so,
this is a good time for me to show you a curiosity called the newspaper
plant, which the Little School-ma'am described the other day to the
young folk of the Red School House.

It seems that in certain far-away countries called New Mexico and
Arizona, there are great tracts of desolate desert lands, where the very
hills seem destitute of life and beauty, and where the earth is
shriveled from centuries of terrible heat. And in these desert-tracts
grow a curious, misshapen, grotesque and twisted plant that seems more
like a goblin tree than a real one.

Of all the trees in the world, you would imagine this to be the most
outcast and worthless--so meager a living does it obtain from the waste
of sand and gravel in which it grows. And yet this goblin tree is now
being sought after and utilized in one of the world's greatest
industries--an industry that affects the daily needs of civilization,
and is of especial importance to every girl and boy who reads the pages
of ST. NICHOLAS.

Those wise folk, the botanists, call our goblin tree by its odd Indian
name of the "Yucca" palm.

[Illustration: THE YUCCA PALM.]

This plant of the desert for a long time was considered valueless. But
not long ago it was discovered that the fiber of the Yucca could be made
into an excellent paper.[E] And now one of the great English dailies,
the London _Telegraph_, is printed upon paper made from this goblin
tree. Indeed, the _Telegraph_ has purchased a large plantation in
Arizona, merely for the purpose of cultivating this tree, and
manufacturing paper from it. So, you see, the Yucca is now a newspaper
plant.

ONE MORE LIVING BAROMETER.

DEAR JACK: As you have told us so much about living
barometers, I want to tell you that I have one. Mine is a
red squirrel. Just before a "cold snap" she will be surly
and sleepy. When she is angry, she will spread her lower
teeth apart. She will play like a kitten. I call her Gipsy,
and she is my chief pet.

Your constant reader,

M. M. M.

[Footnote E: For an article describing the manufacture of paper, see ST.
NICHOLAS for August, 1884, page 808.]

EDITORIAL NOTES.

In a note which accompanied the article in our present number, "When
Shakspere was a Boy," Miss Kingsley desires us to state that she owes
much valuable information about charms (mentioned on page 488), and a