Minnesota Wheat

"Let's see, they raise some wheat in Minnesota, don't they ?" "Raise wheat! Who raises wheat? No, sir, decidedly no, sir. It raisea itself. Why, if we undertook to cultivate wheat in that State it would run us out. There wouldn't be any place to put our house." "But I've been told that grasshoppers take a good deal of it." "Of course they do. If they 'dirtn't I don't know what we would do. The cussed stuff would run all over the State and drive us out- choke us up. ïhose grasshoppers are a God-send, only there ain't half enough of 'em." "Is that wheat nice and plump ?" "Plump! Well, I don't know what you cali plurnp wheat, but there are seventeen in our family, including ten servants, and when we want bread we just go out and fetch in a kernel of wheat and bake it." "Do you ever soak it in water flrst?" "Oh, no, that wouldn't do ; it would swell a little, and then we couldn't get it in our range oven." - Schoharie Kepubliean. A devout and doubtless now sainted Orkney minister once petitioned the Deity as follws for fair weather: "Lord send us braw weather and a bit sough of breeze that will dree the stra' and winna harm the heads ; but, if ye blaw us a tearin', rivin', bletherin' gale, like what we've been ha'ing, ye'll play the vara mischief wi' the aits, and fairly spoil a" Hearts, more or less, we suppose, most of us have, but we keep them so close-cased and padlocked - we wear an outside so hard and dry - that little or none of the love that may be within escapes to gladden those around us. And so life passes without any of the sweetening to society that comes when affection is not only feit but expressed.