1,000 acres of his southeast Missouri land in sunflowers this year as a further demonstration that this plant can be cultivated with profit on land where other crops may not thrive so well. Phillips has been experimenting for several years in the culture of sunflowers, whose seed, when mixed with other seed, makes excellent chicken and hog feed. Last year he planted nearly 100 acres in sunflowers. The cost of planting and harvesting is about $6 an acre, he says, and the returns from $35 to $48.

II

Halifax, N.S., Dec. 25.—One of the most extraordinary endowments bestowed by nature on any land is enjoyed by the fortunate group of counties round the head of the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.

Along the shores of this bay there are great stretches of meadow land covered with rich grass and dotted with barns. These meadows have been brought into existence by the power of the tides in the Bay of Fundy, which have no  parallel elsewhere on the globe. There is sometimes a difference of sixty feet between the levels of the water at low and at high tide. The tide sweeps in with a rush, carrying with it a vast amount of solid material scoured out of its channel.

The accumulated deposits of the ages have produced a soil seventy or eighty feet deep. Owing to its peculiarities, this meadow land retains its fertility in a marvelous way, producing heavy crops of hay annually without diminution and without renewal for an indefinite number of years.

When renewal is desired it is only necessary to open a dike, which allows the tide to flood the land again and leave a fresh deposit of soil.

III

Washington, Dec. 25.—Michigan holds sixth place among the States in the value of its mineral production, with an output in 1912 valued at $180,062,486, according to the United States Geological Survey, its prominence being due to its great wealth in copper and iron. Ranking second only to Minnesota in the production of iron ore, it is third in the production of copper, being exceeded only by Arizona and Montana. It also stands first in the production of salt, bromine, calcium chloride, graphite, and sand lime brick.

In 1911 Michigan’s production of iron ore was 8,945,103 long tons, valued at $23,810,710, and in 1912 it increased to 12,717,468 long tons, valued at $28,003,163.

The production of copper in Michigan, the value of which in the last two years has exceeded that of the output of iron ore, amounted in 1912 to 218,138,408 pounds, valued at $135,992,837, a decrease in quantity, but an increase in value of over $8,000,000.

The mining of copper in Michigan is of prehistoric origin, the metal having been used by the North American Indians before the advent of the white man. The records since 1810, or for a little more than 100 years, show that the total production of copper in Michigan from that date to the close of 1912 has amounted to over 5,200,000,000 pounds, which is about 30 per cent of the total output of the United States.

 III. Oral Composition

All three of these items are evidently condensations of longer articles. The writers have boiled down a vast amount of material into the form in which it here appears. The student will find similar material in abundance in The Literary Digest, in The Scientific American, in The National Geographical Magazine, in many government reports, and in almost any daily newspaper. In preparing for this exercise he should observe the following steps:

1. Find his material.
2. Boil it down, to the size desired, which is a most useful exercise of the judgment.
3. Make a careful framework, in doing which the models will be useful.
4. Get the whole so well in mind that he can present it fluently. Hesitation should not be tolerated.

IV. Suggested Time Schedule

V. Notes, Queries, and Exercises.

1. Write an appropriate heading for each item.
2. Point out the “Four W’s” in each.
3. Tell whether each sentence is simple, compound, or complex.
4. Explain the syntax of the nouns in Model I, the pronouns in II, the verbs in III.
5. Explain the location of St. Louis, Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy, Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, and Montana.
6.  Where is the copper country of Michigan? The salt, bromine, calcium, chloride, graphite, and brick regions?
7. Explain the etymological signification of “demonstration,” “extraordinary,” “accumulated,” “Nova Scotia,” “annually,” “geological,” “Arizona,” “Montana,” “advent.”
8. How many words does Model I contain? II? III?
9. Discover and write out the framework of each model.
10. Find one subject on which you could make an item like Model I. Do the same for II and III.

VI. Written Composition

Remember that you are writing for the compositor. Every letter must be right. If you do a good piece of work it is altogether probable that your composition will get into one of the local papers.

VII. Suggested Reading

Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd’nhead Wilson, or Roughing It.

VIII. Memorize

GOETHALS, THE PROPHET ENGINEER

A man went down to Panama
Where many a man had died
To slit the sliding mountains
And lift the eternal tide:
A man stood up in Panama,
And the mountains stood aside.

For a poet wrought in Panama
With a continent for his theme,
And he wrote with flood and fire
To forge a planet’s dream,
And the derricks rang his dithyrambs
And his stanzas roared in steam.

  Where old Balboa bent his gaze
He leads the liners through,
And the Horn that tossed Magellan
Bellows a far halloo,
For where the navies never sailed
Steamed Goethals and his crew;

So nevermore the tropic routes
Need poleward warp