st quickly corrected by the adoption of proper
orchard practice.

* * * * *

AN ANTIDOTE FOR WASP STINGS.--It not infrequently happens that
persons biting unguardedly into fruit in which a wasp is concealed
receive stings in the mouth or throat. Such stings may be exceedingly
dangerous and even fatal since the affected tissues swell rapidly and
this is liable to cause difficulty in swallowing and breathing. An
effective antidote is employed in Switzerland. The sting is rubbed
vigorously with garlic, or, if it is too deep in the throat for this
treatment, a few drops of the juice from bruised garlic are swallowed.
If garlic is not to be obtained onion may take its place, but is a less
active agent. The efficacy of this simple remedy was verified by a Swiss
specialist, who found it important enough to be presented at a session
of the Vaudois Society of Medicine.

Increasing the Fertility of the Land.

PROF. F. J. ALWAY, DIVISION OF SOILS, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

I have been asked to speak on "Increasing the Fertility of the Land." To
speak on such a subject is sometimes a rather delicate matter because
some people consider they have a soil so good that you can't increase
its fertility. With some of the prairie soils, when they were first
plowed up that wouldn't have been so very far amiss. Take those black
prairie soils with the grayish yellow clay subsoil, with an abundance of
lime in it, which you find in a large part of the state, including a
large part of Hennepin County, and you have as good a soil as you may
expect to find anywhere on the earth's surface. But you can't keep a
soil up to its full limit of fertility, no matter how good it is, unless
you frequently treat it with something.

[Illustration: Prof. F. J. Alway.]

When a soil is well supplied with lime there are three things that are
liable to be deficient. If it is not well supplied with lime there may
be four, but the bulk of your soils are good enough so far as lime is
concerned. Those three are potash, which is abundant and will be
abundant 100 years from now, phosphoric acid, or phosphorus, with which
our soils are fairly well supplied, and nitrogen, which comes from the
vegetable matter. In nitrogen our prairie soils are remarkably rich when
first plowed up. The phosphoric acid and the potash you can not lose
unless they are taken away in the form of crops, but the nitrogen may be
lost without even ta