State News Notes

Oíd Bóreas on Ripping OIU Tear. When the mercury takes a tumble of 25 to 40 degrees in six hours in what is termed in school geographies the 'températe zone" it leads one tx suspect that oíd Mother Earth has slipped a cog, and when the nhabitants of the sunny south feel frosty zoro weather nipping their extremities they think "things is gettin' interestin'." lts hard to teil just where the tbing started, but judging lrom the atmosphere the vvhole Arctic ce fields must have broken from their mooriDgs and come sliding down across the Canadian desert, carrying the north pole along, and not stopping until the whole of L'ncle Sam's population had had a surfeit of ear-freezing, chilblain weather. At any rate we know that a blizzard of tRe most zzzed kind swept across the United States causing the thermometer to I register below zero in almost every '] state. In many places the drop was ! 85 degress in iive hours and in West Virginia the mercury went down 15 degrees in 15 minutes. In Michigan. Grand Rapids had a taste of 8 below zero wind, and had ït not been for a heavy fall of snow wheat and fruit wQuld have suffered severely. Benton Harbor had 15 below zero. C'oldwater's experience was 14 below; Dowagiac 18, and so on over the Southern part of the state. In the upper península snow feil to a depth of three f eet and mercury ran down ahnost out of sight. Of course its an Hl wind that blows nobody good, and the ones who are laughing now are the eoal men and the lumbermen - particularly the latter, for their prospects for g-etting the logs they h'ad cut to mili were very slim before the blizzard, and now it will be like rolling them down hill. Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and other eastern states feit the gentle zephyrs as well as the western states. Fmiu Producta Have Dropped. The Michig-att erop report for January says that a total of 6. 235, 103 buhels of wheat was marketed in the five tnonths, August to December, or 1,663,932 bushels less than during the same months last year. The average condition of horses ia 94 per cent, sheep and cattle 95, and swine 97 per cent. Compared with last yéar, there has been a decline on all farm products exeepting corn and oats. Corn averages 3 cents and oats 1 cent per bushei hig-her. The loss on wheat is 5 cents per bushel. The decline in fat caftle is 16 cents; fat hogs 73 cents, and dressed jjl 10 per cwt. ilorses declined an average of $9 23 per head; milch cows, ?1 82; sheep, 45 cents, and hbgs $1.17. Another linee Lalte Sfeamer. Wheeler & Co., of Bay City, closed a contract with Eddy Bros. , Capt. John Shaw and Capt. Iïoward Shaw, for the construction of another monster lake freighter for the Eddy-Shaw fleet. DimenSions, 332 feet keel, 372 feet over all, 44 XA ieet beara and 27 feet hold. The probable cost will be $225,000, and she is to be compieted in July. The vessel will be used as a package freighter, but can also curry hu-ge ore or grain cargoes. Sralded to Death WIth BailiiK l,ard. The 4-year-old gir ol Jamés Che'rnock was burned to death at Menominee by the of a kettle of boiling lard. The kettle was on the stove and in falling covered the child from head to foot. The flesh peeled off n itrips, clear to the bone.