ppiness they wrought upon their
distant boys, I am sure they would have been surprised and touched. Again
and again we read the simple news of home,--the cat was dead, or little
sister had the mumps, or father had built a new fence around the back
pasture,--and wars and kings and presidents faded into forgetfulness before
the heart to heart talks that had come from over-seas.

I don't suppose there is anybody that knows the value of a letter better
than a soldier does. A few blotted lines from his mother or sister or
sweetheart are meat and drink and fine raiment for his soul. He feels brave
again and good again and--homesick again. He makes life a burden for the
whole camp until he has borrowed or stolen a scrap of paper and a stubby
pencil wherewith to make reply. He sits down in some convenient spot, with
emotion fairly oozing from every pore, and for a solid hour he wrestles
with his tools and vocabulary. The result probably does not altogether
please him. He feels that he has said too much about his lack of socks,
the toughness of his fare, the flatness of his purse. All the love and
tenderness he meant to set down have somehow refused to leave him, even in
description. But he knows he will be massacred if he goes howling for more
paper; and so he sends off what he has written, counting the weary days
until his answer comes. The man who first invented writing was, without
doubt, the greatest man that ever lived.

[Illustration: A very Popular Spot.]

[Illustration: Two Knights and a Pawn.]

On August 25 it was decided to bring all but four companies of the brigade
into quarters at Mayaguez, chiefly because a great deal of sickness had
begun to spring up in the outlying camps. This was accordingly done.

* * * * *

Scientific agriculture and prosperity have long been regarded as almost
synonymous terms in Puerto Rico.

The provincial government established and maintained an experimental
station at Rio Piedras, for the purpose of promoting a technical knowledge
of the native soil-products; and the results of this step have proved
invaluable. The recent director of the station, Senor Fernando Lopez Tuero,
wrote, while in office, several monographs on tropical agriculture; which I
have been at some pains to translate in my search for absolutely reliable
information relating to that subject. Senor Tuero is considered, to be a
high and conservative authority by those of his compatriot