Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/854

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���A palace of alfalfa was the attraction at a harvest festival held at Bishop. California. Cows and horses later consumed it, and enjoyed it as much as had the residents of the community

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��A Palace Which Was Eaten by Horses and Cows T a recent Harvest Festival held at Bishop, Ci\\., the principal attraction was a great palace built of alfalfa. The city of Bishop is located in a hay-growing center, so there was ample material with which to rear the unique structure. Baled alfalfa — more than one thou- sand tons of it — was used, and a number of men were em- ployed for several weeks on the job.

The palace was designed to be an exhibit hall. It was ninety feet wide and one hundred and seventy feet long, beautifully propor- tioned, with an imposing entrance and walls tiir- reled all the way aroiim At night it was outlined with lumdreds of electric lights, making a picture more charming than it presented b\'day. It was built around and un- der towering Lomjjardy poplars and other trees and was open to the sk>', but so arranged (hat all exhibits which rcfuiirrd shade were proteilid.

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���Two trees dying of sturvution but covered with a wealth of mistletoe

��Mistletoe : A Christinas Decoration and a Forest Pest ISTLETOE, to which so much senti- ment lias been attached as a Yuletidc (Kcor.ilion, has become such a destructive scientists recommend its extermination.
 * )est in this country that the Government

It is a leafy, green shrub commonly Iduiid growing upon various species of broad-leafed trees throughout the count r\", and show- ing a s]ieciall.v strong sentimental attach- ment for the oak. It fastens itself u|>nii the tree — pene- trates its tissues, and (Ir.iws nourishment from it, deforming it aiid sapjjing its \i- lalitN'. Birds feetl upon the mistletoe berries and scatter the seeds from tree to tree. The pod in which the seed is en- closed is stick\- and pulp\- nd rt'adily adiieri'S to any part of the tree upon which it falls, whelhei- branch or trunk. When germinating, a spike-like "sinker root" bores through the bark until it reaclns the sap, of which it robs the tree.

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