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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1884)
THE WEST SHORE. 88 intelligence op ants. . riOME warm .lav, when you do not know what else to O .1.. fin.l an ant hill under a shady tree, and watch the littl. Ml ,ws at their w.-rk. That is what I have been d-in" The rinj? ..f earth around the hole, like the wall r f..ii. hut oV iu.,,t ii.UJc.UJig pan 01 their home is under ground. See them drag the pbbles out of the hole in the center. If you could follow it down von would find the way irregular, and nt the end a nmuU-'r of galleries each Kupirt-tl by pillars of earth. The voting anU are kept on thee. shelves, and, in fact, it in their city. Here the chief men meet to talk over the matter of the colony. But how can they talk? Put an ant und-r the microscope and you will see two little pro jections on the head railed mandibles. The ant converses .y touching its mandibles to thse of it neighlxir. Ants nr.- very strong, ersevering ami industrious, some work ing nil night, and I have seen an nnt carrying a stone two or ti.r v time its size. I once laid a piece of sugar near a hole. An nnt soon found it, and tliough the piece was many tiin.-s as large as itself, it lifted the sugar nltove its head hii l strt'il for the liilL It attempted to drag the Mignr up the hill, but when tlie first K'bble was struck it mould roll over and over. At last, by leveling a place so a to g.-t a -t.irt, by the occasional help of a passing nnt, the nugnr was pulled over the hill. I noticed a spider one tly stop to nt near an nnt hill. Four or five ants wine out. They t.k hold of his legs and swarmed on hi b,uk. He was dragged into the hole and the rest fU'l)l out to help ciit him up. Tlie ants carry their young out every pleasant day to lie in the sun, and nt the first Mght of rain they hurry them into their houses. The, little creature have good memories, and never forget their friends. If nn ant Im taken out of an nnt hill, kept for two months and then put back into the snme hill, it will U received; but if placed in another it will e kill.sL In Texas there- is found the agricultural ants iw a piace m.in wecis ami grass for alniut two feet around their home. They thou drop the seed of a kind of grass whose grain they like very much. The am uae care ..t the young blades, protecting them fm, jiihh-U and when the grain is rij, carry it into their 11,11 '""re inrulmr, if the store of fl hould lw,.e damp during a rnin. it will all 1 out on the first sunnv .li.v ...! ... i o . mi.- "- -v "'". mi men nrouglit V. Th. hahita of nnU indicate great intelligence and MONTANA'S PEODTJOTIVKNESS. MONTANA is destined to become one of the greatest agricultural States of America. Its climate, soil and reasoning mer. Tur fU.. i. oi .. r h r I u ,.M OI "ntisli Columbia for f cl.art.-r to budd a lin of raiWl fro,,, il, o. ... , --. ..... lu PIU1 ,, Olan. necti acre by th cinpftny. Tli uagnn Uke by wRy of Slumchcen Valley to a I .th the (Wlian IVific. A grant of tow ..'fU.UngallminerHlstheC: etui (KK) -kisl ft li tis is one of i.m.,.1 r i- will br.,r!, ..ff f " ,u " that iiiiin 1IIM ulin.l,.. II , - .... mil n.ine i aid in dewlmv. ' Cultural resources native products of grass are alone sufficient to assure this. ti. i ,t r.r ift5 vioifiori 74.n son KnuVQi, t Xlie iitu.cob . j ......... . .vfvw ""v,io uj. n ftn average of ulxmt thiity Luolibls-per acre, and 1,614,000 V bushels of oats, an average of forty-live bushels, to sav I nothing of minor crops, such as barley, potatoes, etc., I which run up into the hundreds of thousands of bushek ' Ourpastoral area outnumbers our tillable lands at least ten to one, and our live stock products constitute the bujk of our agricultural wealth. There are in our Territory 7-4,:bO head of horses, worth at a low estimate $2,237,000' 5,254 mules, worth 157,320; and 21,000 milch cows worth 840,000; and 378,713 head of stock cattle, readily worth $11,951,330, making a total valuation of 812,691,320. There are also in Montana 527,440 head of sheep, tie cash value of which is fully $1,582,322, yielding an annual product of 2,637,000 pounds of wool which last year brought the growers a total of $527,400. About 0,000 mutton sheep brought $35,000. Thirty-five thousand beeves have been sent to the Eastern cities, and all of 15,000 have been sold to Indian agencies and rail road builders, making the round number of 50,000 head, which brought between two and two and a half million lollars. It will bo seen that, aside from real estate, the lusbnndniau of Montana represents a cash valuation of $14,373,012, nnd hence it will appear that our live stock interests are bringing the Territory the handsome income of nearly three million a year. This does not include what is consumed at home, and consequently does noj anything like rench the value of our product fit iMiHtlman. TREE PLANTING. SO small would be the money outlay, so inconsiderable the labor required, to insure for the next generation a wealth of timber land equal to that of which we have the benefit, and shade and shelter trees in even more adequate supply, that it is a great wonder to us, amid all the forcible facts brought forward against the rate at which forest destruction is going on, there has been no more general movement in tree planting. In Germany and Austria, for upward of half a century, the number of trees planted has borne a good proportion to those annually cut down, and it is certain that this is the case now, yenr by year. In France, Italy and England, also, tree cultivation is now general, and is held to be a most important matter of public concern. But here, with tne characteristic improvidence which has come to be consid- pre. I a marked feature of American character, we are destroying our great virgin forests with a rapidity never More equaled in any other country, and without taking any measures to insure their future growth. directions tl, . II.:.:..,. . . liw,ui 1,1 varum . . ; 7M '""u voiuuiKia, and ug uxv nca mineral, luiul of the Province. The Anaconda Company, whose new smelting worb gave birth last year to the bustling town of Anaconda, i now shipping eighty tons of copper per day. Thi i a large addition to the already great shipments of that metal from the mines of Butte City and vicinity.