Meat As A Fertilizer

Prom the St. Louis Republic: It has been proved time and again that the so-called "cannibal plants," of which the Venus fly-trap is the type, are much more healthy when allowed their regular insect food than when they are reared under netting or in any other manner which excludes them from their regular meat diet. The above is ' an oddity of ltself, especially when we consider the fact that there is a certain school of botanists which teaches cannibal plants make no use whatever of the insect prey captured by them, but it is nothing when compared with the bold assertion made by Francis Darwin. That noted gentleman bravely meets the "vegetarían botanists" with the assertion that all kinds and classes of plants whether known aa j meateaters or not, bear more and heavier frults and seeds when fed on meat than those that are not allowed a flesh diet. He grew two lots, comprising , various varieties of the different common plants. One lot was regularly fed (through their roots, of course) with pure juices compressed from meat, the other with water and the various fertilizers. The final figures on this odd experiment proved that the plants which were fed pure meat juice bore 108 frults of thtí different kinds, while the unfed plants of the same number and original conditlon bore but seventy-four. that the pampered plants bore 240 seeds to every 100 borne by the plants that were not given a chance to gratify cannibalistic tastes. This is certainly a discovery worthy of much careful study and extensive experiment. Bitter Chemlat Tliun Statesman. The new Prench minister of forelgn affairs M. Bcrthelot is an elderly professor of 68 with virtually no experience in the conduct of public office. But in nis special domain of chemical knowledge he ranks among the first of his contemporánea. Chemical synthesls - the science of artificially putting organized bodies tügether - may be said to owe its existence to him. The practical resulta expected to flow from his experimenta and discoveries are enormous. Thus, sugar has recently been made in the laboratory from I glycerin, which Professor Barthelot first made from synthetic alcohol. Commerce has now taken up the question, and an invention has recently been patented by which sugar is to be made upon a commercial scale from two gases at something like 1 cent per pound. But these scientific wonders do not stop I here. Tobacco, tea and coffee are to be made artificially. Theobromlne, the essential principie of cocoa, has been produced in the Thus, synthetic chemistry is getting reafly to furnlsh thethree great nonalcohollc beverages in general use. Tobacco will be obtained in a similar fashion. Professor Barthelot has obtained pure nicotine, whose chemical constitution Is i perfectly understood, by treating ! mine, a natural glucoside, with ! gen. Tho Lnwyer and the Thlof. A man who had been Arrested for Stealing a Horse Employed a Lawyer, who managed his Case so well that the Jurv returned a Verdiot of Acquittal. J The Lawyer was filled with Rejoicing, but the Thief was Cast down and said: I "Alas! but you did not seem to Grasp the Opportunityü" "Why, my dear Man, you are Saved from State Prison." "Yes, I know, but while you were Satisfying them of my Innocence you ought also to have made them Believe I owned the Horse which I was found leading Away." Moral: He probably Stole another that same Week, however."