty, or one hundred and sixty acres, near railroad, town and market, can be bought at from $30 to $60 per acre. I have fruit farms for sale in Kent county, and the counties north, south and west of it. The fruit belt extends from Berrien county to Grand Traverse county. Price of farms, according to location and improvements, $10 to $100 an acre. Size of farms twenty to three hundred acres. I have cheap, unimproved lands, some with a few acres under cultivation, located in the counties north of Kent county, and near railroad; price, $2.50 to $20 an acre; good timber, soil and water and handy to market. I have also pine and hard timber for sale in quantities desired, from $10 to $60 an acre, near to saw mills. I have steam saw and grist mills, also water power, grist and saw mills for sale, well located. Price $3,000 to $20,000. CITY AND TOWN PROPERTY. I have a large amount of city property for sale in Grand Rapids. Prices of resident property, houses and lots, range from $500 to $15,000. Vacant lots $100 to $3,000 a lot. Business blocks at prices from $4,000 to $50,000. I have some great bargains in city and town property. Any one who desires to purchase any kind of real estate in Grand Rapids, or in this part of the State, will find it greatly to their advantage to call upon me. Parties out of the State, wishing to purchase a farm in this portion of Michigan, if they will write just what kind of a farm they desire, how much money they want to invest, and the number of acres and location, if I have anything on my list that answers their description will write them what I have, with prices. In all letters of inquiry inclose stamp for reply. Address ABEL.T. PAGE, Real Estate Dealer, Grand Rapids, Mich. KENT COUNTY. It is one of the largest counties in the State, having an area of 864 square miles; and its population is 109,935. It contains twenty-four organized townships, and several large and thriving villages, among which are Lowell, Rockford, Alaska, Grandville, Cannonsburg, Grattan Centre, Ada, Fallassburg, Cascade, Burch's Mills, Sparta Center, and Cedar Springs. Its principal water-powers are at Grand Rapids, Lowell, Alaska and Rockford. At the city of Grand Rapids, two canals-one on each side of the river, which is 900 feet wide-furnish power for moving an immense quantity of machinery, while on the banks of the river, above and below the city, the main stream is used for large mills and other extensive manufacturing establishments. The city of Grand Rapids is the acknowledged metropolis of Western Michigan, and is the largest city in the State, after Detroit. Its location is one of surpassing beauty, having a rare variety of hill and dale for landscape, the Grand River with its rapids penetrating directly through its corporate center, north and south. Its population is 75,000, and is noted for its elegant town residences, suburban villas, fine business blocks, and for the air of thrift and energy which characterizes its citizens. The value of the manufacturing done at this point, annually, is already very great, and the city is certainly destined to extensive importance. The population of Kent, like that of most of the older counties in Michigan, is composed largely of New York and New England men and their descendants. The people are intelligent, moral and enterprising, and evidence of these qualities is everywhere seen in the prosperity manifested throughout the county. The common school system of Michigan, one of the best in the Union, has had full development in this section of the State, and no better schools can be found anywhere than in Grand Rapids. Tbe United States Circuit and District Courts, for the Western District of Michigan, are located here. It manufactures steam engines, wagons, carriages, reapers, mowers, plows, felloes, hubs, clothes-pins, shoes, brushes. Waters' patent barrels and wooden-ware of all kinds, tubs, pails and sieves, household furniture in immetse quantities, and lumber of all kinds-in fact, everything which can be fabricated from the inexhaustible varieties of wood which are found north of the city, on the line of the Grand Rapids and Indiana railroad. Flouring and carding and cloth dressing and stocking weaving are among its varied industries, to which may be added tanneries, soap and chemical works. Gypsum (land plaster) and stucco, or plaster of Paris, are yielded by immense quarries in the immediate vicinity of the city. Seven railroads center here and are in active operation, while others are either under way or in contemplation. The country is well watered by the Grand, Rogue and Thornapple rivers, and by Plaster, Mill, Bear and other creeks of running water. Michigan is not so far west but that it can be reached at small expense, as compared with extended journeys beyond the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Instead of going out of, you are right in the midst of civilization and its attendant surroundings. PLANT A TREE.-BY Lucy LARCOM. He who plants a tree He who plants a tree, Plants a hope. He plants love; Rootlets up through fibers blindly grope; Tents of coolness spreading out above Leaves unfold into horizons free. Wayfarers he may riot live to see. So man's life must climb Gifts that grow are best; From the clods of time Hands that bless are blest; Unto heavens sublime. Plant! Life does the rest. Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree, Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree, What the glory of thy boughs shall be? And his work its own reward shall be. BOUGHT A BEAUTIFUL TREE. The Grand Rapids Veneer Company bought a magnificent walnut tree of a farmer some time ago for a sum big enough to raise a small mortgage. It was perfectly straight and as round and regular as though turned out of a mold and it towered into the air a full 100 feet, and the first branch was 80 feet from the ground. Under any circumstances such a tree would be valu -9-- able, but this was doubly rare and valuable owing to the peculiar formation, the grain being curly and knotted. The logs have just been delivered. There are six of them, five each twelve feet long and one of seven feet, and they scale a trifle less than 6,000 feet, log measure. The small end of the top log is thirty inches in diameter and the big end of the butt log is forty-eight inches through. The wood is as solid as a rock and will cut up into very choice and valuable veneers. 1891. TO THE READER. In presenting to you the real estate we have for sale, we desire to state that we deem it the business of honorable real estate agents to bring buyer and seller together, and to afford every facility for making his purchases on the most favorable terms. The practice among some land agents of buying up poor tracts of land for a mere song, and selling them to unwary strangers at fabulous prices, cannot be too strongly censured, as it not only brings odium upon the profession, but seriously retards emigration, that is so necessary to the development of the resources of the State. We propose to do a strictly legitimate businesss, and maintain that high standing of moral integrity which we believe essential to permanent success. Abel T. Page, dealer in all kinds of real estate, Grand Rapids, Mich. MICHIGAN FOR HOMES. Any country that is especially adapted to horticultural pursuits is a good region in which to build a home; for the advantages which together render a region fit for successful wheat growing are those which one seeks for when he seeks a place to settle for life. The products of horticulture are the most delightful accompaniment of a home, and in the development of some branch of horticulture, no matter what the principal occupation may be, one gets a wholesome satisfaction that softens the years and renders life more enjoyable. Michigan presents to the home-seeker a great many advantages that appeal at once to the practical good sense of those who are seeking a place in which to build up a home. A recapitulation of these advantages may be given very briefly as follows: Michigan is practically free from debt; her public institutions are her pride, and her educational system is commended by the best educators in the country. The agricultural advantages for mixed husbandry are of the very best; the climate is not equaled by any northern State: the air is clear, the water pure, and the variations in temperature comparatively slight. The landscapes are beautiful, and a wide range of fruits, plants, flowers, and trees that form the accompaniement of a well-embellished home, can be grown successfully. Delightful resorts are near at hand everywhere, and a refined and intelligent people make up her present population. Michigan has a motto upon her coat of arms-Si q~aeris peninsulamn amvenam circumwSpico: If you wish to see a beautiful peninsula, look about you. That is no flaming advertisement of exaggerated proportions, but is a simple introduction to those who enter our borders, the apparently complimentary language of which is found by every visitor to be a truthful statement. The old, derisive songs that told of ague, marshes, rattlesnakes and wolverines as the natural products of Michigan are not sung any more; and none visit the peninsula State who do not go away with pleasant accounts of her climate, soil, productions, and people. ,I a ~I~\~ ~ ~~~,:I ~C~'~'' n~ic:' ~~:~. 'hr~; yrX;z;r,,-3..~~.C ~--- 7;;;~..~.;~i:ii:;ri-,~.~p ~~~-~~~d~~il:ai!i!r`~;*~' ~r.~3t~,, ~. '('': r: li~:i r, re 'le., U!? ~.I~ ~ria~~ rIr "~j~~ Phi 1 ~'.~\ ~:'IL~ jf P a- -y' - 0 1V\6: ---P -1T A(Beautiful Gift) SHOWING NEW MISSION POINT -11 -APPLE IS KING. I sing not the rruitage of old Yucatan; The citrus of Spain, or the plums of Japan; The Florida orange may glow in the south, The peach of New Jersey may melt in your mouth; The broad-breasted quince has a heavenly smell And I love California's apricots well; Bananas of Nassau and Malaga grapes, In clustering richness and ravishing shapes - They're beautiful all, but bepraise them who will, A ruddy old monarch outranks them all still; A fruit universal, coeval with man: 'Tis the blessed old APPLE, gainsay it who can. EXPERIENCE AS A TEACHER. There was a man in our town Who was so wondrous wise He thought that he could sell his goods And need not advertise; But when he found his goods unsold, With all his might and main He rushed around to advertise; The moral is quite plain! NEXT! Another man of whom I've'heard, Who tihught he knew It all, Put not his Trust in printers' ink, But in posters on the wall; And when he found his goods unsold, He didn't wait a minute, But " shuffled off this mortal coil," Exclaiming, " I'm not in it." THE BIGGEST APPLE TREE. The largest apple tree in New England, and probably in the world, is in the northwestern part of Cheshire, Conn., standing in Mr. Delos Hotchkiss' door yard. Its age can be traced by a family tradition to 140 years at least, and it may be twenty or twenty-five years older. It is at the present time of symmetrical shape; the trunk is nearly round, without a scar or blemish on it; there are eight large branches; five of them have been in the habit of bearing fruit one year aad the remaining three the next. Mr. Hotchkiss has gathered in one year from the five branches eighty five bushels of fruit, and his predecessor had harvested a crop of 110 bushels from the same five branches. By careful measurement the circumference of the trunk one foot above the ground, above all enlargements of the roots, is thirteen feet eight inches. The girth of the largest single limb is six feet eight inches. The height of the tree, carefully measured and found to be -sixty feet, and the spread of the branches as the apples fall is 100 feet, or six rods. The fruit is rather small, sweet, and of moderate excellence.-Boston Journal. Buy real estate now, when it is lower than it will ever be again. Laborers invest part of your earnings. Mechanics, clerks and employers, invest part of your salaries. Monied men, buy all the good real estate you can; it is the surest, safest and best investment. Banks may suspend and fail, railroads "smash up," steamboats go down-all institutions are liable to succumb to financial panics. Every kind and quality of stocks may become worthless; but real estate is always sure; and even though it may become slow, dull heavy and unmarketable, still in the long run it is solid, safe, profitable, and will come around again, and be worth "as much as ever and more too." Abel T. Page has all kinds of real estate for sale, and exchange; call and see -12 -THE MICHIGAN SALT PRODUCT. Previous to the year, 1869, there was no official inspection of the salt product of Michigan. The amount produced up to that time is, however, given at 3,282,117 barrels. Since the establishment of the State Inspection law the amount of salt inspected in Michigan has been reported as follows: Year. Total bbls Year. Total bbls' 1869....................... 561,238 1880...................... 2,676,588 1870..................... 621,352 1881.................. 2,750,299 -1871...................... 728,175 1882....................... 3, 37,317 1872...................... 724,481 1883...................... 2,894,672 1873.. 823,316 1884.......3,161,806 1874...................1,026,919 1885........................,297,403. 1875.................... 1,081,856 1886.................... 3,677,257 1876...................... 1,462,729 1887....................... 3,944,309 1877...................... 1,660,997 1888....................... 3,861,228 1878...................... 1,855,884 1889....................3,849,979 1879........................ 2,058,040 1890..................... 3,838,637 SALT. Long prior to the settlement of Michigan by white men, the Indians supplied themselves with salt from the saline springs of the Saginaw valley, and those who conducted the early topographical and geological, surveys of the State predicted that systematic exploration would reveal the existence of subterranean stores that might be developed into great commercial importance. Spasmodic attempts to manufacture salt were made even under the territorial government, but without success. CHIEF CENTERS OF MANUFACTURE. The chief center of the salt manufacture is the Saginaw river, and the blocks on its banks produce about three-fourths of the entire yield of the State. There are also salt blocks at Caseville, Port Crescent, Port Austin,. New River, Port Hope, Sand Beach, and White Rock, in Huron county; at Oscoda, East Tawas, and Tawas City, in Iosco county; at St. Louis in Gratiot county: at Midland, and at Manistee. The latter is the pioneer district of the Lake Michigan shore, and was developed in 1881. Eighty-five years ago the directors of the East India Company placed on record: "The sending of Christian missionaries into our eastern possessions is the maddest, most expensive, most unwarranted project that was ever proposed by a lunatic enthusiast." A few months since Sir Rivers Thompson, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, said: "In my judgment, Christian missionaries have done more real and lasting good to the people of India than all other agencies combined." "There is no good Indian but a dead Indian" is a saying attributed toGeneral W. T. Sherman. General Morgan, United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, has said, in the place of that utterance, "There is no good Indian but an educated Indian." "There is no good Indian but a Christian Indian" is the third version of the aphorism, from the pen of the editor of the "Spirit of Missions." -13 -RAILWAY MILEAGE IN MICHIGAN. YEAR. Miles. YEAR. Miles. YEAR. Miles. YEAR. Miles. 1838.........62 1852.........425 1866........ 943 1880....... 3,823 1839......... 71 1853.........425 1867........1,066 1881....... 4,252 1840.........104 1854.........425 1868........1,124 1882....... 4,609 1841.........147 1855.......... 462 1869........1,362 1883....... 4,966 1842.........147 1856.........530 1870........1,736 1884...... 5,12) 1843..... 180 1857.........579 1871.......2,293 1885....... 5,247 1844........220 1858.........703 1872........2,822 1886.5..... 5,577 1845.........233 1859........770 1873........3,252 1887....... 5,768 1846.........279 1860........780 1874........3,313 18 8....... 6,399 1847........279 1861.........777 1875........3,327 1889....... 6,759 1818.........326 1862.........811 1876........3,410 1890....... 6,959 1849.........336 1863........812 1877........3,455 1850.........380 1864........891 1878........3,564 1851.........421 1865.........931 1879........3,657 INTERESTING RAILROAD STATISTICS. Total mileaga in United States................................... 160,000 Iliinois stands first................................................ 10,000 Kansas is second................................................. 8,800 Texas third.................................................... 8,350 The greatest railway centre in the world is Chicago. At present we have thirty-five different gauges, but a few years ago there were fifty. Locomotives.............................................. 30,000 Passenger cars................................................. 26,000 Other cars................................................1,175,000 The locomotives cost 8450,000,000; cars of all kinds, 81,050,000,000. Gross earnings for a year: From passengers............................................ $300,000,000 Freight, etc................................................... 645,000,000 Operating expenses are..................................... 637,000,000 Passenger trains run each day............................. 750,000 miles Freight trains run each day............................... 1,000,000 miles Interest on bonds, etc., calls for.................................8220,000,000 Taxes........................................................ 28,000,003 Stockholders get about......................................... 82,000,000 Carried as surplus............................................ 20,000,000 Rentals, etc.....................................................96,000,000 Think of the number of persons supported directly and indirectly by this vast growing industry, and at present all parts are working pretty harmoniously. A tragedy was completed at Chief Lake, near Manistee, Mich., Saturday. A forest giant, thirty-six feet. in circumference, twelve feet in diameter, and 175 feet high, was blown into smithereen by the aid of dynamite, and burned in land clearing log heaps. It was too big to cut down; no saw could be found that would operate in it and no mill in that part of the country could cut it up into boards. It seemed a wicked shame to destroy the tree which wase'idently one -of nature's masterpieces. It would make an excellent World's Fair exhibit. -14 -ONLY ONE IN MANY MILLIONS. Fresh point is given to the well-known paradox concerning the safety of railway traveling by the latest official returns. According to these, only one person in forty-five and a half million railway passengers was killed by railway accident in 1890, so the railway companies will again hold their carriages safer than our beds. It is true, the proportion of injured is-much greater; but still in "890 only one passenger in 1,648,677 was hurt in a railway accident. Railway travellers can afford to take that risk. It is a risk greatly reduced in recent years. In 1874 the irjured were one in three hundred thousand, and it was not till 1883 that the chances of injury were so far diminished that only one in a million passengers was hurt. In 1889 there was a drop to one in three quarters of a million. This was due to the terrible accident at Armagh, where 262 were injured, besides eighty killed; and now, as above stated, the proportion is not as much as one in one and a half million. The extension of the block system and the use of automatic continuous brakes have uudoubtedly greatly minimized the risk of railway travelling. THE CLIMATE OF MICHIGAN. The temperature of Lakes Michigan and Huron never sinks below thirty and seldom below forty degrees above zero, moderating the climate of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan in a wonderful degree. Observations made by the U. S. Government, during twenty-eight years, prove that the coldest days at the Straits of Mackinaw (the extreme northern point of the Southern Peninsula), are not colder than at Fort Riley, Kansas, located 480 miles further south. The same causes which moderate the cold of winter moderate the heat of summer, and Michigan thus has a climate as agreeable and healthful as any in the world. There is no malaria; no fever and ague and kindred diseases; no droughts; no tornadoes. Crops are always reliable, and general health prevails at all seasons. Michigan is a model commonwealth in her finances, in her educational and charitable institutions, in her facilities for transportation. in her accessibility to the markets of the world, for her fertility of soil, and in their adaptation to all the cereals, fruits, grasses, and products of the temperate zone. The Detroit Post and Tribune, one of the leading papers of the State, forcibly says that there can be no doubt, that, on the average, a poor man can, as a rule, do better in Michigan than in any other State-especially better than in any newer state. Here we - have, ready to hand, markets, railroads, timber, lumber, diversified industries, great manufactories, commerce, and all avenues to occupation and wealth. A poor man has a larger choice of employment, and a better chance to obtain employment than in any new state. In our new counties land is cheap, fertile, near to markets, and in a country certain to be densely settled in a few years. People in other states will do better to immigrate into Michigan than to go farther and fare worse. Michigan has fertile forest lands enough still lying idle to furnish farms for another million of inhabitants, to say nothing of the work and wages still awaiting the hand of labor in her pine and other valuable timber. The best State a poor man can move into is Michigan; it is also the best State for a poor man already here to stay in. -15 -A COMMERCIAL BALANCE SHEET. A gentleman traveling down State street, Boston, the other day, picked up a small pocket memorandum book kept by a New York traveling drum-- mer, and among other- interesting items of this "highwayman's" career the following items will be of interest to the ungullible public, particularly to the innocent wives and sweethearts at home as well as to silly girls -in neighboring cities; also to the firms who put up the dollars: Miles traveled.........................2,250 Number of trunks................. 2 Shown samples..................... 61 Sold goods.......................... 34 Been asked the news.................. 56 Told the news........................ 3 Lied............................... 33 Didn't know.......................... 20 Been asked to drink.................... 11 Urank............................ 11 Changed politics.............. 17 Changed religion..................... 3 Daily expenses allowed by house.... $9 Daily expenses actual................. $6 Been to church........................ 0 Accompanied girls from church home.. 17 Girls flirted with...................... 42 Agreed to marry................... 2 Expected irouble with................... 1 Kicked out of the house............... Left by back door.................. 3 Dodged fare on railroad................. 5 Number of persons cheated........... 34 Tried to cheat................... 61 Hats ordered......................... 3 Suits of clothes made................ 2 Goods sold for other firm8............. 5,600 Commissions from rival firms........... 280 Salary $6 per day, for 40 days........... 240 Saved from daily expenses............ 120 Money put in savings bank.............. 500 Cash on hand.......................... 70 Got drunk........................... 11 Badly broken up........................ 2 Slipped out on hotel keepers......... 4 Cigars smoked.......................... 200 Cigars given away..................... 2 Number dsys actual work................ 32 Number days charged firm.............. 40 Light wagons stove up................. 2 Attended horse races.................. 11 Made on bets........................ 80 Lost on bets............................. 55 My actual profit for forty days.......... 640 Firms actual profit for forty days...... 610 A BIG TREE. On Wednesday, Feb. 20. Messrs. George Greenman, Frank Milderbush and Bert Milderbush, of Gaines, Mich., hauled to the city three logs cut from a large black oak tree felled recently in that township. The butt log, which was brought in by Mr. Greenman, measured five feet two inches at the larger end, weighed 9,185 pounds, and scaled 1,027 feet. The next log, hauled by Mr. Bert Milderbush, weighed 7,488 pounds, and scaled 867 feet. The third log, hauled by Frank Milderbush, weighed 6,951 pounds and scaled 817 feet. The timber was purchased by the Grand Rapids Chair Company. AD. FOR A BANK. Alliance Trust and Savings Bank, One Million Surplus Paid In. Financial standing-Highest rankJust the Place to Trade In. We keep our Cashierin a Cage; Our President is Pious; Depositors of any Age May walk right in and try us. Fifteen per cent. we guarantee As long-as we are trusted, And when this ad. you tail to see You'll know the Bank is Busted. Wm. Grant cut a basswood a few days ago, that scaled 3,819 feet and brought $22.91 at the mill. After paying for cutting and hauling it netted $4 stumpage. This tree was worth, then, standing, $15.28. This is an indication of the value of the hardwood timber of Northern Michigan. -16 -POSTAL CARD ETIQUETTE. Postal cards should never contain anything which tends to disclose to a third party the personal relations between the writer and recipient. "Dear George," "My Dear Wife," "Yours truly," "Affectionately yours," all do this to a greater or less extent, and should therefore never be used on postals. The best rule to observe is: YSimply write your message, and if you are intimate with the person addressed, sign your initials, otherwise your full name A REAL THANKSGIVING GIRL. She couldn't cook a turkey And yet her husband called her Or make a pumpkin pie, His sweet Than'.-giving prize. And as for frying doughnuts For though on all housekeeping She simply wouldn't try. IHer faculties were lame, She couldn't set a table. She had a hundred thousand Her bread would never riE e, in her own sweet name. COSTLY WINE. In the wine cellar under the Hotel de Ville, Bremen, there are twelve cases of holy wine, each case inscribed with the name of one of the apostles. It was deposited.in its present resting place 265 years ago. Including the expense of keeping up the cellar, interest on the original outlay, and upon interest, one bottle is worth $2,000,000. THE UNWISE SPORTING GOODS DEALER. He sat at his door at noonday; About the old man's hair. He was lonely, glum. ind sad; At last in misery he shouted: The flies were buzzing about him, " Great Scott! I'm covered with flies! ' Led by a blue winged gad. And the zephyr that toyed with his Not a customer darkenea his portals; whiskers aslied, Not a sign of business was there; "Why don't you advertise!" 'But the flies kept on their buzzing Michigan is well supplied with one of the most important articles to the farmer, viz.: fuel and fencing. One can hardly imagine the inconvenience of a want of timber, until he has lived on a prairie farm and drawn his wood fifteen or twenty miles, and paid $13 or $15 per M for fencing. It takes farmers in Michigan longer to clear up a farm than on a prairie, yet when it is done you have got just what you want, a farm that will always yield good crops, and near a good market, easy of.communication by rail or water, and a good demand for all the products near at home; a climate that is mild and salubrious, made healthy by the clear water of the great lakes that surround the State-on every side except the south, which warms it in winterand cools it in summer. Our immense forests have a great influence in tempering the atmosphere and.breaking the rough winds that sweep over the prairie states. We are favored generally with a good fall of snow each winter, which protect the winter wheat and grass, besides keeping the ground warm and; acting as a fertilizer for -the coming crop. Our water, though hard, is abundant and good; our land is sufficiently-rolling and -hill-y to be easily drained., -17 -POPULATION OF MICHIGAN CITIES AND VILLAGES. The following table shows the population of the leading Michigan cities and villages according to the census of 1890 and the census of 1880, together with the increase or decrease between the two periods. In the last column the figures marked * denote decrease. CITIES, VILLAGES. 1890 Detroit..........205,669 Grand Rapids...... 64,147 Saginaw........... 4.215 Bay City......... 27.826 Muskegon......... 22,668 Jackson.......... 20.779 Kalamazoo....... 17 857 Port Huron........ 13,519 Battle Creek..... 13,090 West Bay City..... 12,910 Manistee.......... 12.799 Lansing.......... 12,630 Alpena............ 11,228 Ishpeming.......... 11,184 Menominee....... 10,606 Flint................ 9.845 Ann Arbor......... 9,505 Adrian............. 9,239 Marquette......... 9,096 EIscanaba......... 8,000 Ludington....... 7,499 Owosso............ 6,544 Cheboygan......... 6,244 Pontiac............. 6,243 Ypsilanti......... 6,128 Negaunee........ 6,061 1880 Inc. CITIES, VILLAGES. 1890 116,340 32,016 29,541 20,693 11,262 16,105 11,937 8,883 7,063 6,397 6,930 8,319 0 153 6,039 3,288 8,409 8.061 7,849 4,690 3.026 4,190 2,501 2,269 4,509 4,984 3,931 89,329 32,131 16,674 7,133 11,406 4,674 5,920 4,636 6,027 6,513 5.869 4,311 5,075 5,145 7,318 1,536 1,448 1,390 4,406 4,974 3,309 4.043 3,975 1,734 1,144 2,130 Coldwater.......... Big Rapids.......... M onroe........... Jonia.............. Grand Haven...... Mt. Clemens........ Cadillac.......... N iles............. M arshall.......... Holland.......... Hillsdale..... Charlotte,....... Wyandotte......... St. Joseph......... Three Rivers...... St. Johns......... Red Jacket........ Greenville........ Hastings-.......... Lapeer.......... Dowagiac......... Allean............ Howell.......... Fenton......... Hudson......... 5.462 5,265 5,246 4.999 4.988 4,742 4,455 4,197 3,957 3,928 3,920 3,848 3,799 3,733 3,122 3,119 3,070 3,048 2.951 2,795 2,792 2,663 2,385 2,182 2,176 1880 4,681 3,552 4,930 4,190 4,862 3,057 2,213 4,197 3,795 2,620 3,441 2,910 3,631 2,603 2,525 2,370 2,140 3,144 2,531 2,911 2,100 2,305 2,071 2,152 2,254 Inc. 781 1,713 316 809 126 1,685 2,242 162 1,308 479 938 167, 1,130 597 749 930 *96 420.116 692 358 314 30 '78 BIG RAILROAD FIGURES. The third annual report for 1891, on the statistics of railroads in the United States, prepared by the inter-state commerce commission, is made public. The mileage on June 30 last was 163,497.05. Increased milehge brought into operation during the past year, 6,030.06. Michigan shows the largest increase, 459 miles, and Georgia is next with 437 miles. The states of Kentucky, Tenessee, Mississipi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida show 1.370.32 miles. The total mileage in the United States, including all tracks, is 209,060.37. The total number of corporations is 1,797, of which 37 are classed as private. The total gross income of all roads for the fiscal year ending June 30 was $1,051,877, 632, and seventy-four roads receive 80 per cent. of this amount. The rapid growth and corresponding increase in the value of real estate in our western cities and their suburbs, is the greatest financial wonder of our age and country. Many a hard working man, who had purchased a few acres of land near a growing city, upon which to make a living by raising vegetables for market, has been enriched by the advance of city and suburban improvements upon his borders. The past experience in the growth of western cities will continue to be repeated in the future. In no way, therefore, can one's surplus earnings be more profitable invested than in the lots and acres of such cities and their additions. Abel T. Page has acre land and farms for sale. --18 -WHEN IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE. It pays to advertse when you have something to sell and want the public to know it. It pays to advertise when you want to start a business and make the business profitable. It pays to advertise when you have an established business, because advertising has made your business what it is. It pays to advertise when business is dull, for then you are sowing seed of future prosperity. It pays to advertise when trade is brisk, because you are strengthening the very roots of your business for the dearth that may come. It pays to advertise at all times and under all circumstances if you only use the right medium in which to make your wants known. Here's an ad. for a hash-mill: We want a few boarders for company only: Our house is so big that we're awfully lonely; We set a fine table with wine sauce and punches, And never -use yesterday's scrapings for lunehes, We practice no fraud with spring bcicken or hash; The landlady smiles-tlo' you haven't the cash. Each room is a front, and a sunny one. too; No bugs in the bed and ihe carpets are new. This one will bring back a runaway wife: Whereas, my wife, Eliza Jane, has left my bed and board For which I'm glad-although my herrt is breaking, And I forbid all persons to her trust or keep or board, For I won't pay a single debt she's making. If she'll return before I d6e a widower bereft I'll promise to do anything she wishes, For I'm tired tending of the baby she has left, And washing all the dirty dinner dishes. Here's a model for landlords: A house to let where you will get Home comforts in perfection; To boarders tall or children small There isn't an objection; The rent is low and will not grow In case you stay forever, And landlord will pay any bill You send him-be's so clever. For instance, the following poetical ad. would fill a home with servants before breakfast and keep them till supper time, at least: Wanted! - Kitchen Lady who Can cook, eat, wash and iron, too, And let her mistress, when about, Have every other Sunday out: She needn t pay for what she breaks If she won't think that eels are snakes; To enterta.in he-r "cousin" she Car play the grand piano free; The work is so small, the wages high; No college graduate need apply. POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES. On the 12th of December, 1890, the United States Census Bureau issued a bulletin giving the population of the country by states and territories, preceded by the following comments: "The population of the United States on June 1, 1890, as shown by the final count of persons and families, exclusive of white persons in Indian Territory, Indians on reservations, and Alaska, was 62,622,250; including these persons the population will probably reach in round numbers 63,000,000. In 1880 the population was 50,155,783. The absolute increase of the population in the ten years intervening was 12,466,467, and the percentage of increase was 24.86. In 1870 the population was stated as 38,558,371. According to -19 -these figures the absolute increase in the decade between 1870 and 1880 was 11,597,412, and the percentage of increase was 30.08." The following table shows the population of the country in 1890 as compared with 1880 and 1870, with the increase by number and percentage from 1880 to 1890. In Nevada there is a decrease of population: POPULAION. INCREASE FROM POPULTION1880 TO 1890. STATES AND TERRITORIES. - P___er1890. 1880. 1870. Number. centage. The United States................. 62,622,250 50,155,783 38,558,371 12,466,467 24.86 North Atlantic divisidn............. 17,401,545 14,507,407 12,298,730 2,894,138 19.95 Maine............................... 661,086 648,936 626,915 12,150 1.87 New Hampshire...................... 376,530 346.991 318,300 29,539 8.51 Vermont............................ 332,422 332,286 330,551 136 0.04 SMassachusetts...................... 2,238,943 1,783,085 1,457,351 455,8588 25.57 Rhode Island.......................... 345,606 276,531 217,353 68,975 24.94,Connecticut......................... 746,258 622,700 537,454 123,558 19.84 New York........................ 5,997,853 5,082,871 4,382,759 914,982 1800 New Jersey........................... 1,444,933 1,131,116 906,096 313,817 27.77 Pennsylvania....................... 5,258,014 4,289,891 3,521,951 975,123 22.74 South Atlantic division........... 8,857,920 7,597,197 5,853,610 1,960,723 16.59 Delaware.......................... 168,493 146.608 125,015 21,8S5 1493 Maryland............................. 1,042,390 934,943 780.894 107,447 11.49 District of Columbia................. 230,392 177,624 131,700 52,768 29.71 Virginia.............................. 1,655,980 1,512.565 1,225,163 143,415 9.48 West Virginia...................... 762,794 618,457 442,014 144,3S7 23 34 North Carolina...................... 1,617 947 1,399,750 1,071,361 218,197 15.59 South Carolina....................... 1,151,149 995,577 705,606 155,572 15.63,Georgia........................... 1,837,353 1,542,180 1,184,109 295,173 19.14 Florida............................ 391,422 269,493 187,748 121,929 45.24 Northern Central division......... 22,362,279 17.364,111 12,981,111 4,998,168 28,78 Ohio................................. 3,672,316 3,198,062 2.665,260 474,254 14.83 Indiana............................... 2,192,404 1,978,301 1.680,637 214,103 1082 Illinois.............................. 3,826.351 3,077,871 2,539,891 748,480 24.32 Michigan........................ 2.093.889 1,636,937 1,184,059 45, 952 27.92 Wisconsin.......................... 1,68,880 1,315,497 1,054,670. 371,583 58 23 Minnesota............................. 1,301,826 780.773 434,706 521.053 66.74 Iowa................................. 1,911,896 1.6g4.615 1,194,020 287,281 17 68 Missouri............................. 2,679,184 2,168,380 1,721,295 510,804 23.56 North Dakota....................... 182,719 36.909 14,181 145,810 395.05 South Dakota....................... 328.808 98,968 230540 23460 Nebraska........................... 058,910 452,402 122,993 606.508 134 06 Kansas.............................. 1,427,090 996,096 364,399 431,000 43.27 Southern Central division......... 10,972,893 8,919,371 6,334,410 2,058,522 23.02 Kentucky........................ 1,8-8,635 1,648,690 1,221,011 209,945 12.73 Tennessee............................ 1,767,518 1,542,359 1,258 50 225,159 14,60 Alabama.......................... 1.513,017 1,262 505 996.972 250.512 19.84 Mississippi..................... 1.289,600 1,131,597 8?7,92, 158,003 13 90 Louisiana..................... 1,118,587 939,946 726,915 178,611 19.01 Texas................................. 2,235,523 1,591 749 818,579 643,774 40.44 Mr. Geo. Strong has a walnut tree on his farm, that has got a log chain through the middle of it, some time, good many years ago, somebody had broke about two feet off the chain probably when the place.was new and being cleared they put it in the forks of the limbs and forgot about it, since then the tree has growed so the chain is about eight feet from the ground, and the tree is about a foot thick where the chain goes through so it leaves about one-half foot on each end yet to be growed in; it is quite a curiosity-Coloma Boomer. -20 -POPULATION OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES. The first count under the new census shows-the population and rank of cities of 50,000 people and over to be as follows: 1890. 1. New York......... 1,513.501 3. Chicago............. 1,098,576 3. Philadelphia........1,044,894 4. Brooklyn...... 804,377 5. St. Louis..........460.357 6. Boston......... 446 507 7. Baltimore.......... 433.547 8, San Francisco...... 297,900 9. Cincinnati......... 296,309 10. Cleveland........... 261,.546 11. Buffalo........... 254,457 12. New Orleans....... 241,995 13. Pittsburgh......... 238.473 14. Washington........ 228,160 15. Detroit............ 205,669 16. Milwaukee.......... 203,979 17. Newark............. 181.020 18. ilinneapolis..... 164.738 19. Jersey City.......... 163 987 20. Louisville........... 161,0105 21. Omaha.............. 139 526 22. Rochester.......... 138,327 23. St. Paul.......... 133,156 24 Kansas City...... 132,416 25. Providence......... 132,043 26. Indianapolis....... 107,445 27. Denver............ 106,670 28. Allegheny........... 104.967 29. Albany............ 93,523 30. Columbus.......... 90,398 1880. 1..1,206,209 4.. 503,185 2.. 847,170 3.. 566,663 6.. 350.518 5.. 362,839 7.. 332,313 9.. 233,959 8.. 255,139 11.. 160,116 13.. 155,134 10 216.090 12.. 156 389 14. 147,293 18.. 116,340 19.. 115,587 15.. 131i,508 38.. 46,887 17.. 120,722 16.. 123.758 63... 30518 22.. 89,366 45.. 41,473 30.. 55,785 20.. 104,857 24.. 75,056 50.. 35,629 23.. 78.682 21.. 90,758 33.. 51,647 1890. 1880. 31. Syracuse......... 87,77 32..51,79 32. New Haven......... 85,891 26.. 69,882 33. Worcester......... 84,536 28.. 58,291 4. Scranton......... 83,450 39.. 45,850 35. Toledo............... 82,652 -5.. 50,137 36. Richmond......... 80.838 25.. 63.600 37. Paterson.......... 78,300 '34. 51,0031 38. Lowell...........77;605 27.. 49,475 39. Nashville.......... 76.309 40.. 43.350 40. Fall River.......... 74,351 37.. 48,961 4!. Cambridge.........69,837 31.. 59,669 49. Atlanta............. 65.514 49.. 37,409 43. Memphis............. 64586 54.. 33,592 44. Grand Rapids.....64,147 58.. 32,016 45. Wilmington........ 61,427 42.. 42,478 46. Troy............... 60,605 29.. 56,747 47. Reading............ 58,929 41.. 43,278 48. Dayton.............. 58,868 47.. 38,678 49. Trenton.............. 58,488 64.. 29,910 50. Camden............. 58.274 44. 41,659 51. Lynn........ 55,684 48.. 38,274 52. Lincoln.............. 55,491 158.. 13,003 53. Charleston.......... 54,502 36.. 49,984 54 Hartford............ 53,182 43.. 42,015 55. St. Joseph........ 52,811 57.. 32,431 56. Evansville.......... 50,674 63.. 29,280 57. Los Angeles........ 50,394 195.. 11,183 58. Des Meines......... 50,067 77.. 22,408 11,734,854 7,989,293 In 1880, there were 35 cities of above 50,000 people; now there are 58 such. Then there were 18 that passed 100,000; now there are 28. Then but one reached a million; now there are three that pass the million point, and one rises above one and a half millions. The totals show that 18.67 per cent. of the total population of the country is found in cities of 50,000 or more people; while in 1880 the 50,000 cities embraced but 14.47 per cent. of the total. THE LARGEST PINE TREE IN MICHIGAN. So far as has been learned the largest white pine tree that was ever found in Michigan was cut down and scaled this week,by the Brooking Lumber Company. This firm is doing a big lumbering business about two miles west of Hobart Station on the G. R. & I. road in section 25, town 21 10 near Houghton, Wexford county, and discovered this tree while felling the timber. It measured at the butt six feet in diameter and scaled 10,331 feet of mercantile lumber. In the fall the top was broken, destroying about 300 feet of choice lumber. Mr. Udell says the bark was four to four and one-half inches thick The New York Journal of Finance is responsible for this: "If a boy 15 years of age should be left ten acres of land in Michigan, and his guardian should cover it with hickory trees, the income of the boy, when he came to be 30 years old, would be from 89000 to $11,000 clean cash off his little farm. If in the South, and the trees were pecan, his income would be a third more." -21 -FISH CULTURE. There are a few enterprises enjoying public attention at the present time that promise more profitable results than the multiplying of food fishes in fresh water ponds. It is the belief of all who have studied the subject that fresh water fishes of all kinds can be multiplied almost indefinitely, and so cultivated as to be improved, not only in quantity, but in quality, and made to be the cheapest of cheap food. This fact should be repeated over and over again, until every one who has a patch of water on his premises large enough for tadpoles and shiners, can make it yield an abundance of wholesome fish food at not half the trouble and expense with which he cultivates a like patch of ground. The food thus produced is too much neglected by the farming community; it affords elements of nourishment necessary to a healthy condition of the body, for which no cheaper available substitute can be found. That Michigan has the most productive fresh water fisheries in the United States is easily explainad by its geographical position. All the important towns on the shores of the great lakes and their connecting straits are the centers of a fishing interest which employs annually several thousand men, uses many steam and sail vessels of small tonnage, and has a large amount of capital invested in nets, shanties, ice houses, boats and tbeir out -22 -fit. The catch is principally confined to whitefish, lake trout, sturgeon, bass, pickerel, and herring, and is marketed fresh, salted, or frozen. Oil is also obtained in considerable quantities from the offal and unmarketable fish. GAME AND FOOD FISH OF THE INLAND LAKES. The inland lakes, of which there are more than 5,000 in this State, and the numerous streams also abound in the smaller varieties. Brook trout and grayling are plenty in some of the small rivers of the northern counties, and black bass are caught in many of the lakes. Sportsmen in great numbers flock annually into the thinly settled regions toward the straits of Mackinac in quest of game fish. Perch, eels, pike, and other common varieties contribute to the food supply of the State. ARTIFIOIAL PROPAGATION. The State has shown its appreciation of this interest by the passage of general laws for the protection and preservation of the best bost varieties of food fishes, and by the creation and maintenance of a Fish Commission. This board is charged with the artificial propagation of fish, which are planted in what are believed to be suitable waters for their natural development. It has hatcheries at Detroit, and at Paris in Mecosta county, and Boyne Falls in Chorlevoix county, and up to the close of 1881 had planted in lakes and rivers 67,702,761 young fish, including 48,100,000 whitefish in the great lakes and Detroit river; 15,118,709 whitefish in inland lakes, 2,107,352 salmon,1,472:,000 eels, 427,400 brook tront, and smaller numbers of California trout, grayling and bass. Excellent resnlts have thus far followed this work in the cases of whitefish, eels and brook trout. Dr. J. C. Parker, of our city, is one of the Fish Commissioners for this State, and for a number of years has devoted much time and attention to the fish interests of our State. READ THIS. Our business is that of selling real estate, and we will take pleasure in answering any reasonable inquiries about property we have for sale; but we have not the time to answer letters upon other subjects unless the writer encloses a fee sufficient to cover the time and trouble of giving them the information desired. Not unfrequently we get letters from persons wanting to know our opinion of the value and other particulars about some piece of land fifty or a hundred miles away. To all those we now reply that we have not the time or money to spare to go and make an inspection; and any opinion we might advance without making such inspection would be worthless and might cause us to be severely censured by the very person whom we designed to befriend. Other persons write to us to procure them situations. To those we must also reply that we absolutely have not the time. To all who write about property we have for sale, we say, enclose a stamp if you want a reply. Abel T. Page, Grand Rapids, Mich. A pine tree was cut in Bellamy's creek, lonia county, Mich., the other day which measured four feet through the butt and made five logs. It was perhaps the last pine tree in that county cut from the forest growth for lumber. Put up sign boards on your shade and ornamental trees to try and prevent idiots and irresponsible persons from tying their horses to them. -23 -THE RECKLESS DESTRUCTION OF OUR FORESTS. No subject is of graver import to the future of this continent than the protection and preservation of its forests. Sir Samuel Baker, who recently returned from a hunting expedition in the Big Horn country of Wyoming, said that the extensive and wanton burning of the Rocky Mountain woodlands was an evil of such magnitude that he was astonished to find hundreds of square miles in a blaze, carrying on the march of devastation until quenched by the heavy rainfall or arrested by the high mountain tops above timber line. The reckless miners and thoughtless hunters, traders and travelers, who are responsible for this prodigious waste, bid fairly to convert fertile valleys and copious sources into arid deserts and dried up gulches. It is a well known law that forest destruction of a wholesale charactel diminishes rainfall and ultimately banishes it altogether. Hence the anxiety of the more enlightened governments to save their native timber intact, knowing that its production and preservation are the life's blood of the country itself. What will be the ultimate result, judging from eviaences of the past? Our rich western regions will become gradually parched; brooks and streams will die out forever; important feeders of a great river system will become extinct, lowering the level perhaps of such a channel as the Mississipi river and one word will be written across the face of the country-destruction. HYMN TO A PLUMBER. Sweet man, so cool, so calm, so bright, You sent two men to look again,Owner of earth and sky! They came and saw and went, I fear it's going to freeze to-night- And came again, and stopped, and then It's in your eye. They stopped the vent. That glitter, that enchaining gleam, Your bill therefore, great man, is here, Bespeaks your own sweet trust, By special po.t it came, And pipes for water, gas and steam And I resign whate'er was mine I know will bust. To pay the same. Great man! Some fourteen days ago How could the world move on its way My sink pipe sprang aleak; Of your great grasp bereft? You came and looked and found it so,- We know, however cold the day. And in a week. You're never left. THE PLUMBER. A plumber went forth to plumb A kingly palace by the way; And, when his half-days's work was done, Sent in his bill, without delay. The king brought forth his bags of gold, His diamonds and his jeweled crown. The plumber credit gave for them, And took a mortgage on the throne. It is claimed that the finest forest preserved in the United States is the Adirondack region, and that the Black Forest in Germany, the Norway forests and the forests of Canada cannot be compared with it. There are 2,700,000 acres in that region, which it is proposed to include in the Adiron dack Park. -24 - "Know most of the rooms in thy native country, before thou goest over the threshold thereof."-Fuller. ABEL T. PAGE GIRAZTD ]AZPICDS, - - MIOVIIC. ATTENTION PAID TO THE PER FECTINlQ or TITLES Insurance, Conveyancing AND THE AGENCY AND CARE OF PROPERTY. Notary Public, Collections Made, Loans Negotiated. Stocks of Different Kinds Bought and Sold, Any and all business in the Real Estate line will be attended to promptly, and in a business like manner. RESIDENCE IN THE CITY OF MORE THAN FORTY YEARS. -25 -REAL ESTATE. FOR SALE. Farms and City Property, Pine, Cedar, and Hard Timber, Unimproved Beach, Maple and Oak Lands, Mineral, Swamp and Stump Lands, Farms and wild lands in the Western and Southern States. MILL PROPERTY. Steam and water power Flouring, Shingle and Saw Mills. FIVE HUNDRED FARMS For Sale, in this and other States. I have farms of all sizes and prices. Fruit, Stock and Grain Farms, located in Kent, Ottawa, Ionia, and counties adjoining. SUBURBAN PROPERTY. I have for sale a large amount. Some very desirable homes, with five, ten or twenty acres of land. Prices from $1,000 to $20,000. Small pieces of land outside of the city limits, suitable for gardening purposes, from one to twenty acres. Prices $100 to $500 an acre. CITY PROPERTY. My list of residence property is very large, located in all parts of the city. Prices ranging from $500 to $25,000. 1 offer for sale a few of the most desirable and attractive homes in the city, for which I have the exclusive agency. VACANT LOTS, Business and resident, upon almost every street in the city, a number very choice. Prices from $50 to $0,000. BUSINESS. Parties desiring to engage in an established business of almost any kind, Groceries, Dry Goods. Hotel, Livery and Manufacturing, can find what they want by calling on me. FOR RENT. Farms, Stores, Houses and Hotels. Farms and-city property to exchange. Attention paid to the perfecting of titles, insurance. conveyancing and the agency and care of property. Collections made, Loans negotiated, Stocks of different kinds bought and sold. Any and all business in the real estate line will be attended to promptly and in a business like manner Parties contemplatiun the purchasins of a home. cheap or expensive, a farm, large or small, in or out of the city, will find it greatly to their interests to see me befiore buying. To customers wanting to purchaise real estate: We make no charges for informal ion,,nowledge or advice, relating to the business. We cheerfully give them the advantage of our judgment and experience. Having resided in this state for more than forty years. the most of the time in Grand Rapids, and for the last twenty-five years dealt more or less in real estate. taking an interestin the growth and developmedt of the cil.y, I feel confident in saying that I can furnish information to those desiring to purchase real estate, that will be of great value to them. TAKE NOTICE.-We look for commissions always to the seller, and never to the buyer. Parties writing to me on business must enclose stamp for reply. ABEL T, PAGE, GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. The average horticulturist believes that tree-planting has a tendency to increase the rainfall, while the reverse is the case in sections denuded of trees. The correctness of this position is illustrated from the fact that greater rainfalls have occurred in Utah, during the past season, than had occurred previously since the Mormons have held possession of that territory. During the past ten years, large numbers of trees have been planted throughout the farming sections of the territory; and the agriculturists are now beginning to reap the reward of their perseverance and foresightedness in this regard. The subject of tree-planting is one that has attracted universal attention during the last decade, and its benefits are beginning to be appreciated. G. C. Owen, a farmer living near Grand Blanc, Michigan, gathered ninety-six bushels of walnuts from his farm, and it is estimated that fifty bushels yet remain ungathered. All these nuts grew on ornamental shade trees on improved land, one tree yielding twenty-five bushels. -26 -MEASUREMENT OF LAND. SURVEYOR'S CHAIN 7 92 100 inches..............makes 1 link. 100 links or 66 feet, or 4 rods..makes 1 chain 10 chains long by 1 broad, or 10 square chains............ make 1 acre. 80 chains..................... make 1 mile. SURFACE MEASURE. 144 square inches....make-1 square foot. 9 square feet.....male 1 square yard. 30% squdre yards... make 1 square rod. 40 square rods......make 1 rood. 4 roods.............make 1 acre. 10 square chains, 160 square rods.... make 1 acre. 43560 sq. ft 198x220 ft.)make l'acre. 640 acres............ make I square mile. LONG MEASURE.;2 inches.......... make 1 foot. 3 feet...........make 1 yard. 5V yards, 16V feet...make 1 rod or pole. 40 rods............ make 1 furlong. 8 furlorgs 80 chains or 320 roas......make 1 mile. 5280 feet.............make 1 mile. THIS SHOWS A SECTION And its legal subdivisions: Sections are divided by lines running parallel to their sides into Y sections, 320 acres;; sections, 190 acres; V2 of 14 sections, 80 acres, and 14 of ' sections, 40 acres. 80 chains, 320 rods, 5280 feet. or 1 mile. N. '/ SECTTON. 320 acres. 80r, 1320 f. N E M 5 of ix S S E Y, S 40 acres c SWi<, W/2 160 acres, of --- S E /, SE s i 80 acres. o c -, r S E Y4, c-. 40 acres C In every township in Indiana, section 16 is set apart for the support of the public schools, money obtained from the sale or lease being the basis of the school fund. The total land area of the United States, not including Alaska is 1,900,800,000 acres, and the total amount of farms, according to the last census, 535,580.835 acres. The number of acres owned by the government at tht time that census was taken was 1,272,496,428 acres. HEALTH IN MICHIGAN. The average annual temperature in central Michigan is about 46.50 F. But Michigan is exceptionally well situated for climatic influences. Extreme heat and extreme cold endanger life and health. Michigan being surrounded except on the south by large bodies of water, the temperature in summer is not as high as it otherwise would be, and in winter it is not as low. How this is favorable to human health may perhaps be better appreciated by noticing how it affects tender plant life; it is well-known that peach trees are easily killed by extreme cold, yet western Michigan is remarkable for its peach crops, made possible in this latitude by the mildness of the winter climate, modified as it is by the large bodies of water in the great lakes which nearly surround the State. This modification of the winter climate in Michigan is undoubtedly favorable to human health, by lessening the danger from inflammation of the lungs, bronchitis, influenza, etc.; and the cooling of the air in summer by the water of the great lakes is favorable by lessening the danger from diarrhoea, dysentery, and the other diseases which are usually coincident with high temperatures. The boy who takes his bow and arrow and shoots off the heads of a dozen English sparrows, is greater than the man who makes a Fourth of July oration. --27 -THE PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. No State has, in proportion to its wealth, done more than Michigan for the support of free schools of all grades. Its educational system has its secure foundation both in the organic law of the commonwealth and in the traditions and affections of the people. Its history antedates the political existence of the State itself. The schools are all good, the public schools and the business colleges at Grand Rapids sustaining a high reputation. The principal industries are agriculture and manufacturing. Labor is in fair demand. Mechanics, in particular, are always likely to find work at the factories. The furniture manufactories, and the plaster pr oduced at Grand Rapids have a world wide reputation. Grand tiapids is a great railroad center. The Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee railroad, the Grand Rapids & Indiana, the Chicago & West Michigan, the Grand Rapids division of the Michigan Central, and the Grand Rapids division of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, enter the county at different points, all centering at Grand Rapids. TREES 650 FEET TALL. Prof. Fred. G. Plummer, the civil engineer of Tacoma, says: " I have been all over this country and have the best collection of the flora to be found anywhere. What do you think of trees 650 feet high? They are to be found that high in the unsurveyed townships near the foot of Mount Tacoma, and what is more, I have seen them and made an instrumental measurement of a number with that result. There are lots of trees near the base of Mount Tacoma whose foliage is so far above the ground that it is impossible to tell to what family they belong except by the bark. Very few people know or dream of the immensity of our forest growth. I wish that some of our large trees could be sent to the world's fair at Chicago. We could send a flag pole, for instance, 300 or 400 feet long."-Olympia Tribune. Oft in the chilly night. At early morn the air dot When bed-clothes snuqly bound me. At early mornthe air doth now I've heard the whiskered felines tight A chilly feeling shed; In martial troops around me. And now the wakeful servant-maid The spat of cats, Doth hate to leave her bed. The hurled brickbats; The careless words en spoken; She turns and turns, and in her mind The eyes that shone The subject doth debate: The back fence on, And lucky 'tis if breakfast is The panes of glass now broken! But half an hour too late. The largest tree in the world has just been discovered in Fresno county, Cal. Frank Lomis an old mountaineer, and party returned to-day to Sanger from a bear hunting expedition in the Sierras. They wounded a bear and in pursuing it ran across a big tree in the most rugged portion of the mountains, about two miles north of Kentucky Meadows. This monarch of the forest was circumscribed by a radius of a mile or more of almost impenetrable underbrush, so that the hunters were compelled to use both knife and ax to reach the center. It is certain that no man has ever traversed the same ground The tree was measured about four feet from the gound and a rope of 129 feet 5 inches long was necessary to span its circumference. 28 -THE UTILITY OF FORESTS. Forestry preservation is a subject the interest in which is general rather than special in character, and which, therefore, stands in no danger of being pressed too persistently upon public attention. The danger, in fact, lies in the other direction. Forestry, in so far as it may be regarded as a science, is distinctly a modern one, the most important and valuable contributions to it having been made in Germany, France and Switzerland. As might be expected, there are a number of points in reference to the effects produced on soil and climate by the existence of forests upon which there is some difference of opinion, and in reference to which final conclusions are not possible. In the -xisting state of forestry knowledge, however, according to Dr. Schlich, the following may be set down among the advantages arising fror forests in addition to the products referred to above and the industries depending on them for their raw material: Forests reduce the temperature of the air and soil to a moderate extent, and render the climate mo.-e equable. They increase the relative humidity of the air and reduce evaporation to a considerable extent. They tend to increase the rainfall. They help to regulate the water supply, insure a more sustained feeding of springs, tend to reduce violent floods, and render the flow of water in rivers more continuous. They assist in preventing land slips, avalanches, the silting of rivers and low lands, and arrest moving sands. They reduce the velocity of air currents, protect adjoining fields against cold or dry winds, and afford shelter to cattle. game and useful birds, and They assist in the production of oxygen and ozone. These considerations should convince all reflecting men, and particul irly the agricultural classes, of the importance of preventing the destruction of our forest wealth, which has been proceeding at such a ruinous rate of late years. The destruction of our forests is in fact not alone a direct des'ruction of one kind of wealth, but it is also an annihilation not only of moderating influences which exert a direct effect upon the production and conservation of othir kinds of wealth, but of positive safeguards aiinst disaster, the want of which has been often felt in the past and may be felt more seriously in the future unless the present tendency is checked. TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. Michigan, producing staples Which must always be subject to an increasing demand, is peculiarly fortunate both in the possession of rare natural facilities for communication with the great commercial markets and in the present and prospective development of its railway system. It is surrounded upon three sides by a chain of the largest lakes in the world, affording magnificent water highways to the seaboard. All the important trunk lines of railroads in the northern States traverse its territory, or reach it with their tributaries. Railway construction is in rapid progress in both peninsulas, establishing new and valuable connections, opening broad tracts of land to settlement, and greatly enlarging the area of easy travel and of quick and cheap transportation. The State thus enjoys in an unusual degree the double advantage of competition between rival lines of railroad and between water and rail freights, with the certainty that no monopoly can ever control the carrying trade between its producers and the ocean ports. RR -30 -GRAND RAPIDS AND INDIANA RAILROAD. This line extends from Fort Wayne in Indiana to Traverse City and Petoskey on Grand and Little Traverse bays, and was completed to the Straits of Mackinac, at Mackinac City, during the summer of 1882. Its lands are situated principally in the counties intersected by its rails between the northern limits of Kent and the southern boundary of Emmet. The land commissioner is W. O. Hughart, at Grand Rapids. The company numbers its farming lands at about 479,692 acres, upon which prices range from $3.50 to $7.50 an acre. One-quarter of the purchase money is required to be paid at the time of sale, and the remainder in five equal annual payments at seven per cent. interest, ten per cent. discount being allowed when the price is paid in full at the time of purchase. The Grand Rapids and Indiana railroad, is the pioneer road of the State, and though the efficient and earnest management of its worthy and honored President, W. O. Hughart, the road has done more to build up Grand Rapids and open up the country north of the Valley City, and develop its resources, than any railroad in the State. THE CHICAGO AND WEST. MICHIGAN LINE. (See map on opposite page.) The Chicago and West Michigan railroad traverses the important fruit belt of the western shore. Commencing at Pentwater on Lake Michigan it passes through the counties of Oceana, Muskegon, Ottawa, Allegan, Van Buren, and Berrien to New Buffalo on the Michigan Central. It also has branches from Holland to Grand Rapids, from Muskegon to Big Rapids, from Mears to Hart, from Holland to Allegan, from White Cloud on its Big Rapids branch, through Newaygo to Grand Rapids, from White Cloud towards the line of the Flint & Pere Marquette, from Woodville southeast into the pineries, along the shores of Muskegon Lake, and a short loop line south of Muskegon. This railroad is now in operation as far north as Elk Rapids, and doing a large business. It is one of the most enterprising roads in the State. The new extension of the road is now being built from Traverse City to Petoskey, and will be finished next spring. There are thousands of acres of good farming lands along the line, and large forests of the finest timber land in northern Michigan. FOREST DEPLETION FIGURES. In explaining where our forests are going, a recent writer asserts that to make shoe-pegs enough for American use consumes annually 100,000 cords of timber, and to make our lucifer matches 300,000 cubic feet of the best pine are required. Lasts and boot-trees take 500,000 cords of birch, beech and maple, and the handles of tools 500,000 feet more. The baking of our brick consumes 2,000,000 cords of wood, or what would cover with forests about 50,000 acres of land. Telegraph poles already up represent 800,000 trees, and their annual repair consumes about 300,000 more. The ties of our railroads consume, annually, thirty years' growth of 75,000 acres; and to fence all our railroads would require 845,000,000, with a yearly expenditure of $15,000,0(0 for repairs. Our packing boxes cost, in 1874, $12,000,000. The timber used. each year in wagons and agricultural implements costs more than $100,000,000 A Wisconsin farmer planted a piece of waste land, unfit for cultivation, with black-walnut trees. In twenty-three years they attained a diameter of sixteen to twenty inches, and sold for twenty-seven thousand dollars. Profitable. uj co 4-D< Co 1 ýT; C OD 0J cn N- AK 4 4;-4- N F rco-N / K _ -32 -WOOD CONSUMED BY RAILROADS. A railroad passenger agent is quoted as remarking that "some people imagine that the consumption of wood is not a heavy item in the expense accounts of the various railroads throughout the country, yet the consumption of wood is enormously expensive. Take, for instance, the use of ties for new construction and renewals. The official figures of B. E. Fernow, the Chief of the Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, shows thtt 60,000, 00 ties are needed every year- for repairs. These figures do not take into account the fact that nearly 20,000,000 more are required each year by the increase in mileage. But, accepting Mr. Fernow's figures as 60,000,000 for repairs and 13,000,000 for new construction, we have a total of 73,000,000. This means at least 365,00,000 cubic fees of raw material. Oak has the preference for ties; about 45,000,000 being used. Pine comes next, with about 12,500,000. The remainder is divided into red, white and California cedar, chestnut, tamarack, hemlock, cypress and redwood. Now, then, let us come to timber for bridge and trestle work. Another 60,000,000 cubic feet of sawed material has to be added, so that fully 500,000,000 cubic feet of forest grown round timber are used each year by railroads. To get this enormous supply of timber more than 1,000,000 acres of forest land's have to be cut annually; In addition to the consumption of wood for ties, bridges and trestles, the railroads are compelled to use that material in the erection of telegraph poles, fences, culverts, station houses, all sorts of buildings and rolling stock. and also for fuel. This last item, too, is immense; fully 3,000,000 cords of wood being consumed by wood-burning locomotives." No man can calculate the value of these agencies of commerce to this country. It is strictly and literally true that the nation would not be possible without the railroads. Who can realize what it would cost to haul 68,000,000.000 tons of freight one mile? Before the era of railroads it used to cost 8100 to transport by wagon a ton of freight from New York to Buffalo, or about twenty cents per ton per mile. At that rate the transportation actually effected last year would have cost $13,600,000,000, or as much as all the farms in the country are worth. The feed of the horses required would cost more than all the food, clothing and shelter cost each year for all the inhabitants of the country. Excepting near water routes, which are few and widely separated, the country would have been virtually uninhabited, simply because the cost of transporting products would have been more than their value in any market. It may be helpful at times, for men who think the railroads have plundered the people beyond endurance, to remember what the services they perform are actually worth.-Tribune. A red oak tree was recently felled near St. Charles, Mich., which knocks out all former records. The trunk of the tree and two immense limbs were all hollow, and when tbs tree fell to the ground a big black bear, in attempting to escape from the hollow in the trunk, was killed; two large raccoons were captured in one limb and 150 pounds of honey in another. Mr. F. A. Swinden, of Brownwood, Texas, has an orchard of 11,000 pecan trees-the largest orchard of the kind in the world. The average yield of a full grown tree is about fourteen bushels a year, which sell from $2 to $4 a bushel. --33 -A PRETTY GOOD CREED. The other day our city was visited by a traveling man the back of whose business and personal card bore a legend on the back as follows: " MY CREED. "Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words, while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them; the kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send to brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away, filled with fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection, which they intend to break over my dead body, I would rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin without a flower, a funeral without an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and sympathy. Let us learn to annoint our friends beforehand for their burial. Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the troubled spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over life's weary way." His creed, well lived, would make the people of the world better than some of them are-they and all about them would find life better worth living. CHESTNUTS AS FOOD. How much can be accomplished by introducibg foreign strains of chestnuts no one can tell as yet, but there are nrtive varieties which afford promises snfficiently certain and flattering. Some of these, found in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the mountains of Virginia, are nearly as big as horse chestnuts, and have a most delicious flavor. Grafts from the trees bearing them produce admirable results. It must be understood that grafts do not improve varieties, merely maintaini' g them, so that the planter is able to gradually better his stock by selecting those trees which bring forth the best fruit. Perhaps the time may arrive when chestnuts will contribute importently to the food supply of the United States as they do now in Europe. There are many ways of using them in cookery. They are made into soup, prepared as a pudding, employed as a stuffing for birds, boiled and dipped in sirup for a conserve, and utilized in several other fashions.- Washington Star. The forest commission is doing a good work in calling special attention to the means to be employed in preventing and extinguishing forest fires. It notes that the law requires railroad companies running through wastes or forest lands to cut and birn off or remove from its right of way, twice in each year all grass, brush, and inflammable material. The statutes also provide that all locomotives must be provided with approved and sufficient arrangements for preventing the escape of fire fraon furnace, ash-pan and smokestack, that fire-coals or ashes must not be deposited upon the track in the vicinity of woodlapds or lands liable to be overrun with tire, and that trainmen are required to report fires to the men, who shall take measures for extinguishing them. These requirements are not unreasonable, and they should be obeyed by the railroad companies. THE MODEL CHRISTIAN. He is a man who can be trusted to do right anywhere. He is a man who does not sit on a store box and whittle while his wife is carrying water to do a two weeks' washing. He doesn't get his back up and want to leave the church whenever he finds that he can't have his own way about everything. He avoids the appearance of evil, and tries to honor God in everything he does. He believes in the promises of God, and when he sees trouble coming he plants his feet squarely upon them. He never says, " I pray thee have me excused," when called upon to help in Christian work. He doesn't occupy a whole seat in a railway car, while a woman with a baby in her arms has to stand up. He is a man who always tries to do his best, no matter whether he thinks he is watched or not. He is never satisfied with himself, -but is always satisfied with his Saviour. When he prays for the accomplishment of a good work that it takes money to bring about, he is willing to put his hand in his pocket and pay his part of it. He loves God with all his heart, and soul and mind, and strength, and his neighbor, as himself.-The Ram's Horn. A CUSTOM OF PLANTING TREES FOR A BRIDE'S DOWRY. There is a beautiful custom in some of the northern parts of Europe. There the white poplar, in good soil, increases a shilling in value every year. The trees are generally cut down at the age of twenty years, as they are then supposed to have attained their full growth. When a daughter is born in 'the family of a respectable farmer the father, as soon as the season will permit, plants a thousand young trees, which are to constitute the dowry of the maiden, "which grow as she grows and increase in height and value as her virtue and beauty increase." VICTIMS OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS. The total number of persons reported by railways as killed during the year 1890, was 6,320 and the total number reported as injured was 29,034- Of the total number killed 2,451 were employes and 285 passengers. Of the total number injured 22,390 were employes, 2,444 passengers, besides 4,200 unclassified. Burial reform.-Newly-made widow: "He is a fashionable undertaker, but even his charges are far below what I can afford, and I want to give my husband the most expensive funeral I can, you know." The friend: "Why don't you get a plumber to bury him then? An oak tree felled in Coldwater, Mich. county the other day measured five feet in diameter and, according to the rings on the stump, was 496 years old. -35 -AMONG THE WORKERS. If there is one thing more than another in which workingmen are interested, it is in prcser\vi1g Sunday as a day of rust. There may be an honest difference of opinion as to how Sunday should be observed, but there should be no difference as to the question of presermingu it as a day of rest. In some parts of Europe men workd the same on Sunday as on any other day, but that is not likely to be the rule here. One reason why many persons do not get along in the world is because they cannot be depended upon. They do dot keep their agreements. When they are weighed in the balance of actual affairs they are often found wanting. They are seldom on time. The workman who is always on time at the appointed time and place, and does his work according to agreement, is sure to get along. To a young mechanic starting in life, the habit of promptness and punctuality is worth more than a thousand dollars cash capital-although a thousand dollars is not to be despised. The trustworthiness of the faithful workman produces money, but untrustworthiness of the unfaithful one causes him to lose money. This is an everlasting principle. He who would be permanently prosperous must keep his engagements. The State of Michigan has a good climate, a fertile soil, 6,900 miles of railway, and 1,600 miles of lake transportation, convenient markets, a settled society, established institutions, great and diversified industries, a liberal free school system, low taxes and practically no debt. It has also several millions of acres of unoccupied lands, suitable for almost every variety of husbandry, many of them subject to free settlement uuder United States or State Home-.stead laws, and all of them for sale at prices within the reach of men of small means. Among the curiosities of grape culture in California is a vine that was grown from a cutting from a vine at one of the mission stations by a Mexican woman. It is over seventy years old. Its branches extend over twt-l-ve thousand feet of space, and the main truuk is over afoot in diameter. It has borne grapes every year since it was two years old, and will bear for many years more. It is said that bunches weighing seven pounds have been cut from this vine. I would much rather have a man in my employ who showed some interest in his work, and who occasionally threw out suggestions by the adoption of which some improvements in the means employed, or in the results obtained, might be accomplished, than one who went about his work in a manner which gave one the impression that his ideas were solely on one point, namely: " Come day, go day; God send pay-day." If you wish to buy or sell real estate, have taxes paid or rents collected call on or write ABEL T. PAGE. -36 -BUY HOMES. The love of the soil is one of the most common passions of humanity. To own even a thirty-foot lot is the ambition of the poorest; and the rich are never satisfied except they can sleep in a grand mansion. Except among the class of young sports, whose oats require a deal of sowing, there are but few who don't gratify their desire for holding real estate by buying a little plot with a cottage upon it as soon as possible, and then and there anchor, settle down, and spend their leisure moments in beautifying and improving it. Everybody knows there is no place like home; and so everybody with any. sense tries to establish a home as soon as money can be earned to buy it; and we count among the actual and no means slight benefactors of our race the capitalists who sell on easy terms and hold the burden of homes until the purchaser can pay them. The savings banks are also doing a great deal in this direction. And many a poor man can thank them, not only for the privilege of having a roof over his head, but for the happiness which comes from the pure enjoyment of a home. A nation of happy homes is sure of its foundations, and need not fear that domestic broils will break it asunder. At least half of the disgracefully long calendars of Chicago, Connecticut and Indiana divorce courts come from the people who drift around the world from boarding-house to hotel; and find their conjugal felicity very thin when spread over so much surface. It is then the best thing a young couple' can do to stop their billing and cooing and settle down in a cosy little house, paid for if possible, but bought anyway, even if there has to be a mortgage. It is one of the best preservatives of love known; for conjugal affection fritters away as easily when exposed to public criticism as a love-letter excites laughter in a court-room - WISE AND OTHERWISE. The man who is always looking for disagreeable features in the characters of other people does not have any time usually to consider whether or not he has any disagreeable features of character himself. L. H. Bailey, odc of the large apple-growers of Michigan, says he can make more money out of apples at twenty-five cents a bushel than out of wheat at one dollar. Good apples never retail in the market as low as twenty-five cents; they are seldom sold at less than forty cents a bushei. At this rate they are worth double the value of wheat, acre by acre, one year with another. Why do not our farmers pay more attention to their orchards? C. C. Cburchill, of Harlan. Mich., a few days ago, cut two telegraph poles fifty feet long and one sixty feet long from the same stump. The tree forked just above the stump, making the three poles. The stump was more than three feet across the top. The extensive consumption of walnut lumber has made it one of the costly articles. A grove of 120 walnut trees near Delphi, Ind., sold the other day for $10,000. -37 -VALUE OF A TIMBERED COUNTRY. There has been a period in the development of the western States when the heavy timber of the Michigan forests constituted an obstacle to its settlement, and the prairies of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, by reason of their easier subjugation, were deemed more desirable by many immigrants. There is no doubt something attractive in the idea of a field made ready by nature for the ploughshare, without the intervention of preparatory work, and the settler desirous of immediate results naturally gives weight to the suggestion it offers of diminished labor and early returns. But there are considerations that grow more urgent as experience enlarges, which impart grave importance to reasons for looking at the matter in another light. The timber which costs labor and delay to remove has become a source of income in many localities while in the process of being cleared, and above all it furnishes constant fuel to the household and fences to the fields of the farmer who has it on his lands. The expense and even suffering which are sometimes endured on prairie farm remote from supplies, for want of fuel, are unknown here. The cost of building material in a country without timber is of vital interest to new settlers who have their houses and barns to provide. The abundance of such material makes it cheap in M'chigan. Every year the value of our timber becomes better appreciated. iPven now tree planting is being practiced in some of the older counties on farms which a few years ago were covered with large maple and oaks, and which by a short-sighted improvidence have been suffered to become destitute. A well wooded farm is among the recommendations of thrifty agriculturists in our older counties. The judicious cutting of the untouched timber lands will provide for many wants, and one feature which ought always to be remembered should be a bountiful provision for shade in the pasture lands of the future. A BIG TREE. Judge Warren D. Nottingham, of Macon Ga., who recently returned to that city from a visit to Houston county, says: We hear a great deal about the large trees of California. Here is a Georgia raised tree that has some size about it. The Perry Variety Works, a few days ago, cut a yellow poplar that was four feet in diameter at the butt. It was eighty feet to the first limb or knot. The first cut of twelve feet weighed 4,800 pounds, and touk four mules to pull it. The tree yielded 2,400 feet of lumber, which sold for $72. SNOW. Oh the snow! the confounded snow, Tinder-the door does freely rove, Drifted twenty feet deep or so, And makes a feller hug the stove. Inspires a poet to sing his song, And keeps us shovelin' all day long. Oh the snow! the gol durned snow, Piled up high in the road you knol, Oh the snow! the thunderin' snow. Stops the ctrs and covdrs she rails, Whirlin' about when the wind does blow, Stages can't run, we get no mails. Agriculture is the most venerable, and I think the most delightful, of all avocation. The life is one of glorious freedom, and brings men face to face with Nature-the sky, the trees, the turf, the stately procession of the seasons. -38 - MAMMOTH CALIFORNIA TREES. A redwood tree cut in this county furnished all the timber for the Baptist church in Santa Rosa, Cal., one of the largest church edifices in the country. The interior of the building is finished in wood, there being no plastered walls. Sixty thousand shingles were made from the tree after enough was taken for the church. Another red wood tree cut near Murphy's mill, about ten years ago, furnished shingles that required the constant labor of two industrious men for two years before the tree was used up. The school system of Michigan makes education free to all. The primary schools, the Agricultural Colloue, and the University are open without charge for tuition to rich and poor alike. Even in nominations to the Government army and navy schools at West Point and Annapolis it has become an established custom to leave the periodical vacancies open to competitive examination. Young men of every nationality, creed, and condition have precisely the same right to public benefits and equal chances in the race for success. With all the advantages of a healthy climate. a fertile soil, easy access to home and foreign markets, extraordinary facilities of transportation, a settled society, a generous school system, established institutions, freedom from debt, and a low rate of taxation, there are in the State several millions of acres of unoccupied farming lands. suitable to almost every variety of husbandry, some of them open to settlement under United States and State homestead laws, and all of them within reach of moderate means. -39 - GOLDEN WORDS. The friend who holds a mirror to thy face, And hiding none, is not afraid to trace My faults, my smallest blemishes within Who friendly warns, reproves me if I sinAlthough it seems not so, he is my friend. lBut he who, ever flattering, gives me praise, Who ne'er rebukes, nor censures, nor delays To come with eagerness and grasp my hand, And pardon me ere pardon I demandHe is my enemy, although he seem my friend. LIGHT AND AIRY. THE MAN THAT'S LATE. On every road since railway train To turn their wheels began, And every station you will see A solitary man. His brow is damp with beaded sweat, His heart with woe is cleft. Mosteearnestlyhevwants to go, The man that's always left. If the train due at 1 p. mn. Should wait till half past eight, There'd be one man come down to go Just thirty seconds late. I had both I lent my I sought my I lost my At length with I got my But had I I'd keep my money rmoney and a to my frorn my and my ) friend E friend F of either thought I store. and took his word therefor'; 4 which I had wanted long, and was not this a wrong? F which pleased me wondrous well, away quite from me fell; as I have had before, and play the fool no more. came my but my and a and, my The Germans have been the pioneers in scientific forestry. as in so many other lines of progress. With a total forest area of only 31,316,000 acres, of which 11,234,000 belong to the state, the German empire has no less than nine schools of forestry, and during the three years ending with 1888 it published 177 books on the various branches of the subject. There are also ten periodicals devoted to forestry, and a general association of foresters with aniual meetings and ten local societies. The description of a parcel of land in a Waldo county deed includes the following lucid passage: "1Eight rods to a hole in the roof of a shed in the shipyard." As the shed wss burned sixteen years ago the authorities are not exactly clear regarding that bound. The Rev. George MacDonald can find but one text in the Bible to justify use of tobacco: "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still." West Michigan's fruit crop, for the season of 1891 was the largest ever known. The estimated value is $3,200,000. -40 -PROFITABLE TREE PLANTING. Bacon's maxim that he who plants woods will lose at least ",twenty years' profits " and yet find his recompense "in the end," is confirmed by the testimony of Mr. Jewett regarding the extensive planting on the Healey estate. Speaking to the members of the English Arboricultural Society, who have been making a sort of tour of observation of the growing timber (w'hich must not be confounded with fruit trees) in Durham and Northumberland, this gentleman stated that when the late Mr. Ormiston bought the Healey estate there was little or no wood upon it, but he planted about half the land with trees, and before he died saw the first growth cut down and the land replanted. This is, of course, an enterprise only open to landlords who are absolute owners of the soil. The gross receipts for timber sold amounted, we are assured, to ~56,000--certainly a very large amount to be taken off an estate which had originally cost only ~22,00J. SAVE OUR BIG TREES. Governor Waterman, of California, has sent to the Department of the Interior an emphatic protest against the destruction of the big trees in Tulare County which will be wrought if the districts covered by the suspended surveys are opened to entry. Interest in the preservation of these magnificent trees ought not to be confined to that State. These are the noblest trees on the continent, and the preservation of the last clumps remaining under Government control is a matter of national concern. Secretary Noble, we earnestly hope, will find it practicable to comply with Governor Waterman's request and to close temporarily the section in Tulare County where the giant trees are found. Congress can be depended upon to enact legislation another year by which these grand works of nature will be permanently safeguarded. THE LIFE OF TREES. Recent information gathered by the German Forestry Commission, assigns to the pine tree 500 and 700 years as the maximum, 425 years to the silver fir, 275 years to the larch, 245 years to the red beech, 210 to the aspen, 200 to the birch, 170 to the ash, 145 to the alder and 130 to the elm. The heart of the oak begins to rot at about the age of 300 years. The holly oak alone escapes this law, it is said, and there is a specimen of this aged 410 years in existence near Aschaffenburg in Germany.-Chicago Times. Editor Halstead observed during his recent trip to Europe that the lessons we just now want to learn from the Old World are those of forest preservation, and the prevention of land washes along the banks of streams by shrubbery planting. Trees line the banks of water courses, and the soil is carefully preserved by the cultivation of grasses. SHADE TREES.-I was about to say--if you see a man' hitching his horse to your shade tree shoot him on the spot. / Two grand old elms in front of the Nelson Homestead, Bostwick street, which are still standing, and Grand Rapids as it looked in 1803. View frorn the sumit of " Prospect Hill," looking northwest, across the head of Island "No. 1." The Indian wigwams in the foreground occupy a position at the present intersection of Canl and Pearl streets. The buildings just beyond, and near the present site of Nelson, Mi4atter & Co.'s warehouse, were built of logs, one of which was occupied as a dwelling by Deacon Abel Page, on his arrival here in 1836, until he and his family were compelled to abdicate from the roof on account of a sudden flood of water caused by an ice gorge in the river. The cluster of buildings on the west side of the river were those of the Baptist Missionary Society, located just south of Bridge street. The other building across from the point of the Island was the residence of Isaac Turner (father of the editor of the Eagle) in 1836. The sketch from which this engraving is made was one of the early efforts of Daniel Powers. -42 -WASHINGTON'S LARGEST TREE. Three miles east of Snohomish city stands what is said to be the largest, tree in the State of Washington. It is a dead cedar which has been hollowed out by tire, the top being broken off, so that the tree is only about sixty feet high. A Seattle Press man, who stepped inside the tree through the narrow opening left by the fire, "made ten three-foot paces from side to side. Inside this large trunk is a spacious room, into which fifty people could crowd About the tree are traces of Indian encampments, and it surely proved a. complete shelter from the storms for very large bands of warriors. The tree is perhaps over 1,000 years old." THAT MONSTER TREE.-The largest and most perfect big-tree in Californa has been selected for exhibition at the World's Fair at Chicago. A correspondent of the Times-Denmocrat, writing from San Francisco, says: This tree is from the mammoth forest in Tulare county, Cal., and measures 99 feet in circumference at the base. The height of this monster speciman is 312 feet, being 172 feet to the first limb, which limb measures three feet in diameter: This tree is supposed to be nearly 3,000 years old, taking each concentric ring to be of one year's growth. It is to be taken from au attitude of 6,325 feet above the sea level and thirty-three miles from the nearest railroad point. One section of the tree has been cut out and placed on enormous hinges., so as to swing open and shut like a door. The interior has been hollowed out in order to accommodate visitors, of which over 100 will be able to enter and remain inside of the tree trunk at the same time. This unique exhibit will be fitted up with 250 incandescent electric lights, which will ba so distributed as to illuminate the interior as well as the outside of the tree. QUEER CARS.-The people of Tulare, Cal., are attempting a wonderful work for the fair at Chicago. Out of a redwood tree that is 390 feet high and twenty feet through at the base, they are to cut a log of wood ninety feet long and twenty feet in diameter. This log will then be cut into two equal lengths and made into railway coaches, The rough bark of the tree will form the roof,. and the sides and ends will be of natural wood, unpolished. The inside will be hollowed oit, windows and doors put in, and the interior finished after the fashion of Pullman cars. There will be a buffet and dining-car, with apartments for bath, barber shop and kitchen. The other will be a sleeper and observation room. The men of Tulare, with their families, will occupy these cars at the exposition. The portions of the tree not used will be cut up and sold as mementoes. IDAHO PRUNEs.-In the Payette VYlley, Idaho, this season, the owner of a prune-o-chard of forty acres received $20,000 for his crop; and the purchaser gathered the crop at his own expense. There are two apple-bearing trees in Indiana County, Pa., that were planted in 1792. One of them is ten feet in circumference. -43 -In the order of production Michigan stands first among the States in the growth and manufacture of lumber, first in salt, first in copper, first in charcoal pig iron, certainly second if not first in iron ore, first in its fresh water fisheries, fourth in wheat and fourth in wool. It has the largest iron mine aud the largest copper mine in the world. Seven tenths of all the wheat raised in the country is grown in nine States, and only three excel Michigan in the volume of this crop. In the last census year it produced more wheat to the acre than any State in the Union except Colorado, whose total yield was less than a million and a half of bushels, and whose agricnuture depends upon artificial irrigation. It is also one of the best fruitproducing States in the Union. All its principal products are staples, for which there must be a constant and growing demand. The State is practically free from debt. Its public buildings are paid for It is prohibited by its constitution from borrowing money in excess of $50,000, except in time of war. The entire local indebtedness of all its cities, villages, towns, counties, and school districts is less than ten millions of dollars. Its taxes are low, and one-third of them all is applied to educational purposes. IN VALUE -If any of our readers will take the trouble to find out among our citizens the men of wealth and influence, and then consider the means by which that wealth was secured, it will be found that a large portion has been gathered from transactions in and the rise of real estate. Though many have been successful in other enterprises, and succeed in accumulating comfortable and well-to-do fortunes from other kinds of business, most of even these have had their wealth considerably increased in this way. We do not propose to call names or cite particular examples, for the opportunities for comparison are open to all. We may venture the statement, however, that no other branch of business has been so uniformly successful. The cases of loss or failure have not been as one to twenty in other departments. Indeed it will be hard to find a man among us who has bought, held or sold real estate, without having made large profits on the investment.. and it remains a question whether any other branch of business can show so good a record. The farmers of Michigan have also the assurance of permanent competition in the rates of transportation to eastern and sea-board markets, not only by various rival lines, of railroad but by natural and artificial waterways. Every dollar saved in reaching consumers is added to the gains of the producer. The reports of the United States Department of Agriculture show that in a series of six years. previous to and including 1880, the average cash value per acre of eight leading productions of the farm, taken together, in ten principal farming States of the West was greater in Michigan than in any other State._;0 Ex-Governor Morton, of Nebraska, says that more than 600,000,000 trees planted by human hands are growing in that State. Mr. Stephen A. Douglas is said to realize only about $100 a year from a plantation in Mississippi, which cost his father $115,000. In Brazil there grows a tree which has hard urn shaped fruits, known as monkey fruits. They contain edible nuts and the husks are very peculiar, being six inches in diameter and having regular lids which fit them closely and separate when the seeds mature. The worl's fair will have a gigantic cork pine from Wisconsin. One plank is sixteen feet long, 3 inches thick and forty-four inches wide, without a, knot or stain. EFFECT OF GOOD PAVEMENTS. The influence of good pavements on the value of real estate cannot be overestimated, and the report of Consul Sherman, of Liverpool, on this question is interesting. In it he says: "-The corporation of Liverpool has adopted the policy of constructing its public works in the best possible manner, and in this way has succeeded in reducing the cost of maintenance to a minimum. Since 1872 only impervious pavements have been laid, and Liverpool hhs now 250 miles of the best paved streets in the world. The wisdom of this is not only seen in the reduced death rate, which has declined from 27.2 per thousand in 1880, to 20.3 in 1888, but in the reduced cost of maintenance of the streets. In 1879 the estimated expenditure of the cost of keeping 226 miles of streets in repair was $136,080; in 1889 the estimated expense for the same was only $10,824 for 250 miles of pavement." Permission, he says, is never given for private parties to cut through the pavement of any street for any purpose. When such work is necessary the corporation will do it in its own thorough way, and the interested parties must pay the entire cost. All the street railway tracks are laid, owned and kept in repair by the city, and the company using them pays an annual rental of 10 per cent. on the cost. Boys wHo LEFT THE FARM.-Nearly three-fourths of the men who have been chosen by the people for the great office of the nation are men who were early familiar with wooded hills and cultivated fields-for example, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Hamlin, Greeley, Tilden, Cleveland, Harrison, Hayes, Blaine and many others almost equally conspicuous in current events or living memory. Among journalists, Henry Watterson spent his early life in rural Kentucky, and Murat Halstead was born and lived on a farm in Ohio. W. H. Vanderbilt was born in a small New Jersey town, and early engaged in the business of ship chandlery; Russell Sage was born in a New York village; Jay Gould spent his early years on his father's farm in New York state. Ingersoll first saw light in a country town in New York; Talmage in a New Jersey village and David Swina, though born in Cincinnati, passed his boyhood on an Ohio farm. Whittier and Howells spent their youth in villages, the former dividing his time between farm employment and his studies. Follow the list out yourself and see how long it will become. The latest experiments made with carrier pigeons in connection with various European armies, show that the normal velocity of the carrier in calm weatrer and for a short distance is about 1,210 yards a minute. With a very strong wind in the direction of the flight a bird has reached 1,980 yards a minute. Two elaborately carved cedar doors, over 480 years old, have been received at Cornwall, N. Y., from Mexico, to be placed in a private residence. They were taken' from an old Catholic Monastery, and weigh about 600 pounds each. Fennville fruit raisers realized $1,000,000 from peaches and grapes in a belt seven miles wide and fourteen miles long in 1891. -45 -FOREST RESOURCES OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN. When calculating the forest wealth of Northern Michigan account is chiefly taken of the pine, which is the leading consideration, as it is the most important product, and when this section is referred to as one showing the development of large cities and prosperous communities, men say, "It won't last, the pine is going rapidly and-when that is gone the cities and towns will languish and retrograde." Those who talk thus overlook some important points in an argument against such a conclusion. They exhibit their ignorance of the situation, their want of knowledge of the resources of the section. They stand afar off and give utterance to prophecy, without the possession of occult knowledge or wisdom derived from reliable information. They are not aware, or shut their eyes to the fact that the farming lands of Northern Michigan, to which there are none superior in the country, are being rapidly broucht under cultivation. They do not take c-gnizance of the stream of permanent settlers which is invading the north woods, nor see the forces that are at work reducing the forests to fruitful fields. Settlers are penetrating in every direction from the lines of railroad and the lake shores, and bringing under subjugation lands which will produce the best quality of wheat and every other desirable product, so that by the time lumbering shall cease to be a great industry, the agricultural and manufacturing industries will take its place. The case is quite different from what it would be if the lumbering operations were being conducted in a region where the land was valueless without the timber. Such is not the case in Northern Michigan. The most of the pine lands are available for farming purposes, but they do not constitute a majority of the lands by any means. There are to be found in eligible locations the finest hardwood lands under the sun, from which estates may be carved that would compare in attractiveness to the Baronial lands of England. But there is another element of strength in the prosperity of this section of the state, and that is the value of the other kinds of timber-other than pine-which it contains. But they will not all be made as available as -the pine; a great deal will be destroyed by the fires of the settlers and its value lost. But there will for years be a large business done in timber in Northern Michigan, which is so admirably supplied with streams to carry it within reach of marine transportation. The production of hardwood lumber will increase as the pine product decreases, and will help to fill the hiatus between the pine era and wheat era. There is yet an industry in the coarser products of the forests, the influence of which is to be considered. There is a rapid development in this direction. There are staves, boops, cedar posts, telegraph poles. pail bolts, railroad ties, etc. The woods abound in black ash, which is excellent material for hoops, and in some sections a large business is done in them, The township of Fraser, in Bay county, will produce this year over two million hoops, worth about three dollars a thousand at the railroad. In other townships of Bay county, and in other counties of this section, they are also largely manufactured, and the industry furnishes occupation and money for the settlers. Staves are gotten out to some extent, but not in such quantities as they will be in the future. Oak, ash and elm of the best quality abound, and will be more generally utilized when the more important pine product begins to -decline. A source of wealth which has but recently developed is the white and yellow cedar, of which there is such an abundance in this northern country. A limited quantity has heretofore been gotten out for fence posts, for which it is well adapted, but recently it has been utilized for railroad ties and a large demand has sprung up for cedar. Formerly second growth oak was considered about the only timber besides hemlock suitable for ties, but it has --46--- been found that cedar is a superior wood for that purpose, and the timber, which used to be regarded as of no value, is now yielding handsome returns. Cedar swamps will receive more care than fbrmerly. Along the Huron lake shore a large business is done in cedar ties and poles. but Alpena is the leading point. Something like a half million pieces will be shipped from that port this season. We have no statistics of the amount of ties, fence posts and telegraph poles gotten out in Northern Michigan, but the returns show that the arrivals of ties at Chicago for the season to the 8th of June amounted to 1,677,000; and of posts 750,800, of the estimated value of $600,000 More than one-half of this amount probably came from Michigan. Cedar having been found so excellent for railroad, there is some danger that that timber may disappear about the same time as the pine. Railroad constructing is just now being pushed with all the energy of a progresive people. Some three thousand ties are used to the mile, and when we consider the number of miles of new lines being built, and the repair of the old road beds, it is seen that the demand of the railroads upon the forests is enormous. When the cedar is done with an attack will be made upon some other wood grown in Northern Michigan, and the grand value of the forests will be fully demonstrated. Telegraph poles are also taken from the cedar swamps and quite a business has lately been done in them. Shingles are being made to some extent from the same wood. It makes first-class shingles when it is found in size large enough. It has come into general use and great favor for paving blocks, for which purpose it is superior to any other wood we have. Taking all these items of the coarser products of the forest-ties, posts, hoops, staves, bolts, etc.,-and their total value amounts to a sum more than would be received with credit were it stated, and all goes to the account of the inducements for settlement in Northern Michigan. The timber is a crop ready grown, which may be turned into ready cash or retained for future conversion. In either case it is value which does not exist in prairie lands, and a resource which will back up even the rapid development of the cities of this section, which ill-advised persons are disposed to regard as premature and unsub: stantial. With her forest wealtl, rich farming lands, nearness to market and means of cheap transportation, Northern Michigan offers opportunities not to be found elsewhere, and these give assurance that there will be no step backward for any of her thriving communities. A prominent lumberman of Seattle says that timber in the Northwest is rapidly considered merchantable if it goes under twenty-five thousand feet to the acre, while it is a very common occurrence to find timber that will go one hundred thousand feet to the acre. He recounts a recent sale of a forty acre tract of timber that went three hundred thousand feet to the acre. Two gum trees, which tower over 100 feet above a little church in Guatemala, are 60 feet in'circumferance and their strong roots have pushed the foundation of the church out of place. If you want to purchase real estate call upon Abel T. Page for any information desired in that line. Resident of the state and city fifty years. Dr. Franklin said, "A good kick out of doors is better than all the rich uncles in the world." -47 -DOES IT PAY? Does it pay a man to be his own doctor, lawyer, preacher, teacher, blacksmith, merchant-and in fact to try to be a jack of all trades and master of none? Some people think it does not. A few regard it as the cheapest and best course to employ men who are well skilled in each field and path of life. Few men reach a high degree of skill, or attain a respectable success in many branches of the same profession. The men, who malxe a business of finding customers for others, ought to be able to secure better prices, after all expenses are paid, than the owner who does not make selling property a business and a study. Why do you ask? Because he usually knows about who the men are that you must see in order to get a customer. It 3s his business to be posted, and he is postedBut, when he does not know to whom he should present your property, in order to find a buyer, his study of the methods of advertising has shown him the papers and other advertising mediums that are peculiarly adapted to the work that must be done in order to give you a customer, and he will waste no money in ill-directed and useless advertising, as any one with less experience would be apt to. THE LATEST LAKE MEASUREMENTS. The greatest length of Lake Superior is 335 miles; its greatest breadth is 160 miles; mean depth, 688 feet; elevation, 627 feet; area, 82,000 square miles. The greatest length of Lake Michigan is 300 miles; greatest breadth, 180 miles; mean depth, 690 feet; elevation, 606 feet; area, 23,000 square miles. The greatest length of Lake Huron is 200 miles; its greatest breadth, 165 miles; mean depth, 600 feet; elevation, 574 feet; area, 20,000 square miles. The greatest length of Lake Erie is 250 miles; greatest breadth, 80 miles; mean depth, 87 feet; elevation, 555 feet; area, 6,000 square miles. The greatest length of Lake Ontario, 180 miles; its greatest breadth, 65 miles; mean depth, 500 feet; elevation, 261 feet; area, 6,000 square miles. The length of all five is 1,265 miles, covering an area of 135,000 square miles. PAY YOUR DEBTs.-Nothing is more discouraging to a wife than to find her husband remiss in paying the household debts. It ought to be to every one a pleasure to pay one's bills, as it is to the creditor to receive his dues. And we have always noticed that, whenever there is a laguing behind and a disinclination to pay what we owe, there is a screw loose somewhere. Indeed, we would 'not give much for the self-resptrct and reputation of any one who does not desire to pay his debts, when thoy are due. We, therefore, say to you, pay your debts, especially your household debts, and relieve your wife from any unpleasant thoughts on the subject. Thirty million dollars for the farm products of Vermont this fall is a showing that might excite the attention of even a Western State. This has been the best year for the farmers of the Green Mountain State sinrce the close of thH war. The sugar, dairy, sheep and grain crops have all responded to improved methods, in 1891. -48 -TEN CENTS-A DAY. If you'll only bank it, it will soon buy you a farm or enable you to open a little shop of your own. And that will be very comfortable if the boss or foreman is snappy with you. Your ten cents a day will lead you out of that bondage; and don't say to your self that it can't be done, for where there is a will there is a way. And if your boy or girl is smart at figures the amount of savings at interest necessary to bring in that way an additional ten cents can easily be computed. Interest running in our favor runs smoothly; running against us, how rough. Now, in order to reach ten, twenty or thirty cents a day one has to face and master his luxuries. Luxury is a thing that weakens body and soul, for is it not written that wilful waste is woeful want? and want and worry is a horrid condition. We are addressing ourselves now. not to the rich, but to those who want to get on who are pinched. The rich can't do better than spend freely-wisely. Our words are for the young fellow who wants a farm or a shop. We knew a mechanic who sends out in the growler thirty cents a day for stupifying beer. So do you; what do you think of him? Will he. ever be foreman or own a shop? Never, while he has such a mouth and bloated stomach. His motto is, Live by the way, as he calls it, but that is not living at all, unless it be living like the beast. Men are expected to tbink. Go in then, and begin with ten cents a day and accumulating interest thereon as the years roll on. FIVE ARAB MAXnis.-The wisdom of the ancients is proverbial. Here are five maxims from Arabia, that will stand the test of time: Never tell all you know; for he who tells everything he knows often tells more than he knows. Never attempt all you can do; for he who attempts everything he can do often attempts more than he can do. Never believe all you may hear; for he who believes all that he hears often believes more than he hears. Never lay out all you can afford; for he who lays out everything he can afford often lays out more than he can afford. Never decide on all you may see; for he who decides upon all that he sees often decides on more than be sees. When so many large trees about Boston are unthrifty, it is scarcely less than a crime to cut down a great tree which is in the full prime of its strength and beauty. This crime has just been committed, the Boston Tra?,sci ipc's Listener notices with pain and indignation, at West Medford, where a famous old American elm, thirteen feet in circumference well above the ground, beautiful as a dream and solid as a rock in spite of its possible two hundred years, has just been sacrificed, doubtless to some intelligent road commissioner's fat-witted notion of public utility. There has never been a time in the history of Grapd Rapids when real estate could be purchased to better advantage than the present time, reanty is low for a city of this size, and prosperity, and a rapid advance is sure to come in the near future. Deal honorably and squa'rely. Deal only with HONEST MEN. Have a plain mutual understanding of all your transactions, and you will avoid all litigations and embarrassments. Every laboring man ought to own his own home. The first duty of the workman should be to convert his earnings into real estate. -49-- IT MAKES A DIFFERNCE.. A boy will stand and hold a kite A girl will gladly sit and play From early morn till late at night, With half a dozen dolls all day, And never tire at all. And cal it jolly fun. But, oh! it gives him bitter pain But, oh, it makes her sick and sour To stand and hold his mother's skein To 'tetid the baby half an hour, The while she winds the ball. Although it's only ose. A man will walk a score of miles A woman will-but never mind!I Upon the hardest kind of tiles My wife is standing close behind, About a billiard table. And reading o'er my shoulder. But, ob, it nearly takes his life Some other time, perhaps, I may To do an errand for hi. wife 'Lake up the theme of woman's way, Between the house and stable. When I am feeling bolder. A MECHANIO'S REAL WEALTH.-The mechanic may imagine that, when he has added together the amount of his savings, the value of his home and of his tools, he has accounted for all his wealth. But how mueb he has omitted! His strong arm, his expert hands, his knowledge of his trade, his physical endurance, his reputation as a superior and faithful workman--these are of more worth to him in the future, even from a money point of view, than all his material possessions. With them he can repair losses and make good deficiencies, and, if need be, with good heart and courage begin the world anew; but, rob him of these, and he is poor and pitiable, indeed. CALIFORNIA FIG TREES.-The Oroville, Cal., fig 'orchards are celebrated. The trees are of the old Mission (black) variety. They are prolific bearers, and the fruit is regarded as being superior in flavor. Two of the largest trees are on the residence lot of Dr. PAiker. They are eighty feet apart and the limbs have interlocked, says the Oroville Meremy. The trunks are nearly four feet in diameter. The limbs extend up and out. in all directions from the trunks. Some limbs which have been bent to the ground have taken root again, like the banyan tree, which is of the same genu6 as-the common fig. Three crops 're produced yearly, amounting to tonM of fruit., To suppose that the time for investments has passed, and especially so whenever property has risen greatly-perhaps ten or twenty fold above its original price when the town they are in was first started in the race for city rank. They hesitate, wait for the price to fall, denounce speculation, complain of high prices, wait and lose the golden opportunity; or often after two or three years of waiting, grumbling, predicting and delay, pay for what they th-n purchase two or three times they previously thought too high. They thus pay very dear for their experience. This class of bargain seekers are incorrigible. BIG TaEEs.-Of ninety-two redwood trees in Calaveras Grove, Cal., ten are over thirty feet in diameter, and eighty two have a diameter of from fifteen to thirty feet. Their ages are estimated at from 1,000 to 8,500 years. Their height ranges from 150 to 237 feet. A poplar tree measuring 113 feet in length by fifty-two inches in diameter at its big end, was shipped from Seattle, Wash., Saturday, to be exhibited in Chicago. The tree will be called the Seattle. A hickory nut has been found in Illinois imbedded in solid limestone rock sixteen feet below the surface. ýfwý, -I - --C*4 ~---~-~ PICTURE TAKEN FROM A PAINTING BY THE HON. A. B. TURNER, SHOWING "PROSPECTHILL" AS IT LOOKED IN 1836. ALSO THE FIRST FRAME HOUSE TN GRAND RAPIDS, ERECTED BY JOEL GUILD IN 1833, AND Louis CAMPAU'S FUR-STORAGE HOUSE. -51-- HON. A. B. TURNER VETERAN EDITOR, PROPRIETOR AND PUBLISHER OF THE GRAND RAPIDS EAGLE, ONE OF THE OLDEST AND BEST PAPERS IN MICHIGAN. IMMUTABLE RULES OF OUR OFFICE. FIRST-Commissions are due when purchaser is furnished on the terms given or agreed to by the seller. SECOND--Any disagreement after sale made will not impair our right to collect commissions. TaIRD-Should an imperfect title pervent the consummation of a sale it will not impair our right to commissions. ABEL T. PAGE, Real Estate Dealer. Fennville shipped 1,510,060 baskets of peaches this season; Saugatuck and Douglas, 1,400,000 baskets of peaches and 40.001) baskets of grapes. The fruit sales of.Allegan county is estimated at $1,000,000. -52 -SOILS. In the whole of Michigan one can certainly find the exact character of soil he seeks, for every shade of variation seems to be represented. Mistaken notions have obtained, at different times, concerning the soil upon which Michigan peaches are grown; in truth, the remark has often been made that "up in M chigan you can griw peaches on your sandy land that will grow nothing else." We can assure people at the outset that good peaches are only grown upon good land. The fruit belt is not uniformly sand, and is by no means poor land. Upon the blowing sand, where dunes are formed, it is common to find the most thrifty trees bearing luscious fruit in large quantity. Such land can not be called poor. It is also true that, in many localities, heavy soil can be found immediately upon the shore. In the interior the best. fruit lands are clay and sandy loam; and, if the location pleases the purchaser there is little doubt but that he can obtain the quality of soil that will satisfy his taste. The lowlands. in many places in which vegetable mattEr predominates, are being utilized by the horticulturist, and are often very valuable when fitted for market-gardening or cranberry culture. RENT., It has been said by people accustomed to judge of such matters that Grand Rapids, the capital of Kent county, is. better supplied with a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, than any city east or. westMichigan is truly the great fruit state of the north west, and the fruit growers and farmers of the state, realize every year, many thousands of dollars from the fruit, grape and berry crops. Grand Rapids market is always supplied with an abundance of the nicest of fruit and vegetables, and large quantities of apples, pears, peaches, plums, grapes and berries, are shipped to Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities and. towns across the lake. This season, in this part of the state, the fruit and berry crops have been very large, with the exception of apples. The peach crop was enormous and millions of bushels have been shipped to other states. At this writing, December lCth, 1891, very fine peaches are for sale in the fruit stores of our city. The most common cause for the failure of the fruit crop may undoubtedly be ascribed to the overbearing of the trees the previous year. In our "fruit years " the product is so enormous that the t ee is often overtaxed to sustain it, and time is required in which to recuperate. Such trees will not bloom properly the following~spring, and their failure may be easily enough understood. This year, if our trees fruit heavily, let us act the part of wisdom and thin the fruit one-half. The remaining product will be of more value than the whole would have been, and we shall stand a better chance as well for a crop next year. Misrepresentations might make us a few sales, but it is far more to our interest to satify customers and have them ready to speak a good word fL r us in the f uture. Msn and tree were made for each other; where the one does not grow the other does not abide in his best estate. Find me a man preparing himself to hear the gospel and I can show you a man that is going to be benetited by tre gospel. -53 -A STEAMSHIP CUTS A WHALE IN Two.-The Anchor line steamship Ethiopia sliced a whale in two with her steel prow on Saturday morning last on her last voyage from Glasgow to this port. Second officer Fife thinks the whale was a rorqual or ruzor back. He doesn't like to say how big it was, but is inclined to think that ninety feet would measure his length. Many of the Ethionia's passengers had a momentary glimpse of the whale. The sun shone br 11 antly fro n-a cloudless sky, and the sea was placid. Nearly everybody was on deck. At 10:45 o'clock a big bubling was observed about 20.) feet ahead. A huge, shining body appeared in the bubling, and a fountain of water spouted skyward. Second Officer Fife thought that the whale would have sense enough to get out of the way. Maybe it thought the Ethiopia was another marine monster and wanted to have a little fun with her. Before Mr. Fife could give the signal to stop and reverse, the stem of the Ethiopia had struck the whale amidships. The vessel vibrated as if she had hit a piece of sunken wreck. The engineer thought some of the machinery had broken and fallen through the hull. Passengers who ran to the sides and looked over the rails saw the divided whale float past, its blood giving a red tinge to the Ethiopia's foamy track. WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER.-A gentleman undertook to count the birds he saw on ladies' bonnets one bright afternoon on Broadway, New York. We give the result of his afternoon's count: Four robins, one brown thrush, three bluebirds, one blackburnian warbler, three blackpoll warblers, three Wilson's black capped flycatchers, three scarlet tanagers, one white bellied swallow, one Bohemian waxwing, twenty-three waxwings, one great northern shrike, one pine grosbeak, fifteen snow buntings, two tree sparrows, one white throated sparrow, one bobolink, two meadow larks, nine Baltimore orioles, five purple grackles, bluejays, one swallow tailed flycatcber, one kingbird, one kingfisher, one pileated woodpecker, two redheaded woodpeckers, twenty-one golden winged woodpeckers, one Arcadian owl, one Carolina dove, one pinnated grouse, two ruffed grouse, sixteen quails, two belmet quails, five Sunderlings, one big yellowlegs, one green heron, one Virginia rail, one laughing gull, twenty-one common terns, one black tern, seven grebes.-New Orleans Picaune. A SAvING PASTOR.-There has just died at Patterdale, in Westmoreland, a clergyman of the name of Matheson, aged 90, and who had been an incumbent of that parish for the long period of sixty years. During the early part of his life his benifice brougbt him only ~12, or about $60 a year, but this was afterwards increased to ~18, or about 890 a year, which it never exceeded. On *this he married, brought up four children and lived comfortably with his neighbors; educated a son at the university and left $8,000 behind him. With that singular simplicity and inattention to form which characterizes a *country life, he himself read the burial service over his mother; he married his father to a second wife, and afterwards buried him also; he published his own banns of marriage in his church with a woman whom he had previously christened, and he himself solemnized the marriage of all his children. There is an "Ohio Beauty" cherry tree in the old Bassford orchard in Brown's valley, Cal., wbich bears from 11,000 to 15,000 pounds of fruit per year. The tree is so high that each year a big scaffolding has to be built around it so that the cherries can be picked. AGRICULTURAL NOTES.-Michigan produces about two-fifths of the world's peppermint crop, the yield varying from 20,000 to 70,000 pounds of oil. -54 -THINGS WORTH KNOWING.-To learn to think and act for yourself. To respect gray hairs especially our own. To waste nothing, neither time, money nor talent. If you have a place of business. be found there when wanted. To bear little trials patiently, that you may learn how to bear great onesTo be self-reliant and not take too much advice, but rather depend on yourself. To keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. To learn to say no; it will be of more service to you than to be able to read Latin. To do all the good you can in the world and make as little noise about it as possible. To spare when you are young that you may spend when you are old. To stick to your own own opinion if you have one, allowing others, of course, the same liberty to stick to theirs. It is said there is a big tract of forest trees in Southern Oregon embracing about 16,000 square miles, which cut and sold at $10 per thousand feet, would pay our National debt twice over. It is estimated that the amount of mer-- chantable timber standing will reach 400,000,000,000 feet. There is a tooth brush tree in Jamaica. Tooth brushes are made from it by cutting pieces of the stem to convenient lengths and fraying out the ends. It also supplies, sconveniently enough, an excellent tooth power, which is prepared by pulverizing the dried stems. The banana belongs to the lily family, and is a developed tropical lily from which the seeds have been eliminated. It possesses all the essentials to the sustenance of life. Grounds that will grow ninety pounds of potatoes will grow 4,000 pounds of bananas. The tomato is a native of South America. It was known in England asearly as 1596, but its introduction into North America is credited to the French families who were exiled by the revolution of San Domingo and settled in the eastern part of the United States. Few have any idea of the terrible waste of bird life that the fashion for birds as trimmings involves. Forty milli us of hummings, sunbirds, orioles, gulls, seabirds, waxwings, birds of paradise and flycatchers are annually immolated to this end. To make white roses blue, water the trees throughout the winter with a solution of Prussian blue, and if you want them to be green use sulphate of copper. It is estimated that 2,000,000 orange trees have been planted in San Bernardino County, Cal., since Jan. 1, 1890. The farm may not yield big profits, but is there any other calling so sure to give a man a living? -55 -AN AUTUMN WALK. We can recommend all our friends, and especially thore who pass most of their lives in cities, to find time as often as possible at this season for a brisk walk in the country. The weather is delightfully cool now, and to get the lungs filled with the pure ozone of the fields and the woods is worth many a bottle of medicine. ]ut ozone is not the only good thing the pedestrian will get. The walk will be full of beauty, and, perhaps, profit. The year in its fullness is gone and every leaf speaks of decay and death, but the thoughtful observer can look beyond the winter season with its leafless branches and blighted vegetation to the renewed life and beauty of the coming spring; and in that vision of his imagination, so certain to be realized in due time, he can see a parable of the resurrection morning with its joyous greetings. There is a subtle influence in the pure, clear air which will hardly bear defining. It is a spiritual voice which speaks privately to the soul, and the soul that hears it will understand it, but otherwise it is hardly communicable. Go out, friends, and hear it. Go alone, for that seem- to be a part of the contract. Are we not alone too little? The jangling voices of the world and its cares drown the still, small voice too often. The woods and fields have a message for you, though we cannot tell you what it is. The message is for you if you have ears to hear. It may be something like this: That the time has come for a period of rest. You have been "driving" things. The pace is killing. Nature works hard for a time, but periodically takes a long rest to recuperate and to gather strength for new effort. And maybe it is the lesson of rest that nature will teach )ou, for it is perhaps just the lesson you needto do less that you may accomplish more. The man who would be really useful to his own and future generations must take a good deal of time for thinking. Go out and go alone-the woods and fieldsbhave a private message for you If you speak the right word at the right time; if you are careful to leave people with a good impression; if you do not trespass upon the rights of others; if you always think of others as well as yourself; if you do not put yourself unduly forward; if you do not forget the courtesies which belong to your position, you are quite sure to accomplish much in life which others with equal abilities fail to. This is where the race is not to the swift, nor the battlk to the strong. It is where you make people feel that you are unselfish and honorable and truthful and sincere. This is what society is looking for in men, and it is ustonishing how much men are able to win for self-respect and usefuluess, who possess these qualities of good breeding. It is almost the turning point of success in practical life. A HORSE'S PETITION TO His DRIVExu.-Going up hill, whip me not; coming down hill, hurry me not; of bay aud corn, rob me not; of clean water, stint me not; with sponge and water neglect me not; of soft dry bed, deprive me not; tired and hot, wash me not; with bit and reins, oh! jerk me not, and when you are angry strike me not. An excellent way to ameliorate the treatment of eattle and other live stock, is to raise the character of the men who feed and take care of them. -56 - PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.-We are all a set of chronic grumblers, and don't deserve half the blessings we enjoy. If it's muddy we are mad, when it's cold we grumble, and so it goes from morning till night, from one day to another, and thus montbs and years speed swiftly by; when old age rivets his chain upon us we pause to reflect upon the situation. It is then that we realize the fact that we have been ungrateful to an ever kind providence who has guided us through the entire journey of life. Then we hear the many regrets: "If I could only live my life over again," etc. We have but one life to live on this earth; then why not make it one of bright sunshine instead of dark overshadowing clouds? Oh the snow! the Blank Blank snow, That writ the above, in wanton glee, Up to your middle when out you go, Burried under this nine foot three. Driftin and sbif tin from place to place, Down your back and into your face. Oh the snow! the cold wet snow, When it thaws out next May you kno, Oh the snow! the "'beautiful snow;" The cricks and rivers will rush and screem, I wish I could see the chap, by Joe, And wash Grand Rapids down the stream. The Watchman says: "How to get people to oburch, is a much discussed question in these days. When Mt. Spurgeon was asked how he succeeded so wonderfully in keeping his church full, he replied, 'I fill the pulpit and let the people fill the pews.' Dr. Chalmers told a part of the secret when he said, 'A house-going preacher makes a church-going people.'" Grace teaches a Christian not only to act like a man to God, but like a God to man. -57 -TREE PLANTING. As spring is the season of the year for transplanting trees, and the citizens of this place, and throngbout the State, are mamfesting considerable interest in tree planting and forest preservation, an old resident of this city, who has had many years experience in cultivating and setting out fruit and forest trees. has written an article upon *this subject, giving some hints and directions for setting out and caring for shade trees-which is as follows: In the first place, if you cannot take care of them, do not go to the trouble and expense of planting any. If you have determined to protect and care for them, for a few years until they get well rooted and growing, procure from the forest young, thrifty trees, second growth. The sizes most suitable for transplanting are trees from two to three inches in diameter at the trunk, with good-proportioned trnuk. The hard and soft maple, elm and basswood are good varieties to plant-will bear transplanting well, and make a ciean, pretty shade', and are quite fast growers. Early in the spring is the best season to transplant. With the right preparation it may be done successfully in the winter; and, for large trees, I would recommend that time. In removing the tree from the ground preserve as many of the roots as possible; and, in taking it up, the more dirt that remains on the roots the better. Have the holes and ground all prepared beforehand, and set it out as soon as may be after digging up. The roots should not dry. A damp or cloudy day is the most fayorable time to transplant. The hole for rece ving the tree should be made a foot or more larger round, oa all sides, than the space the roots occapy; the young and tender roots that start will more easily penetrate the loose ground. In light, dry land, plant from three to six inches deeper than it was in the forest or nursery. If the soil is poor and sandy, enrich it by fillinm it around the tree with rich earth, muck, clay, compost or well-rotted manure. Put from one to two pailfuls of water in the hole while filling in the dirt. This settles the earth more compactly around the roots. When the hole is filled, leave the ground around the tree a little dishing. Mulch the ground about it with straw, grass, saw dust, tan bark or coarse manure. This keeps the ground moist, and should not be omitted. If you get trees from the forest choose those growing on the outskirts of the woods. Select those of uniform size, having rather low and bushy tops, shorten in top and side branches, leaving the top in good proportion and all the trees of the same height. Prune smoothly all broken or bruised roots. It would be well the first year to shade the south and west side of the trunk of the tree during the hot days of summer, by nailing two boards together, of the right length, and six incbes in width. Placs the boards on the south and west sides, and fasten them to the tree by strap or string. In the first few years great care should be taken in pruning and shaping the top. This is very important for the health and beauty of the tree. Keep the top well balanced and thrifty by cutting out dead wood and shortening and thinning branches where needed. One thing not to be overlooked or neglected, if you would have a good proportioned top and sound body, is care in the second y( ar after setting out. In almost every case, the top of the body of the tree where it was cut off will be dead and dry from two inches to two feet down the trunk. Saw that off slanting down to where the body is alive and the nev' branches are starting. In a year or two it will grow over sound. If left to rot off, it will take years, and destroy the symmetry of the top, often leaving a hole in the top of the trunk where rain gets in and decays the heart of the tree, rendering it untbrifty and short-lived; and many times a strong wind in summer will break it down. If you wiMl take notice of the shade trees in this city you will see how much they need trimming. Last but not least, try and protect the trees from being damaged by horses, and you will have beautiful trees to admire aid enjoy while you live, and the generations that come after you will rise up and call you blessed for the living monuments of your labor. ABEL T. PAGE. SOME GOOD ADVISE TO EVERY YOUNG MAN ANDI YOUNG WOMAN. I want to suggest to young married people beginning in life, and to unmarried men and women just starting out in the world to earn their living, if you expect to succeed financially and come out ahead in the end, you must look most to your spending. No matter what comes in, if more goes out you will always be poor. The art is not in making money, but in keeping it; little expen-es, like mice in a barn, when they are many, make great waste., Hair by hair heads get bald; straw by straw the thatch goes off the cottage, and drop by drop the rain comes in the chamber. A barrel is soon empty if the tap leaks but a drop a minute. When you mean to save begin with your month; there are many thieves down the red lane. The ale jug is a great waste. In all other things keep withiu compass. Never stretch your legs farther than the blankets will reach or you will soon be cold. In clothes choose suitable and lasting stuff, and not tawdry fineries. To be warm is the main thing; never mind the looks. A fool may waste money, but it takes a wise man to spend it. Remember that it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one going. If you give all to back and board there is nothing left for the savings bank. Don't forget that if you are out of debt, and have saved up $100 you are a capitalist, when you have $1,000 in the bank, and owe no man, you are a larger capitalist-true not as great a one as Gould or Vanderbilt--but you are on the road to competency, perhaps a fortune. Nearly all our wealthy men began by saving and economy. Fare hard and work hard while you are young and you will have a chance to rest when you are old, en joying comfort and happiness in your own home. ABEL T. PAGE. When timber planting is' in order, as it most certainly will be in a few years, it will be desirable to know the rate of growth of different trees, in order to know what will grow rapidly and be serviceable in a short time. Observation tends to show that the growth of twelve years is about as follows: White maple, one foot in diameter, thirty feet high; ash, oue foot in diameter, twenty feet high; white willow, one and a half feet in diameter, fifty feet high; yellow willow, one and a half feet in diameter, thirty feet hihh;. Lombardy poplar, ten inches in diameter, forty feet high; blue and white ash, ten inches in diameter, twenty five feet high; black walnut and butternut, ten inches in diameter, and twenty feet high. Never whip a frightened horse. If he becomes frightened at any object on the roadside, such as a stump, log, or anything unsightly, and while eyeing it in passing you, hit him with the whip, it is the stump, log or object that ishurting him in his horse way of reasoniing, and the next time he sees a like object he will be the more frightened. Don't get irmpatient or become fretted, but give him time to smell all these objects, and use the bridle and lines gently to assist in bringing him carefully to those objects that have made him to fear. Horses have far more sense than we generally give them credit for, and not infrequently a great deal more than those who drive them. According to the last census, there is only 1,650,000,600 feet of standing pine in three states-Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota-therefore the amount cut out annually becomes an interesting and serious matter. At the present rate of consamption, making no allowance for continual growth, the lumber industry can extend ovcr only twelve years more. -59 -SEE THAT YOUR TITLE IS RIGHT. The only way to discover what title a person has to certain real estate, is by having the official certificate or abstract of the register of deeds as to transactions of record in his office; the certificate of the clerk of the court, as to the judgments and mechanics' liens, also a tax history from the county treasurer as to unpaid taxes. And in the city it will be necessary to have a certificate from the city clerk, showing if the city has any tax upon your real estate for street grading, sewer, sidewalk, or other improvements. I would advise also to call at the office of city marshal; he may have a tax upon the property that you own, or are about to buy, for building a sidewalk or other improvements that does not show upon the city clerk's certificate. There is no other course to be pursued with safety. For the last 25 years, connected with my business, I have had more or less to do with land tities, and I have found that the perfect titles are the exception. I am sorry to say that in looking up titles I find that there are but few but what are more or less defective. This should not be, and need not be if buyers and sellers were more careful to have their titles examined by an experienced lawyer the register of deeds or a competent abstracter. None but a long experienced hand should undertake to make these abstracts and certificates. The responsibility is a great one, and a mistake may involve the loss of many thousands of dollars and cause expensive lawsuits. I will not purchase any real estate unless a good and perfect title can be given, and I will not sell a piece of real estate unless the title is perfect. Never take any person's word regarding titles. The best men and the most careful are liable to mistakes. The only safe way is to search the records. This matter of real estate titles is so important, and one in whici everyone in the commnnity is more or less interested, regardless of politics. When there is a change made of the register of deeds, the head clerk, or one that is an expert and well acquainted with the business should be retained in the office for the good of the general public. Another important thing to remember in the purchasing of real estate, if there are buildings on it, is to look after the insurance as soon as the transfer is made. A careful attention to this may save loss, perhaps litigation. ABEL T. PAGE. RELIGIOUs DoGs.-The famous St. Bernard dogs are very carefully trained. A traveler who visited some of the monasteries of the monks of St. Bernard a few )ears ago found the monks teaching their dogs from the earliest stages of puppyhood. Not only is physical and mental training included in the teaching, but spiritual culture is by no means neglected. At meal time the dogs sit in a row, each with a tin dish before him containing his repast. Grace is said by one of the monks, the dogs sit moti nless with bowed heads. No one stirs until the " Amen " is spoken. If a frisky puppy partakes of his meal before grace is over an older dog growls and gently tugs his ear. There is a deed on file in the register of deed's office in which the boundary of the land sold is as follows: "From the hen house east to an old board fence; thence north to a new rail fence, thence west to the pig pen, and back to the place of beginning." The wife of President Edwards used to say, " 0 how good it is to work for God all the daytime, and at night to lie down under his smiles." -60 -A DEED 107 YEARS QLD.-Dr. S. A. Voorhees has in his possession a parchment deed 107 years old by which John Stout, of Hopewell, N. J., conveyed to Geradus Beekman a farm of 132 acres. The document is perfectly preserved. It describes the property as bounded by lines running to a stone, a white oak tree, a stake marked on both sides, and by a certain point on a pond. The deed states the property to be conveyed is: " The house, out houses, barns, gardens, orchards, meadows, fences, woods, timber, trees, mines, minerals, profits, privileges, advantages, commodities, hereditaments, appurtenances whatsoever, to the said lot or parcel of land and premises, belonging or in any way appertaining, or therewithal occupied, possessed or enjoyed, excepted, required or known to be as part, parcel or member thereof, with all the revision and revisions, remainder and remainders, rents, issues and profits thereof, and of every part and parcel thereof." THREE BIG STICKS OF TIMBER.-Two Canadian Pacific railroad cars recently loaded at New Westminster, B. C., are on their way East with three "sticks" of timber for the Montreal Harbor Commissioners thirty-six inches by thirty-six inches square and sixty feet long, each stick containing 3,480 feet superficial, and three sticks making a double carload of about 20,000 feet or 60,000 pounds weight. These sticks are perfectly square-edged and free from knots or defects of any kind whatever from -end to end, and in point of length, size and quality are considered the finest specimens of timber ever shipped from any mill in any country. 1890. THE GREAT GEYSER OF YELLOWSTONE.-A Livingston, M. T., dispatch says: Hell's Half Acre in tbe National Park, is in active eruption, as it was in 1882. Excelsior Geyser, the largest in the world, is discharging a column of water sixteen feet in diameter and 300 feet high. The eruptions occur every forty five minutes, and are from three to live minutes in duration. Immense quantities of limestone, lava, stones and silica are thrown up with every eruption. A citizen of Elmira, Cal., has finished working up a fir tree which grew on his place. He received $12 for the bar k; built a frame house 14x30 feet, 8 feet high, with a kitchen 8 feet wide,nd 20 feet long; built a woodshed 14x30 feet; made 330 fence rails 10 feet long; made 334 railroad ties; 500 boards 6 inches wide and 12 feet long, and 15 cords of wood. All this from one tree, and part of the tree is left. BRIEF AND TO THE POINT.-A will that will stand as among the briefest on re. ord was recently admitted to probate by Register Gratz, in Philadelphia, Pa. It is that of Caroline S. White, a teacher in the Palmer street public school, and it reads: "Don't forget thar everything that I possess must go to Emily. She is to be my sole heiress." Emily is the daughter of decendent and "will inharit property valued at 86,000. No man ever sank under the burden of to-day. It is when to-morrow's burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear.-George McDonald. Mr. Alden Davis, Stafford, Conn., has considerable forest of his own planting, and believes it a paying investment. He makes a specialty of gathering tree seeds for Western customers. -61 -A DELUGE OF WHEAT.-The Tribune gives the receipts of wheat from July 1 to November 28, at nine principal Western points, at 139,000,000 bushels as against 56,000,000 bushels last year and 74,000,000 in 1889. And it adds "that in more than twenty years the receipts at the Western lake and river ports have never been nearly as large in any entire year as the receipts have been in the five months of 1891." What a great privilege it is that is thus bestowed upon us-the ability to make up the deficiencies of the food supply of other nations. And let us remember that the extraordinary abundance of temporol blessings which God has this year bestowed upon us lays us under very special obligation to care for the spiritual needs of the outside world. This should be a year of great missionary zeal in this country. The Grand Rapids Tradesman has in preparation a compilation, comprising figures obtained by correspondence and otherwise from the register of deeds of the so called "potato counties" in northern Michigan, showing that over $1,000,000 in farm mortgages have been liquidated during the past winter and spring from the proceeds of the potato crop of 1891. As this enormous sum will largely go into circulation again in this state, it will do much to relieve the rapidly disappearing tightness of the money market and contribute largely to hastening the revival of business which is clearly apparent in nearly every branch of business. COMMERcIAL FAILURES IN THE UNITED STATES.-These are the figures for the last five years. It is a distressing story. Isn't the farm better than the shop? the plough than the counterd Judge ye: 1887.......................................................... 8,739 1888..........................................................9,166 1889..........................................................10,372 1890..................9,180 1891..................................................................10,934 Adjustable valuations are not confined to any locality. Thus, a Georgia paper knows of a piece of property in that State which is worth $6,000; but says when the owner of it wishes to get it insured he values it at $8,000; when his neighbor wishes to buy it he values it at $10,000; when he gives it for taxes he values it at $4,000. A load of cordwood was hauled from 0. D. Park's camp to Spencer Creek, Mich., a distance of two and one half miles, which consisted of ten and fiveeighths cords of four-foot wood, green beech and maple, by a team that weighed 1,900 pounds, which, as far as known, beats the record. It is claimed that the largest pine tree ever cut in Michigan was felled recently near Hobart. It measured at the butt six feet in diameter and scaled 10,331 feet of mercantile lumber. In the fall the top of the tree was broken, destroying about 300 feet of choice lumber. An old elm tree in the academy yard, " set out by Daniel Webster " when a student at Exeter, N. H., and known to all old students and townspeople as the "1Webster elm," was cut down last week. It was entirely dead. Its wood is in great demand. -62 -WHAT WESTERN FARM MORTGAGEs HAVE DONE.-What has been done with this vast borrowed capital? Labor has been employed, thousands of villages, towns and cities have been built, thousands of miles of railroad have been constructed, millions of acres of land have been subjected to private dominion, have become a part of the estimated Wealth of the country, and have been set to producing what the world wants, farm buildings of all sorts have been constructed, and farm machinery purchased, the cattle industry has been enormously developed, mines have been opened, churches and s thool houses have been erected, states have been founded, the growth which occupied a hundred years in the older states has been here crowded into ten. The mortgage did this. The people were an industrious, hardworking, ambitious people. The money which has been loaned them has not been squandered. If the loans made to the West have been large, the increase in the wealth of the West has been astounding. The money advanced to the West is all there-represented by property, real and personal, which is rapidly giving back its increase. It is ail there, engaged in producing wealth. BIG RELEASE OF MORTGAGES IN NEBRASKA.-The state bureau of industrial statistics has made public a compilation of figures on Nebraska's big crop for 1891. During the month of October in eighty-five counties farm mortgages to the amount of $1,348,528.07 were released of record. This does not show the entire amount paid. as many were held in distant lands and the releases did not get here in time to be placed on record during the month. Don't sign anything presented by a stranger; don't write your name for him; don't take an agency; don't advance money on any contract; don't change mopey for a stranger; don't loan money on checks or bonds, or to pay express charges on the corpse of a dead brother. When you read this, go and do any of these things the first opportunity, to show that you are sharper than most people, and be beautifully swindled. "Land in Michigan," said a well-posted gentleman yesterday, "will advance from 25 to 33 per cent. in the next two years, or I miss my guess. The boom in the great West and Northwest has exploded, and the farmers who do not seek further ventures in the South are flocking back to the old, well settled states. Michigan is getting her full share, and the advance in real property is inevitable." Census figures show that 2,250,000 families out of 12,500,000 families of the United States occupy and own incumbered farms and homes, and that 10,250,000 families occupy farms and homes that are either hired or owned free. Buffalo harbor was blockaded last week with 170 vessels, carrying 4,000,000 bushels of grain, waiting to be unloaded. Vessel men were offering as high as $300 for places at elevators for Saturday. A half-century ago there were $4,000,000,000 invested in agriculture, and now there are $11,000,000,000. There were then 1,000,000 farms; now there are between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000. Freely ye have received, freely give to the starving millions of the old world. PUGET SOUND LUMBER. A lumber pile made of boards, each 100 feet long and six feet in width, would be an unprecedented sight in the east, but a gentleman recently returned from a visit to the coast of the northern Pacific ocean says that piles of timber such as that are common at the mills of Puget Sound. "Boards 100 feet long and six feet wide, without a knot in them," he says, " are common cuts from gigantic fir trees of the Puget sound forests." These trees grow to the enormous height of 250 feet, and the forests are so vast that although the sawmills have been ripping 500,U00,000 feet of lumber out of them every year for ten years, the spaces made by these tremendous inroads seem no more than garden patches. Puget Sound has 1,800 miles of shore line, and all along this line and extending thence on both sides miles and miles further than the eye can see, is one vast and almost unbroken forest of these enormous trees. There is nothing like it on the Pacific coast. An official estimate places the amount of standing timber in that area at 500,000,000,000 feet, or a thousand years' supply, even at the enormous rate the timber is now being feiled and sawed. 'The timber belt covers 30,000,000 acres of Wasnington, an area equal to the states of Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut. The markets for Puget Sound lumber are entirely foreign, being South America, Australia, Central America and the islands of the Pacific coast. Edward Ray is an extensive poultry dealer in Coldwater. A year ago he shipped. along with a carload of turkeys, two weighing about twenty-five pounds each. A month later he received a letter from Edward S. 8tokes, of Josie Mansfield fame, of New York, who said that he had purchased the pair of turkeys and was pleased. He added: " If yon will raise for me for next Christmas two turkeys weighing 100 pounds, I will pay you $1 a pound for them." Mr. Ray arranged with a farmer to attempt the feat, and the result was the shipment on Dec. 5 of two turkeys, one weighing fifty and one-half and the other fifty-four pounds. Mr. Stokes was delighted and sent Mr. Ray a check for $104.50. THE USES OF THE DOLLAR.-Have you learned that important matter? 'Everything depends on how one uses his money. The dollar is capable of giving strength and beauty to body, mind and soul. It is also capable of giving debt, disease and damnation. A verse or two from Job: "If I bave made gold my hope or have said to the fine gold, thou art my confidence; if I have seen any perish for want of clothing; if I have eaten my morsel myself alone; then let my arm be broken from the bone." This good man's dollars were all well used. Hear what God says about him: "There isn't a man like him in all the earth." The three tallest trees in the world are believed to be a sequoia near Stockton, Cal., which is 325 feet high, and two eucalypti in Victoria, Australia, estimated to be 435 and 450, respectively. Give your farm credit for furnishing you a home rent-free and for a thousand and one necessaries and luxuries which you would have to pay cash for in a city. The total value of last year's cereal crop marketed by American farmers was $450,000,000. This year's crops will represent $1,000,000,000. A dispatch from Washington brings information that Andrew Caldwell the special agent of the general land office, appointed to make an investigation as to the location, condition, number, etc., of giant (sequoia gigantia) trees in the Stockton and Visalia land districts in California, has made his report to the commissioner of the general land office. In the Visalia district, the report says, there is one small and one large grove of giant trees. The latter is a virgin forest and contains over 1,200 giant sequoias and many more small trees. Some five years ago a co-operative colony located about forty entries in the neighborhood, and are constructing a road to this timber belt. The colony, it is asserted, numbers about 6u0 members, and has recently adopted the Bellamy idea as its leading principle. There is danger, the special agent believes, that these people, if unmolested, will soon destroy this most wonderful and perfect body of sequoia gigantia in the world. In a table giving number and size of trees in the groves visited, only those fortyfive feet in circumference or more, measured three feet from the ground, are classed as giants. Of these 2,675 were found. Forty-four are over eighty feet in circumference, and several are more than 100. One is 106 feet in circumference, or a little more than thirty-five feet in diameter. Secretary Noble has requested the secretary of war to station a company of cavalry in the Sequoia National park and another in the Yosemite park to prevent depredations on the mammoth tree groves. It is stated that the so-called Bellamy colonists, who have in part perfected titles to lands on which these trees stand, have expressed a purpose to hold their claims in spite of all opposition. ONCE WORTH A MILLIoN.-The city of Wilkesbarre over in Pennsylvania sent him the usual documents for him to pay his personal tax. He returned the application with this endorsement: Gold and silver I have none- My property, real and personal, gone. Spent long ago for beer and rum. Who ever thought to this it would come? Silver plate and watches in pawn Nooody now, but an American bnm. A GOOD EXAMPLE.-In many French villages boards are set up bearing the following instructions: "Hedgehog: Lives upon mice, snails and wireworms-animals injurious to agriculture. Don't kill a hedgehog. Toad: Helps agriculture; destroys twenty to thirty insects hourly. Don't kill a toad. Cockchafer and its larvte: Deadly enemies to farmers; lays seventy to 100 eggs. Kill the cockchafer. Birds: Each departmtent of France loses yearly many millions of francs through the injury done by insects. Don't kill the birds." Similar placards would prove beneficial in most parts of this country. A red oak tree was recently felled near St. Charles, Michigan, which knocks out all former records. The trunk of the tree and two immense limbs were all hollow, and when the tree fell to the ground a big black bear, in attempting to escape from the hollow in the trunk, was killed; two large raccoons were captured in one limb and 150 pounds of honey in another. The republic of Honduras is very rich in the valuable wood called mahogany. A survey of these forests estimatcs the value of the trees of this variety which are fit for market at $200,0u0,000. Less acres and more on an acre is one of the means of solving the agricultural problem. -65 -THE ESTABLISHED BROKER. Compared with the well-established real estate broker, who has earned for himself a popular name by his fair, upright and thorough manner of dealing with his patrons, the street-broker, or as he is better known the " curb-stone broker," stands no chance of favorable recognition. Of the former, we propose to speak at present. An established dealer in real estate has an eligible office, a place of business well known to the public, where he may always be found ready at once to enter upon the work entrusted to him. With him delay cannot be tolerated; acting promptly, he is faithful and earnest, and is never wanting in his regard for the interests of the party who has placed property in his hands for disposal. Clear titles are a specialty with such a broker. Flaws are an abomination to a dealer of this character. With him, it must be a square deal or nothing. An agent of this kind will use all favorable means to accomplish the end in view; for, while he works for his employer, he is building up his own name, worth more to him than the commission he may receive. Almost every community appreciates such a broker. A broker of the kind we speak of, he is always ready to show the property he offers for sale. A courteous and obliging disposition is one of the fixtures of his office, as an accommodating spirit is also one of its chief characteristics. Great attention is paid to finding out to a certainty the exact nature of property-all its surroundings; and while buyers may omit some important inquiry. his business is to see to it that they are never deceived-in fact, to supply the knowledge they are not expected to possess concerning the merits or demerits of locality, condition or correct valuation. He knows the community in which he lives, and the community knows him. He can do more for real estate purchasers than they can do for themselveshe knows the dealers, and understands the circumstances under which the property has been offered in the market. Florence, the actor, who recently died, once gave some advice to a friend in these words: "My Dear - One gallon of whisky costs about $3, and contains about sixty-five fifteen-cent drinks. Now. if you must drink, buy a gallon and make your wife the bar-keeper. When you are dry, give her fifteen cents for a drink, and when the whisky is gone she will have, after paying for it, $6.75 left, and every gallon thereafter will yield the same profit. This money she should put away. so that when you have become an inebriate, unable to support yourself and shunned by every respectable man, your wife may have money enough to keep you until your time comes to fill a drunkard's grave." A farmer living near Decatur, Mich., recently refused $4,000 for forty black walnut trees on his farm. This is a pointer to somebody who has fine trees and does not realize thelr value. Prof. B. E. Fernow, chief of the United States Forestry Association, figures that the annual revenue from the forests of the United States is over $1,000,000,(00. Of the four hundred and thirteen species of trees in the United States sixteen will sink in water. The heaviest is the black iron-wood of Southern California. Stand up like a man and honor your calling. You may have, wrongs,biit they are not in your farm, although some of them may be in your farming. -S3 -QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Have you money to loan? Have you pine lands to sell? Have you farming lands to sell, or do you want to buy such lands? Do you want to buy a farm, or have you a farm to sell? Have you city property that you want to sell or exchange? Do you want to invest money in any kind of first-class real estate in Northern Michigan, or Grand Rapids? If you do, or if you desire counsel on any other matter of business suggested by the above, please call on or address me, and your business shall have prompt attention. ABET T. PAGE, Grand Rapids, Mich. The amount of tobacco annually consumed in the United States is estimated by an apparently competent authority at 310,000,000 pounds. If the tobacco users of the United States would abstain for a period of two years from the chewing, smoking and snuff taking habit, and place the money they would spend for tobacco in that period in a common fund, there would be enough money in the fund to almost wipe out our national debt, and five years abstaining would give the head oi each family in the United States enough money to invest in an eighty acre homestead farm in the far Western states and territories. Don't kill the toads, the ugly toads, that hop around your door. Each meal the ugly toad doth eat a hundred bugs or more; he sits around with aspect meek until the fly has neared, then shoots he forth his little tongue like lightning double geared. And then doth wink and when he's wunk he shuts his ugly mibg, an patiently doth wait until there comes another bug. PHYLOSOPHY. In this world it will never pay To give away to sorrow; The dog that's underneath to-day May be on top tomorrow. The Rev. Sam Jones says: "Iunderstand that by actual mathematics it has been shown that we (the Americans) send to the heathen countries 13,000 barrels of whisky to one missionary. The devil doesn't care how many missionaries you cend; if you send that amount of whisky with them." PROHIBoTIONIsT.-First make people comfortable by making them home winners and home protectors, and then by just laws give all an equal chance, and appeal to manhood and womanhood not to use poisons. Pennsylvania, is suffering from field mice. A bounty on foxes, minks, weasels, owls, and hawks, has led to nearly their annihilation and left the mice free. It is said that not a Catholic saloon keeper can be found in the city of St. Paul, thanks to the persistent efforts of Bishop Ireland. -67 - THE GAME LAW. The Game and Fish Laws are designed to restrict within proper limits the destruction of birds, beasts and fish, so that they may continue to be an important source of food supply, and at the same time afford enjoyment for lovers of the rod and gun. Any person who takes game or- fish out of season deprives law-abiding citizens of their rights. In order that all may have an equal chance the law must be strictly observed. The attention of the public is called to the following provisions: DEER.-May only be killed in the Lower Peninsula "1from the fifth day of November to the twenty-fifth day of November." In the Upper Peninsula "between the twenty-fifth day of September and the twenty-fifth day of October." Deer must not be taken or killed in the water, or by trap, or pit-fall, or by artificial light, commonly, called "1shining," or by the use of dogs. Any person may kill a dog following a deer or deer tracks. WILD TURKEY.-Open season November first to December fifteenth inclusive. PARTRIDGE.-Owing to the new law not taking immediate effect, partridge may be killed from September first, 1891, to October first, 1891, on which date the new law goes into effect. making the open season from November first to December fifteenth inclusive, in the Lower Peninsula, and October first to January first inclusive, in the Upper Peninsula. QUAIL.-Open season November first to December fifteenth inclusive. WOODCOCK.-The new law makes the open season from August fifteenth to December fifteenth, but as this law does not take effect until October first, 1891, Woodcock must only be killed this year from September first to December fifteenth. -68 -WATER FOWL.-Jack-snipe, red-headed, blue-bill, canvas-back, widgeon and pin-tail ducks and wild geese may be killed between September first and May first. Other wild water fowl and snipe between September first and January first. PRAIRIE CHICKEN.-Not to be killed until September first, 1894. SPECKLED TROUT AND GRAYLING.-May be caught with hook and line only, and from May first to September first. Trout, grayling and salmon,less than six inches in length, must be put back in the water. INLAND LAKEs.-After October first, 1891, nothing but hook and line can be used in any inland lake. Even set lines or night lines are prohibited, and to be found on any lake with spear, jack, aet, set lines, nrtificial light, explosives, etc., is prima facie evidence of guilt.. SPEARING FIsH.-In streams where there is no local act to the contrary,_ red-sides; grass pike. mullet and suckers may be taken with dip-net or spear at any time, and other fish, with the exception of bass, trout, salmon and grayling may be speared any time, except during March, April, May and Jnne. Fisn NETs.-With the exception of dip-nets, as above stated; no nets of any kind can be used except in the great lakes, the bays and harbor connected with said lakes, and the St. Mary's, Saginaw, St. Clair and Detroit rivers. Information in regard to fishing in these waters furnished on application. DON'T Do IT.-Don't run down your neigbbor's property as a means of selling your own. We have known such cases. Some agents decry everything that is not in their hands. One would think, to hear them talk, that small-pox, cholera, and a thousand nameless diseases dwelt in the houses in the hands of rival agents. Beware of such men; they deceive others, and will, if they get a chance, cheat you. A tricky man is not to be ttusted by anybody. The New Orleans Picayune has discovered a beautiful farm just back of Ocean Springs, Miss., where no one is allowed to use a whip on any of the stock. It is said that -" there is but one old whip on the farm, probably a relic of some other owner, but the old whip is not used, and the farm does well and the animals work with a will. Kindness can run anything even a farm." When you call on a man upon business, at once transact your business, then return to your business so that he can attend to his business. An old locust post was recently exhumed at Easton, Pa., which formed part of a hotel sign one hundred years ago. It was still sound. Fruit farms for sale in the great Michigan fruit belt by Abel T. Page dealer in every class of real estate. A lawyer depends on words; the real estate man on deeds. Have no dealings with a man that wants you to work for nothing. -69 -OUR SERMON TO YOUNG MEN. You are the architects of your own fortunes. Rely upon your own strength of body and soul. Take for your motto, "1Self reliance, honesty, and industry." For your star, "Faith, perseverence and pluck," and inscribe on your banner, "Be just and fear not." Don't take too much advise; keep at the helm and stear your own ship. Think well of yourselves. Strike out. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Assume your position. Do not practice excessive humility; you can't get above your level. Water don't run up hill; put potatoes in a cart over a rough road, and small potatoes will go to the bottom. Energy, invincible determination, with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. The great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Civility costs nothing and buys everything. Don't drink. Don't chew. Don't smoke. Don't swear. Don't gamble. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't deceive. Don't tattle. Be polite. Be generous. Be kind. Study hard. Be in earnest. Be self-reliant. Read good books. Love God and your fellow men. Love your country and obey the laws. Love truth. Love virtue. Always do what your conscience tells you to be a duty, and leave the consequence with God. Do thus and success will crown all your efforts. Homes for everybody! Buy one for yourself. Buy for your children. Buy for an investment. Don't rent when you can buy cheaper! Why go West? We are near the home market, and our yearly crops are assured! Between the great lakes our climate is unsurpossed! We have no cyclones or tornadoes as in the west. For further information relating to the investment in real estate, in the attractive and enterprising valley city, call upon the Pioneer Real Estate dealer, ABEL T. PAGE, Grand Rapids, Mich. A WAR HORSE DIEs.-Gen. John W. Kimball's war horse Prince died the other day at Fitchburg, Mass. He was nearly 38 years old, and was presented to Gen. Kimball in Decemaber, 1862, just after the general's election as colonel of the 53d regiment. Prince carried his owner through Gen. Banks's campaign in the Teche country and before Port Hudson. The horse escaped without a scratch, and Gen. Kimball took him home and has cared for him kindly to the last. A TREE OVER FIvE THOUSAND YEARS OLD.-There is an African tree called the baobab, which lives to be thousands of years old. Humboldt calls it "the oldest organic monument on our planet." One specimen of it that was carefully examined by an English botanist proved to be 5,150 years old. At least that was the result of the usual test for determining the lives of trees. The particular tree was thirty feet in diameter, and the spread of its branches was enormous. TIRED OF GIRLs.-"Ma," said a little Prince Hill fellow, "when you get the next baby you'll get a boy, won't you? I'm just tired of girls. They can't play. They're all girls in our house, 'cept me. And then the cow has a calf--and she's a girl; and the cat's got some kitties-and they're all girls. I'm 'bout tired of it." The road to wealth is paved with self-denials. -70 -A GIGANTIC ELM TREE. A monster elm stands on the Avery Durfee farm, in Wayne county, be.tween Palmyra and Marion, writes a Syracuse, N. Y., correspondent. Two feet above the ground it measures 33 feet 10 inches in circumference, and five feet above the ground 20 feet 10 ii c'es. It is 60 feet to the first limb. The body would make five 12 foot logs, averaving 3,250 feet; the total amount of lumber in the body of the tree is 16,250 feet. It is estimated that there is sufficient lumber above the sawlog to make four cords of 4 foot wood. Taking one-half of the diameter of the tree 3 feet from the ground, which is 48 inches, and allowing each inch to represent ten years' growth, the age is found to be 480 years. Cut into inch boards the elm would cover nearly two-fifths of an acre of ground. If made into stove wood 16 inches in length there would be sixty cords. Eighty years ago, when the farm was cleared, this tree was left. as a landmark. It was then a giant among the forest trees. FIFTEEN GREAT MISTAKEs.-It is a great mistake to set up your own standard of right and wrong, and judge people accordingly. It is a great. mistake to measure the enjoyment of others by our own; to expect uniformity of opinion in this world; to look for judgment and experience in youth; to endeavor to mould all dispositions alike; not to yield in immaterial trifles; to look for perfection in our own actions; to worry for ourselves and others with what cannot be remedied; not to alleviate all that needs alleviation, so far as lies in our power; not to make allowances for the infirmities of others; to. consider everything impossible which we cannot perform; to believe only what our finite minds can grasp; to expect to be able to understand everything. The greatest mistake of all is, to live for time, when any moment may launch us into eternity. TIMBER 4,000 YEARS OLD.-Probably the oldest timber in the world which has been subjected to the use of man is found in the ancient temple of Egypt, in connection with stonework which is known to be at least 4,000 years old. This was the only wood used in the construction of the temple, and is in the form of ties, holding the end of one stone to another. When two blocks were laid in place an excavation about an inch deep was made in each block, in which one of these wooden ties, shaped like an hour-glass was driven. It is, therefore, very difficult to force a stone from its position. These ancient ties are made of tamarisk of shittim wood, the same as that from which the Ark was constructed. An elm tree, abouth 225 years old, in West Medford, Mass., has been cut down, and the people there are highly indignant in consequence. It was a beautiful tree, over 100 feet high, with graceful limbs extending across the street. It was ordered felled by the road commissioners because its trunk encroached on the street a trifle. This is but an aggravated case of the outrages suffered almost constantly in consequence of putting in power of men as road commissioners who are entirely unfit for the places. The Photographic Society of Geneva has been testing the theory that the long companionship of man and wife tends to make them look more and more like each other. Photographs of seventy-eight old couples, and of an equal number of adult brothers and sisters, showed that the married couples were more like each other than the brothers and sisters of the same blood. BOSTON'S BIG WILLOW. In a recent visit to Boston I was very much interested in observing the various kinds of weeping trees to be seen in that vicinity. Many that are not at all common, yet quite hardy withal, are to be seen planted in permanent locations and growing thriftily, says a writer in Vick's Magazine. The finest specimen I have ever seen stands close to the lake near the bridge, in Boston Public Garden. It is nearly or quite three feet in diameter, with a stem of three feet where it branches and spreads its magnificent drooping spray over a circle of seventy-five or eighty feet. Its height is about fifty feet. A drizzling rain prevented my sketching it, but I hope some enterprising horticultui al journal will have it photographed and hand it down to posterity as the most perfect weeping willow ever grown-the kiug of willows, in fact. THE LAW OF REAL ESTATE.-The absolute title of all lands, streams and lakes rests in the government. It never wholly releases its claims. The law of eminent domain gives the sovereign power the right at any time when necessary to take back to itself any property before patented. Subject to that right, the person who receives a patent from the government, of a certain quantity of land, has the absolute title against the whole world. He may lose it. FIRsT. By being convicted of treason. SECOND. By non-payment of taxes. THIRD. By sale on execution. FOURTH. By allowing another person to remain in undisputed possession, claiming to own it, for twenty years. He may pass it to another. FIRsT. By sale and deed. SECOND. By gift and deed. THIRD. By will. A will can pass no title until after the testator's death. HARDNESS OF WOODs.-The relative hardness of woods is calculated by the hickory, which is the thoughest. Estimating that at 100 we get for pignut hickory, eighty-six; white oak, eighty-four; white ash,; seventy-seven; dogwood, seventy-four; scrub oak, seventy-three; white hazel, seventy-two; apple tree, seventy; red oak, sixty-nine; white beech, sixty-five; black birch, sixty-two; yellow and black oak, sixty; hard maple, fifty six; white elm, fiftyeight; red cedar, fifty-six; cherry, fifty-five; yellow pine, fifty-three; chestnut, fifty-two; yellow poplar, fifty-one; butternut and white birch, fortythree; and white pine thirty-five. According to this formula, woods possessing a degree of hardness equal to only about forty per cent., or less than that of hickory, should not be classed as hard woods. Such woods are, however, limited in quantity, and are not of sufficient importance to justify a classification, and the trade will continue to construe hard wood to mean everything except white pine. WONDERS OF THE WORLD.-The so called seven wonders of the new world are: Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, Mammoth Cave, Garden of the Gods, Colorado; Giant trees, California; Natural bridge, Virginia; Yosemite valley. The shortest will on record is one on file in the office of the register of Luzerne county, Pa. It was written with a lead pencil on-a half sheet of note paper, and is as follows: "Emilie R. Miner is my heir. Sarah K. Miner." -72 -A FAMOUS WAR HORSE. Word was recently received at Kansas City, Mo., of the death of Comanche, the most celebrated horse in the United States cavalry service, at Fort Riley. He was forty-five years of age and the only living thing belonging to the United States service which escaped the massacre of the battle of the Little Big Horn, where Gen. Custer and his command were massacred. He was one of the original mount of the Seventh cavalry, which regiment was organized in 1866, and had been in almost every battle in the Indian service. After the battle of Little Big Horn he was found covered with wounds, riderless and saddleless, some distance from the scene of the massacre. He was taken charge of by Capt. Rowlan and sent to Fort Riley, where for fourteen years he had not been subject to bridle, and had been in charge of the Seventh cavalry. His death was due to old age. His skin will be stuffed and mounted and kept in the museum of the Kansas State university until the World's Fair at Chicago. where it will be taken for exhibition. Enterprising showmen have from time to time endeavored to secure Comanche for exhibition purposes, but the authorities have invariably refused to disturb his well-earned rest. Comanche was the horse of Capt. Keogh, a relative of Gen. Custer. Special provision was made for the care and support of Comanche. Once in a while, when the cavalry troops were on inspection, Comanche was led out, saddled and bridled, but no one ever sat in his saddle after the battle of the Little Big Horn. It will be remembered that Custer's ill-fated command used the dead bodies of their horses killed by the shower of Indian bullets as a barricade as far as possible. All the horses were saddled, as the troops had ridden into the valley and attacked the Sioux camp, and, as Comanche was found stripped of his accoutrements, it has always been supposed that his saddle and bridle were taken by the victorious Indians, who, believing that he would die of his wounds, turned him loose. The body of every other horse that carried the brave cavalry into battle on that fateful morning was found among the heaps of slain soldiers. TREEs 650 FEET HIGF.-Prof. Fred G. Plummer, a civil engineer, of Tacoma, is quoted in the Olympia, Wash., Tribune as saying:: "I have been all over this country, and have the best collection of the flora to be found anywhere. What do you think of trees 650 feet high? They are to be found that high in the unsurveyed townships near the foot of Mount Tacoma, and what is more I have seen them and made an instrumental measurement of a number with that result. There are lots of trees near the base of Mount Tacoma whose foliage is so far above the ground that it is impossible to tell to what family they belong except by the bark. Very few people know or dream of the immensity of our forest growth. I wish that some of our large trees could be sent to the world's fair at Chicago. We could send a flag pole, for instance, 300 or 400 feet long. A man in Milwaukee saw a woman fall down and be helped her up and spoke words of consolation, and she sent him a deed of a 85,000 house. A man in Peoria did the very same thing and she yelled for her husband, who was near by, and he came running up and broke the consoler's nose. "It is not birth, nor rank, nor state; 'tis 'git-up-and-git' that makes men great." -73 -SAVE YOUR MONEY AND BUY A FARM--BETTER THAN MONEY IN A SAVINGS BANK. All who are seeking farm homes, and who wish to engage in agriculture and all who have capital and savings, can find safe and reliable investments. Northern Michigan farming and timber lands a specialty. Cheap improved farms in many of the northern counties of the state. Special attention is called to the counties of Grand Traverse, Leelanaw, Benzie, Antrim and Charlevoix, which constitute the famous and far famed Grand Traverse region. Write, enclosing stamp, for further information regarding farms and timbered lands, to ABBL T. PAGE, Grand Rapids, Mich. ONE OF NATURE'S FREARs.-A very large tree, one of the largest in California, the country of big trees, was discovered near Arlington, Snohomish county, a few days ago. It is a cedar, and measures sixty-eight feet in circumference. Around the knotty roots the tree measures ninety-nine feet. About seventy-five feet from the ground it forks into four immense branches, and just below the forks is a big knot hole. Five men climbed into the hole and explored the interior of the tree. It was found to be a mere shell, and about forty-five feet down it would afford standing room for forty men. The tree is still green, and a remarkable feature is said to be that it is barked on the inside and the outside alike. A FEW HARD THINGs.-Experience and observation have taught men that it isHard to quit chewing tobacco, Hard to keep from eating too much. Hard to drink liquor and not be intemperate. Hard to resist temptation. Hard to believe a man you know to be a liar. Hard to turn the other cheek when you are struck. Hard to borrow money from friends when we need it. Hard to love our enemies. Here is a Massachusetts '- want:" A YOUNG LADY WANTED competent to edit letters and advertisements; one whose shirts do not trail in the streets, has no birds or feathers in her hat, but humane generally. Red hair, freckles, humpback, (slightly) no objection, but must be good and sensible. Address N. G. W., Transaript Office. When this individual gets to " editing advertisements " something may be expected to drop. THE MEANEST MAN.-The boss meanest man is the man who employs an agent to sell his property, and after the agent has spent his time and money advertising and finds a customer, he (the boss meanest man) goes to the customer and connives with him not to go to the agent's office again, then goes off, closes up the sale and cheats the agent out of his commission. The total available supply of wheat in the United States and Canada is 74,371,521 bushels, or 17,166,000 bushels more than one year ago. "Every man is the artificer of his own fortune." -74 -HOW TO DISPOSE OF PROPERTY. Give it into the hands of an intelligent and reliable real estate brokerNever leave it with more than one at the same time; if you do neither will pay special attention to it. Don't higgle with your agent about. commission. Pay him liberally; better far give him more than he asks than to jew him down; for if you do the latter you lessen your chances of making a quick sale. All persons ought to know-but they don't seem to-that an agent will work the hardest for the man that pays him the most; and an agent whose services are worth anything generally has plenty of property for sale on which he can get full pay,. andoif he chances to take some on his books at less than his usual charges,. of course he will not offer it to a customer until he has found it impossible to sell the other. Do not place fictitious prices on your property, offer it at what it is reasonably worth, and at what you expect to take. Preparations ase being made to take out a part of the big redwood tree for the purpose of exhibition at the world's fair in 1893. The tree measures ninety feet in circumference and thirty-three feet in diameter. The section to be taken will be Tine feet in height and sixty feet in circumference. The work of felling the tree has already begun. It will take ten men at least two months to complete all the work to be done. Men in all grades of life have found to their cost that lending money is not only losing it, but it is many instances making an enemy. The man who is worth lending to can get money at the bank. Good men who would pay borrowed money never borrow. They raise it in a business way. It is the liar and beat who wants to borrow money, and there can't be a business man in the city who has not been "stuck." Antrim county is traversed by a beautiful chain of lakes of the purest water and abounding with fish of the finest quality. Speckled trout, whitefish, black bass, pickerel and muscallonge, are the principal food fish. The land situated along and in the vicinity of these lakes is excellent for agricultural purposes. The scenery is also delightful and the climate unsurpassed. Hard, soft and birds eye maple, beech, basswood, rock elm, birch and cherry are the prevailing varieties of timber found on land suitable for agricultural purposes in Northern Michigan. These classes of forest trees. are of splendid growth and unusually thrifty. Very few persons are aware that Paris has a big elm which is 130 feet tall and has a circumference near its base of eighteen feet. It is healthy and vigorous. It was plsnted by Sully by order of Henry IV., who placed an elm in front of every church in Paris. The largest tree in the world, according to statistics lately published by the Italian Government, is a chestnut standing at the foot of Mount YEAtna. The circumference of the main trunk at sixty feet from the ground is 212: feet. I There is no greater obstacle in the way of success in life, than trusting to something to turn up, instead of going to work and turning up something.. -75 -THE MESSAGE OF THE NEW YEAR. I asked the New Year for some motto sweet, Some rule of life with which to guide my feet; I asked, and paused; he answered, soft and low, "God's will to know." "Will knowledge then suffice, New Year?" I cried; And ere the question into silence died, The answer came-" Nay, remember too, " God's will to do." Once more I asked, "Is there no more to tell?" And once again the answer sweetly fell"Yes! this one thing, all other things above," "God's will to love." The desirability of rich men making gifts to charitable, religious or educational institutions during life, rather than after death, is becoming more conspicuous year after year, as the legal profession becomes more expert in the science of will breaking. The courts seem to consider a charitably disposed man as of mental unsoundness and disposf- of his property at their own sweet will and pleasure. The New York court had hardly disposed of the eminent Tilden's will when the will of the late Win. B. Ogden came up for contest. The will provided for the disposition of a large part of $4,000,000 by his executors and trustees for such benevolent institutions as they might elect. This provision of the will was set aside on the ground that there is no beneficiary to enforce it. A poor man who goes to Michigan to settle needs but little money beyond what is necessary to transport him thence and support his family for a short time. He can obtain employment if he be at all expert with an ax, at all seasons of the year. The lumber woods in the winter season employ thousands of men in various capacities, and boys even are able to earn fair wages as cooks, or to do various things about the camps. A dispatch says that Lake Ontario is now lower than ever before since it was known to white men. It is estimated that it would require 2,541,000,000 tons of water to bring it up to its normal level. Preserve the forests. The greatest secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few large ones are let on long leases. Northern Michigan is practically free from the destructive floods that annually deluge large portions of the Southern, Middle and Western States. A four-acre tract of peat, sixty feet in depth, has been discovered on a farm near Niles, Mich. The peat makse admirable fuel. Write it on your hearts that every day is the best day of the year (Emerson.) -76 -RICH WITHOUT MONEY. Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of men without nothing in the pocket, and thousands, without even a pocket, are rich. A man born with a good sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart, and good limbs, and a pretty good head-piece is rich. Good bones are better than gold; tough muscles than silver; and nerves that flash fire and carry energy to every function are better than houses or lands. It is better than landed estate to have the right kind of father and mother. Good breeds and bad breeds exist among men as really as among herds and horsee. Education may do much to check evil tendencies or to develop good ones; but it is a great thing to inherit the right proportion of faculties to start with. The man is rich who has a good disposition-who is naturally kind, patient, cheerful, hopeful, and who has a flavor of wit and fun in his composition. The hardest thing within this life is a man's own self. A cross, selfish fellow--a timid, care-burdened man-these are all born deformed on the inside. Their feet may not limp, but their thoughts do. DAILY PERILS. The trains are running off the rails, Wild steers are driven through the street, The ships are sinking in the gales, A mad dog you will sometimes meet, Boilers are exploding; They're looking for la grippe. Hotels are going up in smoke, And gnns are pointed in a joke, Pistols are carried by lunatics, After careful loading. And cranks use knives for toy toothpicks While fraternity a message sends. Oil cans are starting backward fires, The cable cars run very fast, The streets are burdened with dead wires, The next moment may be your lastAnd elevators slip. You'd better join the Chosen Friends. "He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small: For the dear God who loveth us, He made and blessed them all." THE BUFFALO is No MoRE.-In a recent publication Superintendent Hornaday, of the National Zoological Park, at Washington, speaking of the extinction of the buffalo and the proposed methods for the multiplication of the remnant, points out the danger of the utter extinction of the species by crossings and in-breedings. The last bunch of this noble animal over which the government has any control, is comprised in the hand of 200 now protected in the Yellowstone Park. In 1870, says Professor Hornaday, there were at least 6,000,000 animals in the great southern herd and twice as many in the northern. Men poured cartridges into Winchesters and dropped the unsuspecting brutes by the 10,000. To-day there are less than 700 wild buffalo in existence. Albert Bierstadt has sold his great painting, "The last of the Buffaloes for $50,000. "From the time that, at my mother's feet or on my father's knee, I first learned to lisp verses from the sacred writings,they have been my daily study and vigilant contemplation,-Daniel Webster. -77 -ADVERSITY AND ITS ADVANTAGES. "Sweet are the uses of adversity," wrote the poet. These uses are thus summed up by Punch with philosophy as well as wit: You wear out your clothes. You are not troubled with visitors. You are exonerated from making calls. Bores do not bore you. Tax-gatherers hurry past your door. Itinerant bands do not play opposite your windows. You avoid the nuisance of serving on juries. No one thinks of presenting you with a testimonial. No tradesman irritates by asking: "Is there any other article you wish to-day, sir?" Cranks will not kill you. Imposters know there is no use to bleed you. You practice temperance. You swallow infinitely less poison than others. Flatterers do not shoot their rubbish into your ears. You are saved many a debt, many a deception, many a headache. And lastly, if you have a true friend in the world, you are sure, in a very short space of time, to know it. The cultivation of soil has been fostered by the best men in all ages; indeed, agriculture is said to be the natural vocation of man, and has been the basis of civilization and substantial progress from the earliest period of man's history. No pursuit can be more independent or better calculated to satisfy the greatest need of mankind. We must have the farmers, and, above all, they should be farmers. Is it not a source of wonder, then, that men should cling to the cities and villages and depend on day labor for a living when, at prices within the reach of all, they may secure permanent farm homes-homes of their own--a place for their children, a retreat for declining years, the possession of a portion of this beautiful earth, as their very own; where they become producers in agriculture and kindred products and lead lives of usefulness and independence. For a few years past what a wicked, unwarrantable untruth has been published and circulated through the country that farming is a failure. Every intelligent person knows that it is a monstrous falsehood. If such a statement were true, how strange that the world has been six thousand years in finding it out. No! No! Farming is not a failure, but a grand and glorious success, and has been ever since the creation, and is only a failure, like other kinds of business, through mismanagement. unthriftiness, ignorance and laziness. I am acquainted with many farmers in Kent county, and through the State, who have made farming a wonderful success, beginning on a new piece of land in the woods, with no capital but their hands and a determined will, and to-day are enjoying the fruits of their labor independently and comfortably in pleasant and valuable homes, with their families around them and a competency laid up for declining years. The earth is the source of all wealth. Labor develops it. A man who is compelled to work cares not how badly his work is done; but he that takes off his coat willingly, and rolls up his sleeves cheerfully, and sings while he works, is in right earnest. James Seger, of Rome, Micb., has secured nearly 100 racoons this fall. OWN SOME LAND. A man that holds a good title to a well chosen piece of land has secured the services of a faithful worker, whose labors cease not while he rests, and which will work incessantly when sickness or accident renders him unable to work himself. It is not such a hard thing to become a land owner, even for persons of very limited means, if you are willing to begin in a very small way. A very small sum will purchase an acre of land, and after that is yours, it will seem to you who never owned a foot of ground space quite a territory. If you plant and till it yourself, the products of the soil will very soon pay back and double the amount paid for it. Or, if your immediate needs require you at your clerk's desk or your workshop, the rent of the land will be coming in to aid you in your efforts to force a living out of your small earnings. Meanwhil-, your land is yearly increasing in value, and is safe among all the fluctuations attendant upon other investments. In a few months, by economy and a few acts of self-denial, you can be able to buy a little more, and so on from time to time until you become an extensive land-owner. Make a good selection, assuring yourself, as to title, tiuy an acre, or less, secure your deed, and you are one step up the ladder to competence and independence. Try it, and see how soon you wdl be a small capitalist. ABEL T. PAGE. In men whom men condemn as ill, I find so much of goodness still: A boy stood on the melting ice, In men whom men pronounce divine, And looked for places thin I see so much of sinnand blot- He foudtemha within a trice I hesitate to draw aline WHe found toheanwit hin.atrc Between the two, where God has not. -Joaquin Miller. The population of the entire world is estimated', to be 1,479,729,400. Among European countries Belgium still leads in density of population, the proportion being 530 per square mile. Holland has 365, the United Kingdom 312, and England nearly 480 per square mile. The total population for China proper is estimated at only 350,000,000. The total population of the Chinese empire is given at 361,500,000, on an area of 4,617,420 square miles. If all men in the world should come and bring their grievances together, of body, mind, fortune and all these common calamities of beggery, servitude, want, imprisonment, and lay them on one heap, to be equally divided, would'st thou share alike and take their portion or be as thou art? There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them. A cedar stump on a farm in Oregon measures twenty feet in diameter. A photograph was taken of it showing thirty men and five horses standing on the top. Soiritual truth can only be spiritually discerned. The Bible is a most delightful and surprising book to those who are under the illuminating grace *of the Gospel. -79 -SAVE, THEN INVEST. Thousands of men of small means, mechanics, clerks and others, living in the large cities of the United States, would now be independent had they purchased a lot of land 10 or 20 years ago in sections of those cities whose land was then cheap because it was unpeopled, but which have since been filled up with houses and business. The same chances still exist in a few of our most progressive cities. Lots can now be secured for hundreds of dollars, which will be worth thousands, which will constitute a competence in 10 or 20 years hence. The best savings bank-the best investment-the surest way of putting money out of immediate reach, and therefore out of the way of temptation to spend it, is to secure a lot in a progressive city. When a young man exhibits the self-denial to save his surplus money, and the judgment to make a good real estate investment with it, he gives society and the woman he proposes to marry a sort of security that he will make a good c~tizen and husband; at the same time he does that which will pay him the largest interest on his money, and afford him the best protection against the evils of poverty or the afflictions of sickness. Within the last 10 years I have advised many young men to save their surplus earnings and invest in real estate in a growing city and wait, and not one of them, that made judicious investments, but that are ahead in the world, and some I know have vuade a great deal of money and are well settled in life. Young men try this place. Earn your money, then invest it. A. T. PAGE. Says a railroad man: "A passenger engine averages 60 pounds of coal to the mile, and travels about 56.000 miles per year. while a freight engine averages 90 pound-4 of coal to the mile and makes about 43,000mrniles per year, while yard engines born less. Freight engines travel much slower than passengers, and therefore burn more coal per mile. The largest mileage made in 1888 by a passenger engine was 81,000 miles, and by a freight engine 50,000 miles.' It has been ascertained by actudl measurement that Niagara Falls since 1842 have receded 7 68-100 inches ar'nually. while there has been an average yearly recession of the Canadian or Horse Shoe Fall of two feet 16-100 inches, or in forty years the American Fall has receded 30 75-100 feet and the Canadian Fall in the same time 104 51-100 feet. From this it is inferred that the falls will eventually disappear. THE OLDEST LIBRARIEs.-The oldest libraries of which we have any certain knowledge are those recently brought to light by excavations among the ruins of the east. Among these are the Babylonish books inscribed on clay tablets, supposed to have been prepared for public instruction about 650 B. C. It is said by Aristotle that Strabo was the first known collector of books and manuscripts-this about the year 330 B. C. A fir log was recently taken into a Tabomit (Wash.) mill that was 110 feet long, 82,inches in diameter at-the butt and 53 inches at the small end. It was cut into ship-plank and contained 10,000 feet. WEALTH PRODUCERS.-Stand for your own interest, and do your own thinking; as home winners and home protectors you will control the wealth you produce. -80 -WHAT MANUFACTURING DOES. One manufactory employing a hundred men will support an additional five hundred people. Three hundred families will disburse annually, on the average, eighty or seventy-five thousand dollar in the aggregate. This money will be drawn into the town from the outside, where the manufactured goods are consumed, and the interest of this seventy-five thousand dollars at ten per cent., would be seventy-five hundred dollars. These hundred families, too, would require a hundred homes, thousands of yards of cotton and woolen goods, thus giving health and impetus to every branch of industry. See how the manufacturing business has built up our city. Grand Rapids as a manufacturing center, has a world-wide reputation. Our manufactured goods are shipped to nearly all the nations of the earth. Therefore, everybody encourage manufacturing and by so doing bring wealth and prosperty to the Valley City. ABEL T. PAGE. A CABBAGE TREE.-One of the most peculiar and most valuable trees in Florida is the cabbage tree, says The New Orleans Picayune. "The tree, in fact, belongs to the palmetto family. It grows to a height varying from twenty to forty feet, and there is scarcely an inch difference in the diameter from the roots up to the leaves. The leaves or bayonets all grow in a cluster at the top. The wood is very porous and extremely light; it resembles cork. Its value lies in the fact that it is utterly impervous to the ravages of salt water and barnacles, which quickly destroy all other natural woods. Hence, the cabbage tree is much sought after for posts and piles for building bridges and wharfs in salt water. Pine piles that are used in building through salt water have to be creosoted in order to preserve them any length of time, and the process is a very expensive one, but the cabbage wood needs no application of any sort." The Inter Ocean puts a well known fact in a new light in this manner: "A guinea hen and a couple of crows can drown all the bird music in the field and woods. And so can two or three groaners and croakers in a community put a damper on life and business. Send them to the rear; they never yet helped themselves or anybody else to anything that was good." To fell a large mahogany tree is one day's task for two men. On account of the wide spurs which project from the trunk at its base, scaffolds have to be erected and the tree cut off above the spurs, which leaves a stump from ten to fifteen feet high-a waste of the very best wood. California is cultivating the cork oak tree. A sunflower in a season will produce 12,000 seeds, while a poppy bears 32,000. A farmer in Texas who has 400 acres planted with 11,000 pecan trees calculates that in six years he will derive from them a net return of $50,000. Counting 2,640 ties as the minimum number per mile of railroad, there are now in nse in this country 412,400,000 ties. It is estimated that about onefifth are renewed every year, which will make 82,480,000 required annually, not counting the new mileage each year. -81-- INDIANA'S HISTORIC ELM. Corydon, Ind., boasts a historical elm tree under whose spreading branches tradition has it that a session of the Indiana territorial legislature was held. It is known that anextra session of the legislature was held at Corydon during a summer while Indiana was a territory. It is also believed that the tree was then large enough to shelter such a body, and as it stood upon a cool, mossy bank near a spring, and only a short distance from the Capitol, it is quite probable that the membess of the legislature would leave a warm, crowded room and repair to such a cool spot. A convention was held at Corydon in June,.1816, for the purpose of adopting a constitution for the new state. It has been reported that this convention was held under the famous tree. It is. a known fact that in a later day the grand jury for the Harrison circuit court held sessions under the tree. Many vipitors on reaching this place ask to see the historical tree, and are referred to this spreading elm, whose body measures thirteen feet and three inches in circumference and between the tips of the limbs is a distance of 115 feet. A WILD APPLE ORCHARD.-The wilderness of Koolan, in the Sandwich Islands, contains a forest of native wild apple trees, countless in number, stretching from the sea far up the mountain sides. The trees vary from forty to fifty feet in height, and in the harvest season, from July to September, are loaded down with fruit, some white, but mostly red. A person standing in the midst of this orchard can look around him for miles, up the mountains and -toward the road, and the only thing in view will be one vast grove of apple trees literally red with ripe and ripening fruit, the branches of the trees bending to the ground with the bounteous harvest. The crop of this extensive apple orchard which nature planted in the solitary waste would fill a fleet 'of one hundred steamers. The orchard stretches over a country from five to ten miles wide by twenty miles long. and many of the larger trees bear at least fifty barrels apiece. The supply of, chestnuts never equals the demand in this country, and many districts in which the trees are abundant derive a very respectable income from the sale of the nuts. This industry might be made far more productive and profitable than it now is. 'The western states and territories are feeling the first practical influence of the heavy crops. Mortgage debts are being reduced, and by next spring the total indebtedness will have been reduced by over $100,000,000. An orange tree in Terrebonne, La,, is expected to yield 10,000 oranges this year. The tree is forty feet bigh and fifteen feet in circumference, and is probably the most valuable tree in the country. A mahogany tree lately cut in Honduras made three logs which, it is ieported, were sold in Europe and brought $11,000. It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross was in our composition. -82 -OUR HOMES. To tell our readers that to increase the value of their property they must improve it, would seem to be an entirely superfluous statement; yet *how many there are who do not fully understand this, or, if they understand it, utterly ignore it. Every one has noticed neighbors whose properties were originally of equal value, but which now differ greatly, and this difference is due entirely to the trifling and inexpensive improvements which are added little by little. A few shade trees set out along the sidewalk will, in a few years, add many times their cost to the value of the property, to say nothing of the satisfaction and c6mfort that will be taken in this possession. It is no uncommon thing for property owners to value a place a thousand dollars higher on account of the shade trees alone. In my experience in selling houses, I have often obtained a higher price for a property where the house was comparatively cheap and the grounds were pleasant and attractive, than one where the house was new, modern and much more costly. Another advantage gained by keeping your premises tasty, and in good condition, is, if you should at any time desire to sell the home you would sooner find a purchaser and get a much larger price, than a neglected, run-down property. I have succeeded well in selling my own real estate, as I always see that the buildings and grounds are made as attractive as may be, and the titles of the property perfect before offering it for sale. Every one should take this hint and beautify his home, not only in the matter of shade trees, but in everything that will enhance its value. Gravel walks, neat lawns, a painted fence -all add attractiveness to a place and make it more saleable. A. T. PAGE. The great hope of the laboring man is in saving his earnings and investing them to advantage. If temperance were conquered and household economy were thoroughly mastered by the masses, millions upon millions that are now wasted on appetite and in cheap but worthless goods would be saved. Economy is only wealth spelled another way. Micawber's philosophy is sound: $5.00 income: $5.25 expense; result, distress; $5.00 income; $4.75 expense; result, comfort. That is the entire first chapter of political economy in a nutshell. Whatever the income is, the outgo must be kept within it. One can make money twice as fast by saving it as by earning it. The greater the difference between wages and bills in favor of the former, the better for money-making. If half the effort that is spent to increase wages were given to saving them, most of the wage-workers would be capitalists. Extravagance is the hole in the bag that lets out the earnings of all classes alike. HoRsEs IN THE UNITED STATES.--The census bulletin places the number of horses in the United States in 1890 at 14,976,017. The states of Illinois, Iowa and Texas report over 1,000,000 each. Missouri and Kansas report 900,000 each. The increase of horses from 1880 to 1890 was 44.59 per cent. as against 34.59 per cent. between 1870 and 1880, and 14.34 per cent. between 1860 and 1870. The increase of mules from 1880 to 1890 was 26.66 per cent.; between 1870 and 1880 the increase was 61.08 per cent., while from 1860 to 1870 there was a decrease of 2.24 per cent. Of the aggregate number of horsee and mules in the whole country on June 1, 1890, 86.95 per cent. were horses and 13.05 per cent. were mules. Port Huron residents cut a chunk of water from Black river, the city's milk shake, and sent it to a Detroit chemist to be analyzed. The chemist is dead. -83 -NORTHERN MICHIGAN IS ONE GRAND SUMMER RESORT. From Traverse City to Mackinac, more than one hundred miles whether by rail or by water, is an almost constant succession of summer resorts, association grounds, with hundreds of cottages, with commodious hotel accommodations, with every variety of summer amusement afforded at modern watering-places. The general popularity of this entire region is attested by the many thousands, who, during the past years, have visited this country. A number of new resorts have been established by associations of Michigan citizens, or from oth6r adjacent states. Several of these new associations have such broad liberality of constitutions and by-laws, as permit them to welcome good people from everywhere at their resorts upon payment of a nominal fee, which entitles members to cottage sites upon the resort grounds. Of course it is expected that such will do as their neighbors have done, and are doing-build summer homes upon these sites. If the old adage about "the proof of the pudding " is of any value, this overwhelming testimony in favor of Northern Michigan, will make good the prognostication of a Chicago citizen, who prophecied that "within a few years more resorters will be found, every summer, on the shores of Lake Michigan and the inland waters of its eastern coast, than in any other like territory in the United States." Although, as already intimated, there are almost scores of these resorts, there are still many admirable points for location by similar organizations, and upon the principal of the old adage, " the more, the merrier," those who are seeking such possibilities will find it a decided advantage to locate in the midst of so many genial neighbors. It is proper to add, in this connection, that the cost of a summer home, whether a "log-cabin " or a "Newport villa," erected at any point in Northern Michigan, is probably lower than at any other resort in the United States; for this is the region of building material, and competent mechanics can be obtained at a day's notice from various points in Michigan, Chicago, Milwaukee, or other large and near cities. Another important fact, worthy the attention of those considering the building of such summer homes, is that admirable markets are at their very doors, so reducing the cost of living, though it include "all the delicacies of the season," as to make the figures scarcely more than the expense of staying at home. The foregoing facts doubtless have had great influence in determining the choice of so many hundreds, who have already selected Northern Michigan for their summer sojourn. Frequent service by fast, safe steamboats, is now provided upon nearly all of the inland waters, as well as upon the main lakes and the large bays of the entire region under consideration. To the casual visitor seeking variety, this accessibility of so many different resorts is a matter of no small moment after a tiresome journey of many miles by rail, on the heated and dusty cars; how refreshing the change from car to the pretty steamer, where a restful ride of one or two hours, lands you at your summer home on the beautiful Traverse Bay. The Cincinnati police are directed to arrest on sight any boy under fourteen years of age seen using tobacco in any form. The gold coinage of the world last year was $113,220,524, and the silver age was $127,239,384. -84--- OUR BEAUTIFUL BAY. T. C. Crawford, whose able letters from Washington and Europe have been one of the chief features of the New York World during the last few years, spent last summer with his family at Traverse City, and has there found a place where health, rest. and comfort abound and the mosquito singeth not. Mr. Crawford has a fifty-acre cottage site on the bay, and will make it his summer home hereafter. He spent the summers of 1889 and 1890 on the Mediterranean but in many respects prefers Traverse City as will be seen from extracts taken from a long and interesting letter, addressed to a friend in this city TRAVERSE BAY'S BRIGHT FUTURE. CHICAGo, Sept. 11.-During the course of a general conversation with you the other day, I spoke of a recent visit to Traverse City, Mich., and of the delightful character of the neighborhood, which surrounds this most unique of the western summer resorts. You asked me to give you, for newspaper publication, my impression of this region. The region about Traverse Bay ig one of the most favorable localities for summer visitors in the United States. Its future is certain when once all of its charming qualities are generally known. Then its most beautiful bay will be surrounded with summer homes. People who go away from the cities during the sumimner, hope, in search for summer resorts, to find places where the climate will be fresh and cool, where sanitary conditions are perfect, where malaria is unknown and where life is. simple and free from the wearisome conventionalities and requirements of the town. It is needless to dwell upon the many disappointments found in seeking for the ideal summer resort. I know every one of the great summer gathering places of this country and have seen the principal ones of the vacation corners of Europe. Of them all I cannot now recall one which is so satisfactory in all of its conditions for pleasure. contentment, health and rest as are to be found in this high, clear stimulating region of Traverse Bay. Eastern seaside resorts without exception have theif periods of fierce heat. Take the best of the Atlantic coast resorts and their comfort depends,. during the months of July and August, upon the direction of the wind. If you have a sea breeze the mercury is down to the point of ectacy and the air is full of life and sparkle. The faces of visitors then beam with content. Let the breeze shift from the sea and come from the land. The situation at once changes, the mercury mounts to the point of extreme distress and the mosquitoes swarm in from the back ground and take possession of the most sheltered corners. The surroundings of nearly all the seaside resorts are made up of marshes. The drainage of these summer places is hardly ever good, and the result is often the reverse of benefit to.visitors. Fevers are not uncommon with some of the most favored of the seashore places. This is only worthy of mention to give emphasis to the fact that in summer-resort regions where city visitors go, unless the natural conditions come to the aid of sanitary care, the chances are there will be unhappy instead of beneficial results. The health conditions should go first, but it is pleasant to note the fact that all of this perfection in natural sanitary conditions is, to be found in a region as beautiful as the surroundings of Lake George. You find there as captivating scenes of quiet beauty, as some of the more sheltered nooks along the Mediterranean, while the cloud, sky and water effect, ever changing in the daily panorama of the bay, coast and lake line, cannot be surpassed in -85 -any region in the world. What is written above may sound to strangers like extravagance, but a visit to this region any time after the first of June up to the first of October will afford the most skeptical the evidence that I have rather understated than overstated the merits of this protected and favored locality. The waters of the Grand Traverse region and the Michigan North woods are unsurpassed, if equaled, in the abundance and great variety of fish contained. Brook trout abound in the streams, and the famous American Grayling is found' only in these waters. The trout season begins May lst' and ends September 1st. The grayling season opens June lst and ends November lt. Black bass, pike, pickerel and muskalonge also abound in large numbers in the many lakes and lakelets of this territory. The sportsman can readily seud trophies of his skill to his friends or " Club " at home, as ice for packing fish can be had at nearly all points. Take your family with you. The scenery of the North woods and lakes is very beautiful. The air is pure, dry and bracing. The climate is peculiarly beneficial to those suffering with hay fever and asthmatic affections. The hotel accommodations are excellent and will be largely increased in time for the season of 1892, by new buildings and additions. During the season round trip excursion tickets will be sold at low rates, and attractive train facilities offered to tourists and sportsmen. If I might do one deed of good, The flimy wing that wafts the seed One little deed before I die, Upon the careless wind to earth, 'Or think one nolde thought, that should Of its short life has only need Hereafter forgotten lie, To find the germ lit place for birth I would not murmur, though I must For one swift moment of delight Be lost in death's unnumbered dust. It whirls, then withers out of sight. In Germany budding and grafting are taught in the National rural schools. In Sweden over 22,000 children are instructed in tree planting and horticulture. In France there are State schools for the paasantry in which they are taught garden and fruit culture. Do not be too touchy. Learn to restrain your feelings, and to gain a complete mastery over yourself. "1He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." Moral power is the greatest power, and moral heroes are the greatest heroes. -86 -TO OWNERS WISHING TO SELL. When 3 ou send an agent a description of your real estate, tell him the exact truth about it. If the property is located five miles from the nearest railroad station, do not call it two miles. If your farm cuts twenty-five tons of hay, do not call it seventy-five; do not count fruit trees that are good for nothing. If you cannot pasture and feed more than six head of cattle, it will not help you to say you keep sixty. If you have a wood lot of about one hundred cords of wood, we cannot advise you to represent it as about five hundred. If your house is one-and-a-half stories high, do not say it is two stories, and call every closet, pantry and cubby-hole a room. Buyers do not pay their money without a visit and thorough examination of the property, and will turn away in disgust when they find it has been grossly misrepresented. During the number of years I have been engaged in the real estate business, I have dealt quite extensively in farm buying and selling, and I have found in nearly all cases, where parties have placed their farms with me for sale, in giving the description the tendency was to give a more flattering description of the farm than the facts would warrant, and as the purchaserfound when be came to examine the property. I have tried to impress upon sellers the importance of giving a correct and truthful description of their property at all times, and in the end they will find it greatly to their advantage. Finally, in fixing the price, state just what you intend to take, and stick to it, as you stand no chance of selling when you fix a fancy pr ce. Most agents make a personal examination of the property, to enable them to describe it intelligently, and owners employing an agency to dispose of their real estate should select one they have confidence in, and place their property with it alone on such terms as will warrant such personal inspection. Often, however, the property to be sold is located at such a distance that the outlay of time and money is too great, hence the great care necessary where an agent has only the owner's description to rely on. If owners will bear in mind the few hints given above, they will greatly facilitate the prospect of a speedy sale of their property. A. T. PAGE, Grand Rapids, Mich., Buys and sells farms, city property, and timbered lands. MARVELLOUS DOIN&S OF FLEAS.-Fleas are possessed of great strength. Mouffet tells of a mechanic who made a gold chain five inches in length which a pet flea could easily drag about on any smooth surface. Bigley writes of a watchmaker on the Strand, London,, who had an ivory fourwheeled chariot with a coachman on its box, all of which was drawn with ease by his trained flea, "Dick." The same man afterwards made a carriage with six horses, a coachman, four persons inside, two footmen behind and a postillion on one of the horses, all drawn by a single flea. Latriella mentions a flea which dragged a silver cannon of twenty-four times its own weight, and showed no fear when the tiny piece was charvied with gunpowder and fired off. Rene also says he once saw three fleas drag an omnibus, a pair dragging a chariot and a single one pulling a brass cannon mounted on wheels. A California woman, Miss Alice Rideout, has been awarded the task of executing the sculpture to adorn the woman's building at the World's Fair. She has designed three figures for this purpose, representing "Woman's Virtues," "1Woman as the Spirit of Civilization," and " Woman's Place in History." Miss Rideout belongs to a wealthy family in San Francisco, and is a young woman of much beauty as well as talent. -87 -A DOUBLE CocoAuNT.-The Royal Botanic society has received for its museum a specimen of the double cocoanut, known also as coco de mer. For hundreds of years the origin of these nuts was a mystery, for they were never seen except when they were washed up by the sea. They were supposed to have wonderful powers in the way of curing disease, and were the subject of other superstitions until the place where they grew was at last discovered to be the Seychelies, a small group of islands in the Indian ocean. Formerly they were worth their weight in gold, and they are rare now. SPORTSMAN'S SERENADE. "'Oh! come with me in my little canoe, When the seas are calm and the skies are bluh, Oh, come with me, and pull th- trout, The muscalung and grayling out. For them the wildwood paths I rove; I jump the rafts, the legs I move. I bait the hooký, I watch the curl Of eddie1 where the small fish whirl. III. Oh! come with me in my little canoe, To Michigan, o'er its waters blue; With rod and gun, wake wood and stream And know joys that are not a dream. IV. The fish, tbe fry, the deer, the trout, The morning rows, the merry stout That greets thp brown boys, floating by, In my riad boats. 'naath northern sky.' Who blesses others in his daily deeds, Will find the healing that his spirit needs, For every flower in others' p thway thrown Confers its fragrant beauty on our own. SUMMER IS HERE! The shady glen, the mossy rock, 'The beach in all its glory, The picnic grove, the rustic seat, Now tell the old, old story. In broad brimmed hat and flannel suit, And shoes reflecting luster. The youth now woos the summer girl Far from the city's bluster. Anid in and out the jolly throng That seeks its summer pleasure, Young Cupid trips with merry song To Love's entrancing measure. For though bowed down by many cares That try his youthful mettle. He is the gayest of them allHe has no bills to settle. YOUTH AND AGE. Ah! foolish boys, Begirt by joys. Ye wish that ye were men. The old amen sigh: We would, they cry, That we were boys again. The State of Oregon is to have among its exhibits at the World's Fair a dish washing machine invented by a womnan. It is said to be the first machine of the kind that has ever proved a real success. Dishes will be washed and wiped in the presence of the public. A single steamer carried a cargo of copper valued at $610,000 out of Lake Superior. This is said to have been the most vgiluable cargo which ever passed through the 6t. Mary's canal in a single vessel. A whale, recently captured in Arctic waters, was found to have imbedded in its side a harpoon that belonged to a whaling vessel that had been out of service for nearly half a century. Deal fairly with the real estate agents. They work harder and have more perplexities fcr small pay than any other class of laboring men in the world. W. E. Parmalee, of Alba, Mich., killed the champion deer of the season. It weighed 263 pounds dressed. ):~y P2 H ~I 0 II I *1 I? f i' _ ~~I ___ -89 -0-ME-NA. (BEAUTIFUL GIFT.) Perhaps no place in the region of the great lakes and bays has so many advantages and beautiful scenery as "1Omena Heights." The great natural advantages of Omena have long been known, but not fully appreciated, until purchased by the Omena Hotel association, which, since purchasing has made extensive improvements, having opened a hotel on the Heights, inma natural forest grove, commanding a view of the bays and surrounding country, for many miles. The hotel is a quiet, bome-like place, constructed in the most substantial manner, with comfortable, well-finished, plastered rooms, with large dining-room, ladies' parlor, and gentlemen's sitting room; also, wide porches and all necessary attachments to render it a desirable family home for the summer. A large annex, affording elegant, quiet rooms for families, was erected last season to accommodate the great number of resorters who summered there. The Leelenaw Hotel is under competent management, with a special object to cater to the comfort and welfare of its guests. The association's grounds embrace 568 acres of land. Omena Heights is one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the bay. The harbor is one of the finest on the lakes. Omena Heights is about twenty miles from Traverse City, eight miles from Sutton's Bay, and six miles from Northport. The view from the hotel is magnficent. In a clear day Elk Rapids, Torch Lake, Norwood, Charlevoix, and the point beyond Northport, Sutton's day, and far up to the head of Traverse Bay, where Traverse City is located, can be distinctly seen. The natural, geographical and climate advantages of Omena Heights render it one of the most desii-able places of resort in the country for persons afflic-ted with hay fever, the atmosphere of the place affording immediate and permanent relief. The advantages that Omena affords to those who delight in fishing, hunting or boating, are equal to any point in Michigan. Ships and steamers from Chicago and other lake ports pass daily in full view of the hotel, while small steamers afford daily communication with Traverse City, Charlevoix, Petoskey, and Mackinaw. The boats at Traverse City make connection with the Grand Rapids and Indiana, and the Chicago and West Michigan railroad trains, and after a two-hours' ride on the beautiful Traverse bay, the steamer lands you at the Omena dock. Those that contemplate a trip of two weeks or more, should not forget " Omena Heights." HAY FEvER VIcTIms.-Professor Samuel Lockwood, of New Jersey, who is president of the Hay Fever Association, is authority for the statement that there are something like 200,000 sufferers from hay fever in the United States. The season opens in June and continues until frost comes. Juist think of it! Two hundred thousand red noses, 400,000 inflamed eyes, 200.000 men and women sneezing in continuous concert for some five months, 200,000 handkerchiefs waving in the summer breezes when there are summer breezes, but waiving anyhow. A goodly army this of the hay fever victims. To SUFFERERs FROM HAY FEvER.-The natural geographical and climatic advantages of Omena Heights render it one of the most desirable places in the country for persons afflicted with Hay Fever-the atmosphere of the place affording immediate and permanent relief. A continuance of hay fever after inhaling this invigorative atmosphere has never been known. And when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste to suit my dinner. -90 -REAL ESTATE. The real estate interests of any community are of the utmost importance, indicating, as they do to a great extent, its growth and prosperity, and the handling of which requires the keenest perception, good judgment, and careful management. Experience has shown that inflated values, induced by speculation, is not indicative of prosperity, and are frequently destructive by reason of the sudden and heavy reactions that must naturally follow. This has been frequently demonstrated in the "bols" that have distinguished many western cities of this country, which in most instances have had little or nothing behind them either in location or resources to warrant them, and in this manner much valuable capital has been misdirected. There can be no better illustration of this wild, reckless speculation in real estate than the monstrous " boom " that ran all through California in the years 1886 and 1887. Since the pilgrim fathers' landed upon this continent there has been nothing in the way of real estate inflation that would compare with this insane speculation. The city of San Diego, the last "1jumping-off place," upon the southwestern coast, became crazed with the real estate excitement. When I was there in 1887, business lots sold for 83,000 a front foot and residence lots in proportion. Speculation ran wild in the village of Pasadema; 8650 a front foot was paid for business lots, and $250 to $300 a foot for resident property. Los Angelos also got the " boom" bad; almost every one was a real estate dealer. At that time there were more real estate agents in Los Angelos than in all Michigan. During the first of this great speculation some made money, but when the reaction came the bubble burst, thousands lost all they had, and real estate became so depressed that it will take years to recover. Withal, there is no safer or better investment, nor one which ultimately pays better than real estate; where judicious investments are made at fair prices, where there is a healthy and prosperous growth, backed up by valuable undeveloped resources and advantages; stocks, bonds, and every variety of socalled securities, listed on public exchanges, are subject to a great variety of conditions that may wipe them out of existence, and when gone are not to be recovered. Real estate investments, on the contrary, no matter what vicissitudes may follow, always retain a face value that time and normal conditions must enhanice to the level of market values. Real estate offers the most substantial encouragement and affords the surest returns to thome who desire a safe investment for their money. ABEL T. PAGE, Dealer in Real Estate, will sell you a Home, a Farm, a Lot, or HardwootI or Pine Timbered Lands. AN EXTRAORDINARY TREE.-One of the mot extrordinary of African trees is that known as the baobab. It is almost a forest in itself and serves for a complete sylvan pal ace on the largest scale. Rarely growing more tban seventy feet high, its branches extend horizontally, supported by a trunk which has a girth greater, it is believed than that of any other known tree. One of these extraordinary trees was found to be forty feet in diameter. The age of another-counting the concentric rings-was found to be 5,000 years at the very least. "Taking all the natural advantages of this Grand Traverse and inland lake country into consideration, it is difficult to see how any better place forsummer recreation can be found anywhere. The cool nights, the bracing atmosphere, the clear waters, the boating, the fine fishing and scenery, form a, combination of attractions not to be excelled. -91 -THE NEW BOAT. The Grand Haven Express has this to say of the fine new boat now being built at that place for Capt. Webb: " Captain J. H. Webb, of the Traverse Bay line of steamers was in the city Friday, and contracted with the Grand Haven Boat Building Co. and Henry Bloecker & Co., for the building of a steamer that will run eighteen miles per hour, as when completed she will be required to make the round trip daily between Traverse City and Petoskey, a distance of 150 miles, in ten hours, including six stops. She will be 115 feet in length, 20 feet of moulded beam and 9 feet of moulded depth, with ample cabin accommodations upon the main deck aft, and a promenade deck extendine her entire length, with pilot house, officer's quarters and smoking room, all of which will be protected by an awning, extending the entire length of the boat. All details as to model of the boat and her machinery are intrusted to the contractors, who guarantee that she will be able to run 18 miles per hour, and where these gentlemen are known their word is sufficient guaranty that she will be able to acoromplish all that is required when completed. She will cost, when equipped, between $15,000 and $18,000." NAKED TRUTH. Little drops of printers' ink Little bits of stinginessAnd little type " displayed." Discarcing printers' inkMake our merchants princes "Busts " the man of business With all their big parade. And sees his credit sink. I rejoice in the provision that it made for more leisure, more vacation, more laughter, and less crying. These rub out the wrinkles. They widen the brain. They make the heart pulsate with better blood. Relaxation is a good thing.-[Henry Ward Beecher. Save in youth to spend in old age. If you earn one dollar a day, don't spend but ninety cents, and sooner or later vou will be a capitalist. A small income at first may in a few years become a large income. Try it. The health journals and the doctors all agree that the best and most wholesome part of the ordinary New England courtry doughnut is the hole. The larger the hole they say, the better the doughnut. The largest fruit farm in West Virginia, is the Becker farm, near Harper's Ferry. It contains 5,000 Apricot trees, 37,000 peach trees, 3,000 plum trees, 5,000 miscellaneous fruit trees and 35,000 grape vines. It is said that from the cupola of the Leelanaw hotel at Omena, on a clear day, Traverse City, twenty-two miles south, and Point Petoskey, more than fifty miles to the north can be distinctly smen. Five large Michigan bears were killed in Clare county recently, the largest weighing 380 pounds. The fellow that has lived fifty years and isn't half way to heaven had better try another road. GRAND TRAVERSE BAY. The beauty of TraverEebay itself is well described by a lady who visited it some years since: 'Sometime- 'tis a shield of silver, When its sea-green waves are tossing, Bright in the sunshine's glow, How freshly the breezes blow: Reflecting the white sailed vessels, Like the breath of life to the fainting, Like a mirror fair below. In the simoon's fervid glow. And sometimes the lightest ripple But the wild winds wake its billows, Dimples its waters blue, Sweeping with sullen roar, And rocks like an infant's cradle Till they oash in misty fragments The skiff and the light canoe. Far on the sandy shore. And we watch the gorgeous sunsets All stirred by fearful tempest Of rosy and golden dyes, Or calm in a summer's day: Till it seems that over its waters Whatever its moods may picture The path of glory lies. 'Tis beautiful Traverse Bay." VALUE IN REAL ESTATE-THE ADVANTAGE OF A MORTGAGE. If any of our readers will take the trouble to find out among our citizens the men of wealth and influence, and then consider the means by which that wealth has been secured, it will be found that a large proportion has been gathered from transactions in, and the rise of, real estate. Though many have been successful in other enterprises, and succeeded in accumulating comfortable and well to-do fortunes from other kinds of business, most of even these have had their wealth considerably increased in this way. We do not propose to cite particular examples, for the opportunities for comparison are open to all. We may venture the statement, however, that no other interest, no other single avenue of trade or branch of business, has been so uniformally successful. The case of loss or failure have been as one to twenty in other departments. Indeed, it will be hard to find a man among us who has bought, held or sold real estate without having made large profits on the investments, and it remains a question as to whether any other branch of business can show so good a record. Many reasons might be adduced in support of the general proposition that every head of a family should have an investment in real estate, at least to the extent of a proprietary interest in the homestead property occupied by the family. It is unquestionable that the best interests of society, as well as for the individual, are thereby greatly promoted. It is far better for both that the iDdividual should be the possessor of incumbered real estate, rather than that he should have no claim or ownership in the soil. A mortgage on the homestead that can be paid off by small moithly installments in lieu of rent, will promote habits of economy and thrift. The monthly payments instead of being tardily and grudgingly made to a landlord, will be promptly and carefully met to the mortgagor. for it will have become a matter of profit instead of loss-a saving in place of a former expense. A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain-it is a seed which, even dropped by chance, springs up a flower. Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in." -93 - Fifty-seven sailors lost their lives on the great lakes during the past season-the largest number known during any one year. Nearly all the fatalities occurred during November. Not a passenger was lost during the entire season, however. If every person would be half as good as he expect3 his neighbor to be, what a heaven this world would be. 94 -WAGON ROAD DISTANCES FROM GRAND RAPIDS. TO MILES. Alpine Station.................... 8 A da..............................10 Alaska..........................16 Allendale......................... 18 A ilegan..........................38 Byron Center..................12 Berlin.........................1.0 Big Rapids.......................(60 Courtland Center..................20. Cascade..........................10 Cannonsburg....................16 Codar Springs....................22 Caledonia Station.................1,s Casnovia.........................22 Coopersville......................16 Fisher's Station................... 7 Grattan Center...................22 G randville....................... 7 Grand Haven..................36 Greenville........................34 Holland City....................30 TO MILES. Hudsonvklle......................13 H astings.........................40 Ionia.............................34 K ent City........................20 Kalam azoo.......................48 Lisbon........................16 Lowe.......18 Lam ont..................*" * '.....14 Muskegon...............I.......40 M iddleville.......................26 Nunica........................24 N ewaygo.........................39 Plaintield.........................10 Ross Station......................13 Rockford.........................14 Sand Lake.......................29 Sparta Center....................13 Spring Lake...................33 W hitneyville......................14 Zeeland.......................24 A writer on domestic economy says: "It is often desirable to promote the selling of houses and farms on credit. The members of a family occupying a hired house usually live up to their income. There is no home feeling credited among them. Give that family a proprietary interest, however small, in the dwelling and its surroundings, and they will become far more economical. They will cease t( be spendthrifts, living from hand to mouth, and make all possible efforts to clear off the debt. They will cherish the property and preserve it, instead of allowing it to go to decay. They will set out trees, shrubs and plants, feeling that they are ours. They will take a deeper interest in the advancement of society, will become thrifty citizens instead of migratOry tenants, and the children will grow up with home attachment and become far better citizens. The mass of our well-to-do farmerE, though who now own their broad acres, were at first helped to a start in life by the aid received in the way of a mortgage loan upon their land and improvements, and by saving, with iudustry soouer or later paid their mortgage and become independent. The Building and Loan Association of our city are doing much in the way of helping the poor man to own a house, and I know of many families that have secured loans through the Association, that are now happy and prosperous in their new homes. ABEL 1. PAGE, Insurance and Loan Agent, Room 7 McReynold Block, Grand Rapids, Mich. A wild sweeet orange has been discovered growing in the northern part of Florida. The fruit hangs on the tree all the year round, often for six months after it is fully ripe. One hundred and twenty-five dogs, ranging in value from $25 to $10,000, was on exhibition at the Stephenson county (Ill.)pet stock and poultry show which opened at Freeport Thursday, Dec. 20, 1892. -95 -HOW TO CARRY A GUN. The Forest and Stream recently published a complete set of rules for carrying a gun, and -as the season of the year has come when the "unloaded" gun is killing more people than an epidemic, it is to be hoped that these rules will b1 well considered and applied, especially by boys: 1. Empty or loaded, never point a. gun toward yourself or any other person. 2. When a-field, carry your gun at the half-cock. If in cover, let. your hand shield the hammers from whipping twigs. 3. When riding from one shooting ground to another, or whenever you have your gun in any conveyance, remove the cartridges, if a breech-loader, it being so easy to replace. If a muzzle loader, remove the caps, brush off the nipples, and place a wad on nipple, letting down the hammers on wadssimply removing caps sometimes leaves a little fulminate on the nipple, and a blow on hammer when down discharges it. 4. Never draw a gun toward you by the barrel. 5. More care is necessary in the use of the gun in a boat than elsewhere; the limited space, confined action, and uncertain motion making it dangerous at the best. If possible, no more than two persons should occupy a boat. Hammerless guns are a constant danger to persons boating. 6. Always clean your gun thorougbly as soon as you return from a day's sport, no matter how tired you feel; the consequence of its always being ready for service is ample return for the few minutes' irksome labor. BOUND FOR MISTY SCOTLAND.-F. B. Munshaw & Co. will ship a coiisignment of maple logs next week from their mills at Kingsley to Glasgow, Scotland. The consignment will consist of five car loads and will be sent direct to James Kennedy & Co. The logs are to be used for manufacturing rolls with which to stamp prints and the various kinds of cloth. The freight on the shipment will amount to $51 per thousand, and the timber delivered at Glasgow will be valued at $75 to $90 a thousand. This is believed to be the first shipment of maple logs from Michigan to that company. The expense of shipping from here to Baltimore will exceed the amount from that point to Glasgow. If your friend faint, lay him upon his back; then loosen his clothing and let him alone, only giving him fresh air or fanning him. Do not allow others to crowd about him. The new Government silver vault is eighty-five feet long, fifty wide, and twelve feet high. It has sixteen compartments, each capable of holding 6,500,000 silver dollars. It is proposed in Chicago to engage a matron for every school building in the city, whose duty it shall be to look after the physical well-being of the pupils. Every excess in youth makes a draft upon old age. "He that would get along in the world must paddle his own canoe." Portland, Mich., hunters have already gathered in 3,000 rabbits. '-96 -ON PILING WOOD.--Many people who handle wood do not know that if they wish the bark to some off they should pile it bark down; if they wish to retain the bark the opposite course should be taken. A correspondent writes to the Detroit Post and Tribune, giving his experience as follows: "I have sold wood for over forty years in Michigan and I find that when wood is corded bark up the bark remains on until I sell and measure up the wood, and all that is piled bark down, the bark falls off and measures nothing; besides, there is more heat in the-bark than there is. in the sap of the log. The most and best ashes are also in' the bark. I have on my place now some maple wood that was chopped nine years ago and corded bark up and the bark would hold on if I would draw the wood to Saginaw (18 miles) and cord up and measure; besides, the 'bark is lighter to draw. Where the bark is piled down the water runs in around the wood and makes it dozy, wet and heavy. Tell your neighbors to try it. Railroad companies would save thousands of dollars by piling their wood bark up. What does it matter, 'then, if here we are uncalendared, if the great world does not know or care if ive have honor and receive the recognition which is perhaps our due? In the end the world shall fade' away, but enduring honor shall be given him whose name is enrolled on the heavenly calendar. Lord, I care not for riches, In the book of thy kingdom, Neither silver nor gold; With its pages so fair, I would make sure of heaven, Tell me, Jesus, my Saviour, I would enter the fold. Is my name written there? A fine wild white swan stopped in its flight over Battle Creek to examine one of the new electric lamps and became so bewildered, dazzled and dum.founded by it that it couldn't continue its trip. W. S. Durkee, vice president of the chicken association, has the beautiful bird and is going to exhibit it alive at the chicken show this winter. A wild turkey alighted on a church in Grand Haven and obligingly waited until all the sportsmen in town had been notified. They all shot in concert and the first volley shattered the ridge pole of the church, scared the turkey into flying away and the fun was at an end. The Northern Michigan Seed Company is the name of a new enterprise launched in Charlevoix, and which is believed to have unlimited possibilities before it. It is said that there is a growing demand for the hardy northern grown seed, and the company will fill this long-felt want. What is the latest estimate of the entire population of the world? According to the edition of the Bevoelkerung dcer Erde, just issued by Dr. Hermann Wagner, professor of geography in the University of Gottingen, the present population of the world is 1,479,729,400. The United States has 46,000 oil wells, which produce' 130,000 barrels of oil a day. The population of the earth bas doubled itself in 260 years. St. Peter's church, Rome, will hold 54,000 people. -97 -THE GREAT STATE FOR SALT. The twenty-third annual report and the first of State Inspector Casey showing the operations of the state salt inspaction laws for tbe year ending November 30, 1891, was completed December 14. The state is divided into nine inspection districts, in which there were operated last year, by 113 firms, 112 salt plants and 4,000 solar salt covers, with an estimate annual capacity of 5,900.000 barrels of salt. The quantity inspected in the several districts last year was as follows: Saginaw, 962,954 barrels; Bay, 811,890 barrels; Huron, 47.407 barrels; St. Clair, 255,525 barrels; Josco, 239,365 barrels; Midland, 40,603 barrels; Manistee, 1,125,696 barrels; Mason, 443,231 barrels. Total, 3,927,670 barrels. No salt was manufactured last year in the greatest district. The inspection does not show the total product, for a portion is carried in the bins. The total product of the state for the year was 3,966,784 barrels. The production in 1890 was 3,863,407 barrels. The inspection law went into effect in 1&69, and there has been inspected since that date 53,520,293 barrels. Prior to1869 there was produced 3,282,117 barrels, making the total product of the state since the manufacture of salt began in 1860, 56,802,410. As com pared with the inspection year 1890 there has been a decrease in the quantity inspected in Saainaw of 143,900 barrels; Bay, 8,213 barrels;. Huron, 8,274 barrels; losco, 49,867 barrels; and Midland, 9,006 barrels. Man - istee shows an increase of 119,171 barrels, Mason of 75,607, and St. Louis 13,514 barrels. The receipts of the state salt office for the year were $11,783.01 and the expenditure $9,488.48, leaving a balance of $2,204.53. For the first year in the history of salt manufacture the Saginaw district takes second place, Manistee going to the front. MIcHIGAN CROP REPORT.-Reports show that the total number of busbels of wheat marketed in Michigan during the months of August, September October and November was 7,010,955, an increase of 1,061,084 bushels over the number reported marketed in the same months last year. The total number of farms in the state is 146,589, which exceeds the number reported in the spring of 1890 by 8399. The area of improved land in farms is 8,259,185 acres, an increase of 276,577 acres, compared with 1890. The area of unimproved land is 4,605,779 acres, and the total area in farms is 12,861,964 acres, an increase of 299,227 acres as compared with the present year. The average size of farms is 87.74 acres, or more than three acres less than one year ago. According to a Boston newspaper, the last of New England's historic elms was cut down a few days ago, the tree being the famous Winchester elm in that city. It was standing full grown when the white man first came to that region. Under it was signed the last treaty with the Indians, and under it stood Captain Brooks when, in 1775, he was summoned to arm against the British by the flying courier. A sperm whale forty feet long was washed ashore at Ocean City, MA., and upon being cut open a five gallon demijohn of good rye whisky was found in its stomach. An Indiarq brought two very rare animals into Rogers City last week, a black wolf and a black fox. The wolf was shot and the fox was caught in a trap. -98 - THE SECRET OF HEALTH. Don't worry. Don't hurry. "Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow." "Simplify!" "simplify!" "simplify!" Don't overeat. Don't starve. "Let your moderation be known to all men." Court the fresh air day and night. "Oh, if you knew what was in the air." Sleep and rest abundantly. Sleep is nature's benediction. Spend less nervous energy each day than you make. Be cheerful. "A light heart lives long." Think only healthful thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so be is." Avoid passion and excitement. A moment's anger may be fatal. "Don't carry the whole world on your shoulders, far less the universe. Trust the Eternal." Never despair. "Lost hope is a fatal disease." "If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." GOOD RULES TO REMEMBER.-The world estimates men by their success in life, and by general consent success is evidence of superiority of a certain kind. Never, under any circumstances, assume a responsibility you can avoid consistently with your duty to yourself and others.; Base all your actions upon a principle of right;- preserve your integrity of character, and, doing this, never reckon the cost. Let your expenses be such as to leave a balance in your pocket. Ready money is a friend in needWine drinking and smoking are bad habits. They impair the mind and pocket and lead to waste of time.. Education pays an annual income for life, without expense for insurance, repairs or taxes. Never relate your misfortunes, and never grieve over what you cannot prevent. Never make money at the expense of yonr reputation. 0 Lord! open the eyes of those who are suffering. May they see the heavens filled with the angels and Chariots of God. May they feel that more are they' that are for them than they that are against them. Jn every hour of trouble may they know how to find rescue. May they find comfort in the presence and sympathy aid power and promises of Jesus Christ. Inthe hope of victory, in the certainty of life and immortality beyond, may they find strength and consolation. The possession of real estate is a substantial capital.. If one's title is good, no thief can steal it. It needs no insurance policy to make it safe. Nothing short of an earthquake can swallow it; and they don't send up earthquakes to accommodate jealous neighbors. The output of matches in the United States amounts to $12,000,000 a year. One cubic foot of lumber produces exactly 15,000 sticks of matches, and an ordinary match manufactory turns out about 40,000,000 sticks a day. ANOTHER RAILROAD FOR TRAVERSE CITY. A year or so ago the Herald stated its belief that the Michigan Central road would, betore long, seek a northwestern outlet at Traverse City. The Traverse City, Kalkaska and Grayling railroad was organized, incorporated, and grading and track laying begun at Grayling. The Herald now has it from reliable authority that the M. C. R. R. will at once take hold of this road and push it through to this point. The great advantage to Traverse City is at once apparent. It would give us a direct eastern outlet and, what is of equal importance, direct communication with the Saginaw valley and the whole eastern and northeastern part of the state. A year ago, the editor of the Herald, met at Saginaw, leading business men of both the Saginaws and Bay City, and they were all enthusiastic in this matter, and agreed to do all in their power to secure the connection between the Grand Traverse and Saginaw countries. The Manistee and Northeastern would connect at this point, and thus the two great salt and lumber producing points of the state would meet at Traverse City. The building of this road would also mean a direct connecting line to Alpena. Now take your map and note how all the railroad lines of northern Michigan must center at Traverse City. The G. R. & I.; the C. & W. M.; the C. & N. M.; the1M. & N. E.; the T. A. A. & N. M. (entering town over the M. & N. E. track); are already secured; and now with the T. C. K. & G. (controlled by the M. C.) and its connecting line to Alpena Traverse City becomes the center of railroad traffle, the center of the manufacturing industries, and the center of trade for all northern Michigan.- Traverse Herald. George W. Vanderbilt. youngest son of W. H. Vanderbilt,- is erecting a palace near Asheville, N. C. It is to be three hundred by four hundred feet in size, to cost ten million dollars, and to be many years in building. As the stone is found and the brick made on his grounids, it will be seen that ten million dollars will. go a good way. It is on the top of a magnificent height and commands a very fine view. The extent of the depletion of the spruce, pine, hemlock and cedar forests for Christmas trees and greens is becoming more and more alarming every year. The choicest trees are the ones that are taken, and the result is that it is difficult to find perfectly shapely trees. The work of spoiliation begins as early as October, and thousands of people are engaged in the business. The Japanese law, that for every tree cut down a tree or shrub must be planted, should prevail in this country. Save the trees. SANDY LANDs.-The Pentwater News says: "The sandy-land farmers are coming to the front rapidly. The opinion is fast gaining ground that our sandy lands, properly bandled, are the most profitable, standing drought much better than clay lands, as well as resisting 'hard and open winters. Wheat is never injured upon them by the winter. Some of the nicest farms 'in the vicinity of Whitehall, Mich. were, a few years ago, but drifting sand." In the center of a sawing thirty-two inches in diameter, that was found at Moore, Mich., was an Indian tomahawk. It is six inches in length and has a blade of roughly forged lion about two and a half inches long. The solid timber over the head of the tomahawk was ten inches in thickness. It is estimated that it has been in the tree two centuries. -100 -RATES OF COMMISSION AND RULES OF MY OFFICE. All property placed in my hands verbally, or in any other way, is understood to be subject to the following Rules and Rates, from which there will be no deviation, except it be put in writing at the time of placing the property on our lists: 1. We look for commissions always to the seller and never to the buyer. 2. Owners must set the price at which they will sell, on which, if obtained, our commissions will be based. We shall in no case undertake to get our pay by asking any advance upon such price. 3. Introducing, or sending a customer to an owner, in case of sale, enititles us to commissions. When desired by the owners, we conduct the entire sale without extra charge. 4. Property once placed on our lists will be considered on sale at the price stated, till we are notified to the contrary. 5. It no notice be given of advance in price or withdrawal of property, and we furnish a customer at the price fixed, we shall invariably claim our commission. (The above regulations apply to sales, exchanges, and rental of property.) 6. Information obtained from or through our office, directly or indirectly, entitles us to our commission. 7. Commissions are due and payable upon the contract for sale, exchange or rent being signed by the parties thereto. 8. Any disagreement between the parties, after signing said contract, does not impair our claim for commissions. 9. Should an imperfect title prevent the consummation of a sale, it will not invalidate our claims for commissions. Owners should know their title before asking the services of a broker. 10. For exchanging property we charge full commission. TERMS FOR SELLING REAL ESTATE IN THE CITY AND COUNTRY. On the first $1,000 and under, 3 per cent. On amount in excess of $1,000 and not exceeding $10,000, 212 per cent. On amount in excess of $10,000 and not exceeding $20,000, 2 per cent. On amount in excess of $20,000 and not exceeding $50,000, 1% per cent. On amount in excess of $50,000, special contract will be made. On sales for fiduciaries, one-half of the above rates. On sales of personal property, 71 per cent. On sales of farms and other country property, 21 per cent. On sales of mineral lands, 10 per cent. RENTING. For renting farms and suburban property, 5 per cent. For renting dwellings and stores in the city, 2 per cent. LOANS. Money loaned upon first-class real-estate security, for 1 per cent. COLLECTIONS. Where money is paid in the office, 4 per cent. Collections made outside of the office, 10 per cent. CARE OF PROPERTY. Farms and city property, left in my care as agent, to rent, collect, pay taxes, etc. Charge $10 to $25 per year. To customers wanting to purchase real estate, we make no charges for -101 -any information, knowledge or advice relating to the business. To buyers and sellers we cheerfully give them the advantage of our judgment and experience. Parties not customers, who desire my opinion and services to examine and appraise real estate, a fee of $5 to $10 will be charged. Parties writing me upon business must enclose stamp for reply. Property left with me for sale, I shall expect the exclusive agency for a stipulated time. I consider this best for the owner and agent. MERCHANDISE FOR REAL ESTATE. We frequently have stocks of various kinds of merchandise, which we. can exchange for good lands West, or real estate in this vicinity. Call at our office for information, or write us, enclosing stamps. REPUTABLE BROKERS. Furnishing customers for any property offered, we will, on settlement, be entitled to an equitable share of our commission. In order to avoid entanglements, we require that the purchaser in person shall be introduced to us, when we will conduct the negotiation. We prefer to take country or farm property for a period not shorter than six months, not necessarily because it will require that length of time to dispose of it, as it is to our iterest to sell it as quickly as possible, but experience has proven the advantage to both the owner and ourselves, of this period. We can sell property at its value; owners not willing to take that will please not trounle us. The advance fee would be no inducement to camber our books with unsaleable property. N. B.--Owners sending us real estate to be sold will greatly facilitate matters and save much unnecessary correspondence by giving us a full and minute description of it., STAT[NG FACTS ONLY, and SuchI INFORMATION as they would want were they wishing to purchase. Address all communications to ABEL T. PAGE, Real Estate and Loan Agent, Grand Rapids, Michigan. There is an ink bottle exhibited in a window of a Broadway (N. Y.) store which is labeled as a relic of the dynamite explosion in Mr. Sage's office. The sign says, "4This is the very bottle that contained the very iuk which Russell Sage would have used in signing a check for $1,200,000, if he had acceded to the dynamiter's demand." A Quakei'ess, Betsy Ross, is said to have made the first flag of stars and stripes used in the United States army. She did the work in a little brick house still standing on Arch street, Philadelphia, and now there is talk ot buying it and moving it, as well as William Penn's house, to Chicago for the World's fair. KEEPING FRUIT.-They have a way of keeping fruit now in Michigan that preserves grapes fresh and hard until March. They surround them with ice. Grapes held at a temperature of from live to twenty-five degrees from freezing point will keep a year. Grapes kept in dry sand retain their freshness for months. An ounce of mother, says the Spanish proverb, is worth a pound of clergy. -102 -SAVE TO SPEND IN OLD AGE. It is the duty of every poor man to save something. The possession of a few dollars often makes all the difference between happiness and misery, and no man, especially with a family dependent on him, can be truly independent unless he has a few dollars reserved for the time of need. While extreme carelessness as to the expenditure of meney, will make a rich man poor; A wise economy will almost as certainly make a poor man rich, or at least to a considerable extent make him independent of the caprice of his employes and of the common vicissitudes of life. Nothing is more important to the poor man than the habit of saving something; bis little hoard will begin to grow at a rate which will surprise and gratify him. Every workingman ought to have an account in some savings bank, and should add to it every week during which he has full employment, even if the addition is but one dollar at a time. If he does this he will soon find the dollars growing into tens, and these tens into hundreds; and in a little time will be in possession of a sum which is constantly yielding an addition to his income, which secures him a reserve fund whenever one is needed, and which will enable him to do many things, which, without the money he would be powerless to do. WHO WILL ROCK THE CRADLE? When mamma to the court has hied, When woman's rights have come to stay, Oh, who will rock the cradle? Oh, who will rock the errdle? She has a case that must be tried. When wives are at the polls all day, But who will rock the cradle? Oh, who will rock the cradle? When Captain Mamma walks her decks,. When Doctor Mamma's making pills. When Banker Mamnma's cashing checks, When Merchant Mamma's selling bills, When all our girls have lost their sex, Of course 'twill cure all woman s ills, Must But who will rock the cradle? PPARock The cradle? A HEARTY LAUGH. Of all the faith, that wins the highest grace Whose indication is a cheerful face; Of all the works that is the best by half That sometimes blossoms in a hearty laugh. When the favorite horse of a friend of ours went lame, he consoled him-- self by the thought, "Well, after all, it is better that it is not the horse of some man who gains his living by him." This is like what Fenelon said when his library got on fire-he thanked God that it was not the house of a poor man. During the recent blizzard in North Dakota farmers were caught so short of fuel that they had to burn their furniture to keep from freezing to death. Come to Michigan where wood and coal is plenty and cheap and keep warm. Abel T. Page, pioneer real estate dealer, resident of the state and cityfifty years. -103 -NORTHERN MICHIGAN FRUIT FARMS. One of the finest fruit farms in Michigan belongs to Judge Ramsdell, of Traverse City. Here, almost as far north as Montreal and Quebec is a grape, peach, apple and plum farm of 320 acres. Judge Ramsdell is the pioneer fruit grower in Grand Traverse county. His farm has a great reputation all over the State for its wonderful yield of the best varieties of apple, peach, pear and plums. The Judge ships by boat and rail thousands of bushels of fruit to Eastern and Western markets, and apples of his raising have been shipped to England. His plum crop is usually a large one, and the quality of the fruit very fine and attractive and, like the Traverse potatoes, are known all over the country and command the highest price in the market. The Judge enjoys fruit raising and horticulture. He thoroughly understands the business in all of its departments, and by his knowledge and experience in that line has made fruit-growing successful and profitable. Judge Ramsdell has done as much, or more, in the interests of fruit raising and horticulture as any person in the State, and it is largely through his efforts and influence in the past that the farmers and fruit growers of the Traverse region and the Northwestern portion of the State have been stimulated and encouraged to engage so generally in the profitable occupation of fruit culture. Forty years ago I was interested with my father in the nursery business and horticulture in Grand Rapids, and I remember what he said to me regarding fruit- growing in this State, "That I would live to see Michigan one of the greatest fruit-producing States in the Union." At that time I had but little faith that his prediction would prove true in my day, as at that time more than half of the State was an unbroken wilderness. It is now an established fact that for quality, variety and amount of production, Michigan as a fruit-growing State is one of the first, if not the first, in the Union. For the last twenty years the profits from fruit raising have added much to the wealth of the State. The farmers are learning that the products from their apple orchards are the most profitable revenue from their farms, and I am pleased to know that the old orchards are receiving better care and hundreds of new orchards are being planted out all over the State. One thing the fruit-growers of Michigan can be certain of. fruit raising in this State can never be overdone. For all of Michigan's surplus fruit and berries we have one of the best markets in the world almost at our doors. The Northwestern part of the State, with Grand Rapids as the shipping center, is highly favored, as fruitgrowers can ship their fruit by boat or rail, and in six hours from time of shipping it arrives fresh and in good condition in the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee where over two millions of people are ready and anxious to pay a good price for Michigan's tempting and luscious fruits. I have been a resident of the State for fifty years, and I have never known, during that time, a year when good apples would not sell from $1.50 to $5.00 per barrel, and I speak advisedly and from experience when I say there is no State in the Union where capital can be invested in fruit culture as profitably as in Michigan. It may be judged that the woodland is largely suffering, when we remember that there are over 50,000 saw mills in the United States. Muskegon has some thirty or more steam sawmills and manufactures from 400,000,000 to 600,000,000 feet of lumber per year. Improved stock, improved men and women and improved everything else are called for in this age. -104 - A GREAT FRUIT BELT LOCATED IN WESTERN MICHIGAN. PROFESSOR. ALEXANDER WINCHELL SAYS THAT ITS PROXIMITY TO LAKE MICHIGAN EQUALIZES ITS CLIMATE. WHERE EXTREME COLD IS NEVER KNOWN. There are few people but think that. they know a great deal about the weather and the climate of the place they live. Each winter is to them either the coldest or most open for years and all summers are the hottest. The. oldest inhabitant is frequently called on to corroborate tales of extremes of heat and cold and startling statements are frequently made. But few persons, with all their pretensions, really know anything of the actual climatic conditions of the country they live in, and their ideas are usually far from the facts. Western Michigan has been misrepresented to a sorrowful extent in this way and some facts, gathered from indisputable authority will be interestiDg. The meteorology of this region is peculiarly interesting because of the influence the great lakes has over it. Closely connected with the climate of any country is its industrial resources aid material prosperity, iF not its civilization. The figures relative to extremes of beat and cold as well as the mean temperature for summer and winter shows'that M1chigan has a peculiarlclimate. According to the late Alexander Winchell, its climate "is better adapted to the interests of agriculture and horticulture, and probably, also, to the comfort and health of its citizens, than the climate of any other northwestern state." It is a long established fact that large bodies of water exert a local influence in modifying climate and esprcially in averting frosts. Water is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the land and country contiguous to oceans have a more nearly equal temperature, with less extremes of heat and cold. It is only within recant years that the influence exerted by Lake Michigan has been felt and estimated at its real value. The body of water is of sufficient size to effect the climate of the entire state an I especially the region near its shores. FACTS FROM ALEXANDER WINCRELL. For a long period of years Alexander Winchell, has been recognized as one of the leading meteorologists and geologists of the world. He was a vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was once-chancellor of the Syracuse university and was long an honored professor in our own -105 -University of Michigan. This article is made up of facts taken from a paper prepared by him regarding the climate of Michigan, and exttacts are taken verbatim from that paper. WHAT THIS MEANS TO MICHIGAN. The excess of the warming influence of Lake Michigan on the eastern over the western shore is most apparent. The mean winter temperature for Chicago is 24' degrees, while that of New Buffalo, in the same latitude, is 28 degrees. The winter mean of Milwaukee is 22 degrees while that of Muskegon is 26. The winter mean of Ft. Howard is 20 degrees, that of Applenon 19, while Traverse City, further north than either, has a mean temperature of 232. This illustrates still further the fact that winter winds blow from the west. EMPHASIZED STILL FURTHER. This difference is still further emphasized when the figures are shown indicating the lowest temperature that has been noted in this region during the last thirty years. The lowest point ever indicated by a thermometer in Mackinac is but two *degrees lower than has been recorded at St. Louis. Chicago has had weather twelve degrees colder than any ever observed in New Buffalo. The coldest weather ever noted in Milwaukee was fourteen degrees colder than any ever exprienced at Muskegon or Grand Haven, just across the lake. These figures were obtained by Prof. Winchell from observations made by the signal service of the United States Army. Another comparison will probably make the difference between the two sides of the lake more clear. For the period for which these figures were obtained, the average of the lowest temperature noted each year on the west side of the lake is sixteen degree below zero. On the east side the average is but six degrees below zero. On the west side of the lake the thermometer on coldest days of the year shows from twenty-two to thirty degrees below zero. On the east side of the lake the coldest temperature- known is from ten to sixteen degrees below zero. THE FRUIT BELT. "It is proper to direct attention to the important bearing of these addit ional facts upon the result of soil cultivation," comments Prof. Wiuchell. "1It will be remembered that it is not the sevetity of the winter mean, but that of the winter extremes which conditions the immunity of exotic plants from destructive frost. One killing freeze is as fatal as thirty. That one fatal freeze is as likely to occar at Ft. Riley, Leavenworth, Peoria, or even at St. Louis, as at Mackinac. The whole east shore of Lake Michigan is fifteen to twenty degrees more secure than any of the places just named. As grapes and peach trees require for their destruction a teamperatureof twenty degrees below zero,:t is apparent that peach orchards and vineyards are perfectly secure along the whole extent of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan." It is not difficult to discover the reasons for these climatic effects. It lies in the comparatively low capacity of watery surfaces for absorbing and radiating heat. The average temperature of the land in the latitude of the middle of Lake Michigan is about,41 degrees, and that of the lake a few degrees higher. In July the temperature of the land rises to 74 degrees while the water in the lake is about 52. This difference is partly due to the fact that upon the land the heat from the solar rays is accumulated near the surface, while upon the water it is disseminated through the whole mass, at least to a considerable extent. In January the average temperature of the land falls to 19 degrees while that of the water remains at about 40. The atmosphere -106 -while in contact.with the water must partake to a certain degree of the temperature of the water and when moving over the land it imparts some of the heat or cold that was absorbed from the water to the land. The effect is to equalize the temperature in the land in summer and winter. This tendency is most distinctly felt in cases of extreme cold weather. At such times the wind nearly always blows from the southwest or west, and, passing diagonally across 100 to 200 miles of the comparatively warm water in Lake Michigan, it must necessarily become warmer and thus effect the first land that it strikes. AN IMPORTANT AIDVANTAGE. The importance of the condition to the counties along Lake Michigan can hardly be over estimated. Within these counties, where immunity from severe cold is secured, fruit can be raised with a surety of a crop that can not be secured in other parts of the State. For raising grapes, peaches and other fruit that can not stand excessive cold without danger to the buds, the Fruit. Belt of Western Michigan is on a par with regions in the same latitude as St. Louis or Cincinnati. Many,persons who are so fortunate as to own farms. near the east side of Lake Michigan already know the facts set forth in this. article, but they do not understand the causes. It is hoped that this digest, of Prof. Winchell's opinions is sufficiently clear to be easily understood. When the fact, demonstrated by observations made by the United States government as well as by the experience of thousands of practical farmers and fruit growers, that the climate of the Fruit Belt along Western Michigan is not su bject to great extremes of cold, is understood, the future pre-eminence of the region cannot be questioned. Add to this the further fact that the growing season is from two to three weeks longer than elsewhere in the State or across the lake, and Western Michigan becomes a paradise for the farmer.. Hannah and Lay, the pioneer lumbermen and extensive operators in almost every useful line of business, settled in Traverse City forty years ago; they were truly the pioneer fathers of the beautiful city by the bay, and the growth and prosperity of Traverse City, and thq settling and development of the north-western part of the State, is due largely to the efforts, enterprise and wonderful business energy of the Hannah and Lay Company. And those veteran business men have lived to see Traverse City the most lively and progressive town in the northern portion ot the State; it is verily a little Chicago in the way of enterprise and growth. The Hon. Perry Hannah said to a reporter in Grand Rapids recently, that the hardwoods of northern Michigan were worth many times over, to this part of the State, all the pine that ever stood in our forests. There is now no necessity for wasting or destroying a single tree, of no matter what kind. Even despised hemlock and cedar are now finding a good market. The hardwood forests of northern Michigan are worth more to the people here than many a much-talked-of gold mine to its owners. WILL GO INTO TRAVERsE CiEY.-Edward Buckley of Manistee, president and general manager of the Manistee & Northeastern railroad, was at the Morton yesterday. He said the Manistee & Northeastern is now graded into Traverse City, and Mr. Buckley is confident that they will have regular trains running between Manistee and Traverse City by the first of June. Mrs. A. S. Parish of Coit avenue picked a pretty bouquet of lovely pansies from her garden Thursday. It is not often that outdoor flowers can be gathered at Christmas time in Michigan.-Grand Rapids Eagle. -107 -THE MIGRATION OF BIRDs.-Ducks are reported to be able to fly fifteen hundred miles at one time, and the pace the swallow or martin is put down at about nine hundred miles in twenty-four hours. Linnets and other seed eating birds have been known to settle on the masts and rigging of ships far away from land out at sea. They will take their night's rest on the rigging, and when leaving the ship know exactly in what direction to continue their flight. It is said that the migration of birds will foretell severe weather, and it is well known by the bird catchers that when the larks and other northern birds appear snow and hard weather will follow their flight. These warnings of migratory birds, though apparently insignificant, may be of vast political and even national importance. If the Emperor Napoleon, when on the road to Moscow with his army in 1811, had condescended to observe the flights of storks and cranes passing over his fated battalions subsequent events of the politics of Europe might have been very different. These storks and cranea knew of a coming on of a great and terrible winter; the birds hastened toward the south, Napoleon and his army toward the north. OLD TREES IN WELBECK ABBEY PARK.-The park at Welbeck Abbey, the seat of Duke of Portland, has been a park from time immemorial, of which fact some of the old oaks are the best proof. The Greendale oak, as it is called, must be 850 years old; it used to be thirty-three feet in girth at the bottom and its branches used to cover a space of 2,700 square yards. Other famous trees are the Duke's Walkingstick, the Two Porters-so called because there is a gate between them-and a clump of gigantic specimens called the Seven Sisters. The park is ten miles in circumference and contains forty-one lodges, all goodly houses built of Streetley stone. So far, it is reported that over five hundred tons of flour has been offered, in this country, toward the shipload which is to be sent to the suffering people of Russia. Ashes, especially wood ashes, are dangerous and should be kept in brick or stone if possible, or so far away that if they burn they will not endanger any building. Christmas comes without snow, and the weather as mild as September. Farmers are plowing and birds are singing merrily.-Grand Traverse Herald. Kind words are the brighest flowers of earth's existence, they make a paradise of the humblest home the world can show. A man without some sort of religion, is at best a poor reprobate, the football of destiny, with no tie linking him to infinity. The total tonnage of Muskegon harbor last season was 850,000 tons, an increase of upwards of 130,000 tons over 1890. If you would convince a person of his mistake, accost him not upon that subject when his spirit is ruffled. ---108 -The Grand Rapids Boird of Trade, since its organization, has done very much to awaken an interest in the growth and prosperity of our beautiful and thriving city, and through the efforts of the board, the business interests of the city have been largely increased and developed, building and public improvements have been stimulated and advanced, the board by judicious advertising, at home and abroad, and a favorable and honest representation of the wonderful resources of the city, have been instrumental in attracting the attention of capitalist's residing in other states to the advantages for profitable investment of capital in our city, and many enterprising and business men, with capital, from other towns and cities have been induced to come among us, purchase homes and invest their money in manufacturing and real estate. Encouraged by their successes in the past, the board have determined to increase their efforts with renewed earnestness in the future, in any and every enterprise which has for its object and interest the development and prosperity of the valley city, and every citizen that is interested in the growth of Grand Rapids, the most enterprising city of the north-west, will be glad to know that through the influence and labor of the Board of Trade, our business men, and the determined efforts of congressman Belkuap, our city is to have in the near future deep water navigation from here to lake Michigan; that once accomplished, Grand Rapids at no distant day can count upon a population of 300,000. THE SKIN OF A MIGHTY GRIzzzLY.There is a bearskin on exhibition in Hudson's gun store, Portland, Oregon, that takes the cake. It is 912 feet in' length and 8)4 feet across in the widest place, The bear that wore this skin was a grizzly, and he lived in far off Alaska. Judging from the size of the skin, he must have'been as large as two ordinary cows, and could not have weighed less than 2,500 po-ands. It is by far the largest bearskin that has ever been seen in Portland, and even old bear hunters who are told of its dimensions shake their heads in an incredulous manner until they see it with their own eyes. I do not believe that a location can be found on the face of the earth, with a territory the size of this State, that contains so many natural advantages and resources as Michigan, fence it in, from the outside world, and the people could live. Follow the laws of nature and you will never be poor; your wants will be but few. Follow the laws of the world and you will never be rich; you will want more than you can acquire. Every scheme of happiness must, needs be imperfect, that does not embrace the three incidents of wife, home and children. The foundation for the meanest man is laid when a small boy turns the worm-hole in an apple for his companion to bite from. For building lots in any of the Northern Resorts, call upon ABE L T. PAGE, Grand Rapids, Mich. The day will come when the influx of tourists to Michigan resorts will excel the migration to any eastern watering place. -109 -In this city recently there has been an organization formed to be known as the "Grand Rapids Improvement Board." The members of the board are composed of many of our best and most influential business men, manufacturers and citizens from nearly all trades and professions. The object and aim of the organization is to stimulate a spirit of enterprise among the citizens of the city, attract capital to Grand Rapids, encourage more and varied industries, induce manufacturers from abroad to settle among us, to improve the Grand river for commercial purposes, and a general improvement that will increase the growth and prosperity of the city. Judging from the earnestness and spirit of enterprise, and the action of the board since its organization, I confidently look for results that will greatly benefit and develop the improvement of the city in the future. Tobacco now used in pipes is of the most dangerous kind being loose and spongy it falls from the pipe easily. Smoking should not be allowed in barns or outbuildings under any circumstances. Do not let any member of your family carry matches loose in his pocket. If one is dropped, find it or know that it is safe if it takes hours. Put your matches where the children cannot get thew. They like to play with them, and often start fires that burn buildings when they do. You cannot be too careful. Provide safe places to hang lanterns in barns so that no animal can knock them off. Wire hooks are better than nails or wooden pins. God puts the excess of hope in one man, in order that it may be a medicine to the man that is despondent. What you keep by you, you may change and mend; but words once spoke can never be recalled. Traverse City is livelier just now than any other town in Michigan of three times its size. Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed. MICHIGAN"PSTATE CAPITOL KENT COUNTY COURT HOUSE. S77 t&Ad@il 61" III11111111111111111111111fllII 1III 1]11III 111111111111111 11111111111111111111111fill1I11fill III I III ln IIIll I~II111[1111111111110F-0, o(6 TO MICQHiJXN** GOOD IMPROVED fIIM V,, VV HARD OR PINE TIMBE REDIANDS cOMe TO MICHIGfl N. DO YOU WANT A HOME i 2 N Tte LIVELIEST, MOST ATTRI6TIVE, WIDE-JWfKE G1TY IN THE NORTH-WEST? COME TO MICHICAN. Loans Negotiated, Money Carefully Invested, 'and Property Bought, Sold and Exchanged. HOUSES RENTED AND RENTS OOLLEOTEB Fire Insurance in First-Class Companies. GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. E HII II l lfliil i il a1111111111111111 11111111 11111ul11111111111111111111I if