ROBUST IMAGINATIONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3166, 22 August 1881, Page 4

ROBUST IMAGINATIONS.

Yesterday afternoon, when the lawyers in Justice Gary's court were waiting for the verdict in a petty larceny case, Attorney related an incident of his early childhood in Minnesota, illustrative of the peculiar customs in vogue in that state : ' I knew an old farmer there who owned ten acres of timber land where millions of pigeons came each year to roast. They devastated the wheat fields, and the old coon used to catch the birds in nets and thrash them out on the barn floor. Each bird had three ounces of wheat in his crop, and it was a bad year for ' Old Thompson ' when he couldn't ship 1000 bushels of wheat to market at 2.60 dols. a bushel, and it ranked A. No. 1 when it reached the Chicago elevator. If there had been a few millions more of pigeons he would have come pretty near getting a corner on the Minnesoto wheat crop.' 'I know a planter down in Alabama,' said Kittrell, ' who was fully aa sharp as that. He trained an aligator to work up and down the river and catch the little picanninnies that played along the bank. The alligator would take the little kids in his jaws and swim back to the plantation. It was a dull day that he couldn't corral 'hree or four. The planter raised 'em careFully, and when they got big sold 'em in New Orleans at prices ranging from three to ten thousand apiece. He was rolling in wealth when Lincoln's emancipation proclamation was issued, and after that Lhe alligator never did ai.y mov; work. The man is now barely keeping body and soul together in Washington, clerking in one of the Government bureaus at eight thousand a year.' Judge Cary evinced the greatest interest n these weired tales, and edged up to the group. ' . i.bao „re curious yarns, gentlemen, bub I believe them all. I had a dog once, hack in Nebraska, thai i __-pt to herd lumber.' ' Bog pardon, Judge; did you say the dog herded lumber?' ' Yes, sir, cotfconwood Doards. We always kept a dog there to bring the lumber in at night.' Everybody now paid the closest attention, as they knew the boss was at work. 'It was this way. Cottonwood boards vnrp like thunder in the sun. A board ■vould begin to hump its back up about me in the morning, and in half-an-hour it would turn over. By eleven it would warp be other way with the heat, and make mother flop. Each time it turned it moved a couple of feet, always following the sun 'owards the west. The first summer I lived in Brownville over 10,000 feet of lumber skipped out to the hills the day before I had idvertised a houso raisin.' I went to the country seat to attend a lawsuit, and when ' got back there wasn't a stick of timber left. It had strayed away into the uplinds. An ordinary board would climb a r-wo-mile hill during a hot week, and when ■t struck the timber it would keep wormin' in and out among the trers like a garternake. Kvcry farmer in the State had to «>ep shepherd dogs to follow his lumber i round the country, keep it together, and 'how where it was in the morning. We lidn't need any flumes there for lumber. Ye sawed it east of the place we wanted to ■se it, and let it warp itself to its destinaion ; with men and dogs to head to off at L .he right time, we never lost a stick. Well, ere comes the jury,' continued the Judge. The witnesses lied, so I guess they will lisagree.'—Carson City Appeal.