What Alaskan Indians Smoke

1910

Seattle, Wash. — How would you enjoy a pipeful of wood shavings saturated with a strong solution of pepper as an after dinner smoke? This is the strange substitute used for tobacco by Indians along the Alaska coast. Their mouths are often made raw by the practice, and the eyesight of many is affected by the strong fumes.

It is no uncommon practice among farmers to smoke the leaves of the tomato and potato plants. While both these plants contain a narcotic poison, the smoking of leaves in moderation is harmless. Excessive use, though, produces a heavy stupor, from which the smoker awakes with a terrific headache and a feeling of utter exhaustion. Insanity and suicide have often been caused by the immoderate use of these two weeds. Rhubarb, beet and even garden sage leaves are all smoked by farmers, and are perhaps the least harmful of substitutes for tobacco.


Turtle Asphyxiates Chicks

South Norwalk, Conn. — Funeral services for 100 chickens and three pigs were conducted behind the barn of Herman Jacobs and a snapping turtle that endeavored to qualify as a gas meter inspector is being fattened for slaughter as the result.

Jacobs caught the turtle some time ago and tied it to a stake in the back yard. The turtle broke loose and made for the gas meter in the barn. In his investigations he bit off the gas pipe close to the meter and the chickens and pigs were asphyxiated. Two farmhands who endeavored to rescue the unfortunates were made ill by the fumes.

Man's Tomato Vines Resemble Jack's Bean Stalk

Irvington, Indiana, 1918

WHAT MIGHT HE HAVE DONE HAD HE KNOWN TOMATOES?

Although a Novice, W. M. Young Declares Vines Resembled "Jack's Bean Stalk"

W. M. Young, 28 Colorado avenue, Irvington, is wondering how large a tomato crop in the rear of his home would have been last summer had he been an expert agriculturist rather than a novice at the game.

Young, who is a busy man as traffic manager for the Nordyke & Marmon automobile and milling machine plant, sought some pastime as a relief from his "grind" at the office — a regular "nightmare" of less than car loads, differentials, freight tariffs, lost shipments and overcharges.

A kind neighbor found a solution. It was gardening. Tomato seeds were supplied and early last spring Young got busy with the spade. He kept busy and cared for the tender plants in the same gentle manner that an experienced farmer does his crops.

The vines continued to grow until they took on astounding proportions. Some of the vines climbed to a height of six feet, and Young says some of the tomatoes were "nearly" as large as red toy balloons. The season's yield from twenty-one vines was six bushels.

Young is planning to establish even a better record next summer and his entire back yard will be transformed into a garden for the exclusive development of a tomato crop.

—The Indianapolis Sunday Star, Indianapolis, November 23, 1918, page 4.