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owwâ€" -W; On the Farm. c; mmâ€" . 1 TO GET WINTER EGGS. To make hens lay when the weather is below zero. we must see that they have warm, comfortable, roosting places free from drafts, writes Mr. C. H. Bennett. To keep free from vermin _ keep their dust boxes well supplied with fine road dust. mixed with a handful of pulverized tobacco, alittle sulphur and a few ashes. It is well in the fall to provide a barrel of this dust so that it may be changed. Clean the henhouse often. Close up doors and windows occasionally and smoke well with sulphur and tobacco stems. A lousy hen will not lay well, neither will an overfat one. To prevent them becoming overfat attention must be directed to proper feeding, and exer- cise. Compel them to scratch for their grain by throwing it among a litter of straw. hay or leaves. If this is attended to regularly, with proper variety. of food you will soon have a merry, singing industrious lot of bid- dies. which will repay you many times ove'r for the extra trouble. A mopish, lazy hen fed entirely on corn will not pay for her keep; as she will soon be- come overfat and unhealthy. In order to have a well filled egg basket it is absolutely necessary to give a variety of food. 1 give for their morning meal a mash of wheat bran. corn meal. 'ground buckwheat or oats mixed with'some sort of cooked vege- tables such as potatoes, turnips, beets, etc. For dinner I scatter among the litter in their scratching shed some whole wheat buckwheat or millet left in the head. For supper I feed parched corn. as this is the best food that can be given to keep up the warmth of their bodies during the long. cold Win- ter nights, although I give a feed of other grain sometimes at night for a change.“ Feed meat once a week. and keep within their reach plenty of grit and charcoal and give some ground bone; chopped onions twice a week help to keep them healthy.I always keep plenty of milk and clean water for them to drink. An occasional dust of red pepper in their morning mash will warm them up and stimulate egg production. I have 'found venetian red excellent for laying hens; it will preâ€" vent cholera and other diseases besides increasing the number of eggs. If the above mode of treatment be com- menced in the fall before the weather becomes severe, the hens will be in a good condition to withstand the cold I weather and will repay their owner: many times by laying a wonderfull number of eggs right at the time} when eggs are bringing the highest prices. .â€" ORCHlARD MANURIN G. So much mischief can be done by applying manures of the wrong kind in orchards that we doubt if we do not lose more by manuring than by neglecting to manure. Fruit trees (101 not require at any time barnyard man- ures, or their equivalent. What they require is a supply of inorganic food. You can do no better for apple trees than to supply them with coal ashes in which there is a liberal admixture of wood ashes. The coal ashes loosen’ the soil; the wood ashes furnish the fer- tilizer. If you can get a supply of old mortar you have just the thing you need. A mixture of lime and salt, when so mixed as to leave no free salt, is excellent for all fruit trees. All such manures should be applied as a top- dressing. A peach or plum orchardi needs nothing better than swamp muck or earth from. the woods. with a. slight addition of phosphate and pot- ash. If barnyard manure is applied at any time. it should be thoroughly decom-. posed and applied as a topâ€"dressing.l Such manure, if placed about the roots, 1 when planting a pear or apple tree will '. kill it. Grapes of course want phos- phates and potash. They will also re- spond to a free application of liquid manures during their periods of rest, both in winter and in midsummer. All the tall growing berries. of the bramâ€" ble sort. will use a large amount of‘ organic matter. But be careful about dressing your raspberries with rank‘ decomposed barnyard manure. Thel probability is at any time you will deâ€"l velop a fungoid disease that you can- not easily master. If you use barnyard manure in raspberries it should be thoroughly ccmminuted with the soil. as a compost. In fact, we prefer to compost every manure before it is‘ placed on my gardens. Equally imâ€"‘ portant as the manure is the mulching I of our fruit trees as bushes of all sorts. ‘ _ SITTING HENS. \Vhen hens show a desire to sit di-§ vide the runs into two with wire net:1 ting. keeping half of the fowls in one‘ division and half in the other. As soon l as a hen in one yard shows any signs; of broodiness. she should be placed ml the other, when she will invariably spend two or three days running back-l ward and forward trying to get back‘ through the wire; at the end of that time she has forgotten that she wants to sit. can be returned, and will prob- ably commence laying again in about three weeks. The plan is obviously far superior to that usually followed of cooping a hen when broody, as the incessant exercise must have astrong effect in lessening the tendency to sit} i J VILL AG E POULTRY. One may sum the whole thing up by saying that a growing chicken needs room enough to take sufficient exercise 1 balanced ration of grain food, green food as much as he will eat, meat food in the form of insects. or the prepared food made to take the place of insects, and plenty of good pure water. Fulfil these conditions on a village lot, and the chicks will have every advantage :1 farm raised chick has. and if the breeder is thoroughly interested in his work they will receive some extra ad- vantages that few farm raised chicks get. TREATMENT OF COWS. We have found that. civil treatment of cows in the dairy barn is sure to create civility among our dairy cattle. and inspires a confidence that insures success. We feel that every item of interest that dairymen manifest in the winter care of their cattle is so much bonafide capital invested that pays a good dividend annually and are sure that many are competent to verify the facts. 1 SHEEP AS BRUSH DESTROYERS. The cheapest way to clear a piece of land covered with small brush is to pasture sheep upon it. If the brush is cut with a scythe before turning in the sheep the tender sprouts will be kept down about as fast as they appear, The roots wil. dry off and decay in one or two years. Cleared in this way, a field will not again grow up to brush if allowed to remain idle afew years. Not the least benefit to the land is the fertility added in the droppings of the sheep and the unusual freedom from weeds for several years. SIMPLE FATHER OF AN EMPRESS. The death of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria has brought out many stor- ies of her and her family. Some of the most interesting are about her father, the Duke Maximilian, This man was a remarkably genial and simple charac- ter. Once he was making a pedestrian tour and stopped in a small tavern to eat. He had a zither with him, and some guests asked him to play, think- ing. on account of his plain clothing, thit he was a strolling musician. He obeyed readily and played everything that he could think of till coins rained into his hat. Then he ordered a meal that was so expensive for a strolling musician that the tavern-keeper be: came suspicious that his strange guest intended to run away after eating Without paying. There was hesitation about serving the food, and while the duke was waiting a corporal of one of his regiments entered the inn. He saluted, much to the duke's embarrass- ment, who threw the money for the meal on the table, and ran away, says the New York Press. - Once the duke was in a train travel- ing to Vienna to, visit the imperial family. In the coupe with him was a banker, who, misled by his fellow tra- veler‘s simplicity, patronized him, and in the course of a conversation told him that he had a daughter in Vienna who had married very well. She was, he boasted, the wife of one of the rich- est bankers in_the city. “So?” said the duke. “Why that is quite a coin- cidence. I hive a daughter in Vienna who has married very well, too." "Who is the husband of your daughter, my good man?" asked the banker, and in his most harmless tone. Maximilian an- swered, “the Emperor of Austria." REMA RKABLE BRIDGE. A recent British Consular report from the far East describes a suspenâ€" sion bridge of 300 feet span, made of bamboo. The cane is split up into fibers and twisted together to form the cables. the material of the structure is quite remarkable. According to the St. Petersburg Novosti, two new steamships of the Russian Volunteer Fleet will be order- ed in England. The Russian naval administration will complete the con- struction during the present year or 2 first-class ironclads, 4 cruisers and 2‘ torpedo boats. Next year 3 first-class ironolads will be begun. To add to the horrors of civil war- fare, it is now reported from Bolivia that the Indians have. risen and are plundering and murdering every- where. They attacked aChilian min-i ing establishment zit (‘orocoro, and the manager. to avoid falling into the maurauders' hands. killed his wife and suicided. A Iaundress in Paris had her hair caught in machinery belting, and her entire scalp, from the nape of her neck to her eyebrows was torn off. She was conveyed to the Broussuis Hospital, and after some hours‘ delay, Dr. Malherbe. sent for the scalp. When the hair had been shaved from it, the physician ad- 'usted the scalp upon the woman‘s head, to which it has since naturally attached itself. Among the queer things left in Lonâ€" don cabs :ind stages the past year were an artificial leg, a wooden bed-rest, birds in cages, dogs, a gas stove, a portablestreet harmonium anda sewâ€" ing machine. Of the three thousand odd purses left in vedicles and taken to New Scotland Yard, it is reasonable to suppose “fit the majority escaped from pockets in the backs of ladies' gowns. Between seventeen and eighâ€" teen thousand umbrellas were left in the public carriages, and one hundred and eightyâ€"one watchm. .The fare on two of the street car lines of Cleveland has been reduced to four cents. The company sells sev- en tlckets for tWenty-five cents. Considering its span ~ THE VERY LATEST FROM ALL THE WORLD OVER. Interesting Items About Our Own Country. Great Britain. the United States. and All Parts of the Globe. Condensed and Assorted for Easy Reading. CANA m. A rumor says Parliament will be called for March 16. The Quebec budget shows a reduction in the deficit. The G.T.R. is building 500 box cars at its works at Point St. Charles. It is reported that platinum is being found in large quantities in the Klon- (like. 'l‘he Grand Trunk is building six ten- wheel passengers engines and six mo- guls for freight service. Aid. Laurin has resigned from the Council Board of Hull to become a policeman at $500 per year. The National Council of \Vomen at Ottawa will petition the city council to establish a public library. Drs. D. C. Muclaren and A. Quack- enbush. two Ottawa homeopathists, have issued a circular setting forth their objections to vaccination. The Donnelly Salvage & Wrecking Company has purchased the steamer Eurydice and will use her in connection with their wrecking operations. Burglars entered the residence of Mr. Alphonse Lapierre, Montreal, chloro- fmmed the inmates of the house and robbed them of their valuables. There were 1,232 deaths; 408 mar- riages. and 1,340 births in Ottawa, in 1808. During January, 1809, there were 95 deaths from all causes as compared with 84 for the same month last year. Dr. D. V. lnnes, Canadian immigra- tion agent in the United States, esâ€" timates that fully 5,000 persons will remove from that country to make their homes in the Canadian North- West this year. The magnificent residence of the late Sir John Abbott at Montreal. has been purchzised’by a syndicate. of wealthy gentlemen, and will be used as apoliâ€" tical club. The price paid was $40.- 000. Dr. Leduce and J. A. Bousequet. civic officials at Montreal. have been suspended, charged with attempting to bribe an alderman with $000, to secure Dr. Leduce‘s appointment as milk in- spector. The lighthouse on Snake Island. Kingston, is being rimovcd to apoint great ‘on the shoals southwest of the island, The work is under the supervision of Mr. \V. H. Noble. of the Marine De- partment, Ottawa. The Master in Ordinary has decid- ed that the American receivers of the Massachusetts Life Association are not entitled to rank as creditors on the deposit of $112,000 made by the associ- ation with the Canadian Government. The Brockville I‘eat Company has been granted exemption from taxation by the Elizabethtown Council on the lands, buildings and m chinery neces sary for the carrying on of peat manu- facturing on a. large scale in that town- ship. Dr. E. Pelletier. secret'iry of the Quebec Board. has issued a bulletin to the Board of Health regarding the present status of smallpox in that pro- vince. There have been 11 cases in all since the outbreak, all in Soulanges County. GREAT BRITAIN. Mr. Sexton declines the Irish leaderâ€" ship. It may go to Sir Thomas Henry Esmonde. . William Laird, of the famous ship- building firm of Laird Bros, at Birk- enhead, England, died on Tuesday. Lord Mountstephen has sent £1,000 to the Prince of \Vales‘ Hospital fund, and says he intends to contribute a like sum annually. The wife of Mr. John Putt, farmer, Parley Farm, Chudleigh, England, gave birth last week to achildren, 3 girls and a boy. ' Mother and babies are doing well. Canterbury Town Council hzis decid- ed that the presentation of the honor- ary freedom of the. city to Mr. H. llcziâ€" ton, M. P., will take. place on March 23. Among the latest contributions to the Prince of Wales‘ Hospital fund for Lon~ don are the following: The Fishmong- ers' Company, £1,000; Lord Grimthorpe, £100. It is calculated that some 10,000,000 photographs of Queen Victoria and of ' the Prince and Princess of \Vales are produced annually, which find ready sale all over the world. The appeal for $11,500,000 in connecâ€" tion with the Chinese imperial Railâ€" way 5p-ercentage gold loan in London has been a phenomenal success. It was applied for five times over. The committee of liloyds have given silver medals to officers of the Am- erical line steamer Paris for bravery in rescuing the crew of the British steamship ,Vindobula in mid-Atlantic. The trawler Neptune has landed at Gi‘imey-a singular catch, consisting of 56 casks of butter, which were picked up in the North Sea, 35 miles to the north of Hartlepool. The skipper found the sea almost covered ,with casks of butter. The cabbies of London, 7,000 in num- ber. are on strike because the Police Commissioners prohibited empty cabs standing on the Strand, Picadilly and Bond street. The hotels and theaters are hit hard. Right Hon. Sir Henry Campbellâ€"Ban- nerman. formerly Chief Secretary for War. has been elected to succeed Sir William Vernon Harcourt as leader of the Liberal party. The British soldier is the best fed individual of his class in EurOpe. He receives for his daily rations 16 oz..of bread, 12 of meat, '3. of rice, 8 of dried iprlze fight in Cape Town, at which the native was terrifically beaten, dying vegetables, 16 of potatoes, and once a lfiom his injuries a few hours later. week he receives :2 oz. of salt, 4 of cof- fee, and 9 of sugar. Col. John Morgan, Mayor of Brecon, \Vales, has signified his intention of laying down at his own cost plant for the electric lighting of the town. it is estimated that this will practically mean a gift of £5,000. In connection with the Patti wedding, the Mayor will also hear the cost of the street decorations. The number of women employed in‘ the English post office at the present time is OVer 30,000, or about oneâ€"fifth of the whole of the vast army of work- ers in that huge department. Of that. number 1,320 are employed on clerical work of a high order, and with great suecuss. Mrs. Spurgeon, wife of the pastor of the Metropolitan tabernacle, London, held a reception \Vednesdiy in aid of the fund for the rebuilding of the ediâ€" fice, which was destroyed by fire on April :0, 1808. Within an hour she collected £5,000, she herself contribut- ing £250. The Gas World declares that there are now in use throughout Great Bri- trim no few-er thin 500,000 country p.'niiy~inâ€"thcrslot meters. These conâ€" sume 7,000,000 cubic feet of gzis, or as much as is sold in Birniinghim and Leicaster combined, to all classes of consumers. In recent years the outâ€" put of copper coin has greatly increasâ€" ed from this cause. The Drapers' C0,, of London, Eng, have offered to make a contribution of £800 a year for ten years towards the development of facilities for agriculâ€" tural education at an important seat of learning. The only condition the company mike in connection with thcir offer is that the Board of Agriculture shill give the scheme the benefit of its support. It is proposed to raise £20,000 to pro« vide a stipend and expenses of a his- hop. \vh 01-h)” undertake, the oversight of the whole work of the church of England in Egypt and the Sudan. At present this region is included in the jurisdiction assigned to the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem; and the bishopric contemplated must, until circumstanc- oontemplated must, until circumstancâ€" es allow of a division in that ,‘,urisdicâ€" tion. be in the relation of assistance to him. UNITED STATES. The cereal food companies of the United States are combining. The pwple of the United States con- sume about 4,000,000 bottles of pickles every week. The new car manufacturing com- bine formed in the United States in~ valves 3. capital of $00,000,000. Corlzidetriiblp Australian gold, re- mintcd at San Francisco, is coming to New York by registered mail. Miss Lena Gordon, of Cornwall, Conn, is suffering intensely from wisdom teeth which grow sideways. The Electric Boat 00., New York, has been organized to build boats and run a steamship line. Capital $10,- 000,000. A consolidation of all the tinâ€"plate anl‘. steel interests in the United States is registered at Chimgo, with? $300,000,000. 1 Thousands of sheep have perished in 1 Nebraska as a. result elf the late sev- ere weather. They were mOStly sheep that were brought from the South and not yet accustomed to the rigourous climate. A Buffalo delegation in Washington are spending their days and nights with great diligence, asking members to support a bill granting $500,000 for the Pan>American Exposition in thati city in 15701. The State Department at Washing- ton has declined to recognize the claim of the Austro-Hungarian Government for indemnity on account of the Hun‘ garian strikers killed by Sheriff Mar- tin’s posse at Hazelton, Pa. The imports at the port of Buffalo 001‘ the past year totalled $3,543,000. Of this $3,212,705 was from Canada. The chief items in theCanadian list: were cattle, $851,530; horses, $30,374; sheep, $598,145, and lumber, $359,- 412. The disappearance of the Chinese who were admitted to the United States to take part in the Transâ€"Mis- sissippi Exposition at; Omaha is still a mystery, and there is trouble ahead for all the Chinamen in the United States. A banana trust is talked of in Newt York, a candy trust in Chicago, in Boston a consolidation of the print works in the United States, and at Providence, R. 1.. a consolidation of all the large steam engine building: companies. The war investigating commission at; Vi’tishiizgton has prepared its report. The bee! supplied to the Cuban ex- pedition is declared to be good enough for an emergency ration, and the suc- cess which attended the American arms seems to have decided the com- mission in finding generally that the coduduct 0! the war was all right. GENERAL, The Sultan of Turkey is ill. He has a variety ofdelusions :indis in con- stant fear of assassination. Six cases of yellow! 'fever have deve- loped among the soldiers of the New York Regiment at Guanajay, Cuba. 'l‘wothousand men are engaged in pushing the work ofthe Simplon tun- nel, twelve miles long, through the Swiss mountains. Post offices have been established at Fashoda, Sobat, Senaar, Duem. Abu Haraz and \Valed Mudika (t) in the Soudan. A member of the Japanese Diet has accused the Government of paying him for his vote on the land tax bill, recently passed. As an indication of the general de- preseion in the Cape, the railway reâ€" venue shows a weekly reduction of $100,000 as compared withlast year, A British soldier ands. Kafflr hada Eltctrical weaving machines are in use. in Germany. Seamless stockingsé lwith double heels, are rattled out o leach machine at the rate of 11 pairs ,an hour. 1 Central (‘hinri is seething with dis- content. Rebel Yuâ€"Man-Tze is report- ;ed to be on the road again, and to. thaw captured two French mission- aries. The Norwegian Army has ahighly ‘trnined corps of skaters 'armed with repeating rifles. These men can be maoeuvred on ice with a rapidity (final to the best trained cavalry. The British military authorities in India and elsewhere have at their com- ilillll 2531110 ciiiivls, Thoumnd; of tthcse useful but ugly animals are used in ll‘llllll to carry stores of all kinds when troops change quarters by line ,of march. . \Vhil: there are 125,000,000 people whose everyday lzinguige is English, there are only 90,000,000 who speak Russian. 75,000,000 who speak German, $5,000,000 who speak French. 45,000,- 1(‘0') who speak Spanish, and 35,000,000 lwho speak Italian. THE TRANSVAAL MINES. â€"_ . 198 Gold Mines, but Only 38 Pay Dividend. â€"’l‘hc DI immul Industryâ€"Coal lllln- lug. The report on the mining industry 1of the South African Republic for 1897 presented to the Volksrartd gives re- markable details of the progress made in the gold mining in the Transvaal and the striking regularity in the yield of gold, hardly equalled by any ‘other known gold fields. ' The capital ‘of the 1t8-gold mines working at the end of 1807 was $363,803,750. Of these, 128 mines with acapital of about $50,- 1t0010.) pziid $11,750,100 in dividends. or jneirly 30 per cent. ‘mines were producing gold but paying ‘no dividends, and some could not pay lany without a considerable reduction tin working , expenses. The other 106 ‘mines were in course of being opened 1 up. 1’ The total value of the gold yield in 1807 Was $58,250,000. being $15,000,000 ‘more than in 1800. Of this 66 per cent, was from crushing mills and 34 per cent. by chemical extraction. The ‘quantiiy of ore worked was 5,741,311 1tons, which givesa yield of a little over i610 to the ion, which asthd working expenses were about$0.62 per ton, left ;anetprofit of $3.38 per ton. The work- ling expenses in 1806 had been $0.83, and in 18J5, $7.54: per ton. The total ,expenditure of the gold. mining indus- itry had been $45,250,000. As during {the past year, so in 1307, The Trans- vaal Government refrained from levy- ing the tax of 21-2 per cent. on the iyield, and as there is no income tax land no exchange or stamp duty is paid on newly issued shares, the gold minâ€" ing industry does not appear to have ,much to complain of in that respect. ,’1 he retlucuon of the price of dynamite by .52 and the lowering of railway ‘rzites contributed in increasing the ; profits. 1 ‘1 here were, however. great losses :made in Transvaal mining securities ,during 1807. ’lhese are attributed to 1 the l L'NSCRUI’ULOUS PROCEEDINGS. ‘of p;omoters, who formed nearly “.0 companies with a total capital of $300,- L00,000 inlocalities where no gold ex- isted, and eyerczipitalized other com- panies to such an extent that dividend ,ptiylng was entirely out of the ques- ‘iion even if dynamite hlid been import- ed free of duty and coal carried to the imines free of charge. The profit pay- ing capacity of the mines in general might be increased but for three causes, namely. the theft of gold from the wozks, the illicit. sale of. alcohol to the native laborers and the labor ,question generally, about 25 per cent. lot the Kaffir laborers being constant- ly incapacitated for work. The scar- city of labor tells heavily against the economical working of the mines, and the premium of $15 to $20 paid to 119'.er agents to procure labor has only resulted in encouraging deser- ¢ tions of laborers from one mine to pass ,through the agent's hands -toa brief service at another, when the process would be repeated. The Transvaal Government has done what it could, short of reducing the Kaffirs to actual slavery, to remedy these evils. but ,without much effect. In is estimated that the losses incurred through the canes enumerated amounted to the very considerable sum of $10,750,000. .of which rather more than half was by theft. The total area of gold claims in 1897 was 251,659 acres, a .large decrease on the. previous year, due to the abandonment of worthless claims. in coal mining there was consider- able progress. There were twenty ‘oollieries at work, with an output of ll,000.212 tons, being an increase of ,162,915 tons over that of 1890 The price ft'll, however. from $2.28 per ton in 1895 and ‘2.11 in 1800 to $1.88, in 081.7, leaving but 11. small margin for dividends, that amounted altogether to on!y $97,511), The wages of the white miners range. from $100 to $150 a month. Besides gold and coal, there is a small proluction of silver, lead (ind tin. not of much importance as yet. Diamond digging in 1807 yielded about 4,001) carats, and is likely to receive tin ‘iinpetus from the recent. discovery of til field near Pretoria, which. it is liop-. ted, may prove another Kimberley. At: ‘lhe time the report was completed 307 ldiamonds had been dug up, the largest weighing sixteen carats. The same difficulty, liowevm', that hampers the gold and coal mining industries tell! against the economic working of the diamond fields. Sixty-four other . l