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Show H Desert Blessings AN eastern doctor asserts that if men will eat alfalfa they will be cured of dyspepsia and H be happier. H Maybe, but the doctor should be more particu- H lar. Should it be eaten green or after it is con- H verted into hay? Green alfalfa is not good for H Xood for bovines, though it will do for goats, H sheep and young colts. H But an energetic pig will tide over a hard H winter on alfalfa hay. H It is said that a physician has made a distilla- H lion from the plant that comes next to Ponce de H Leon's spring in life-renewing properties, that it H has all the life-supporting properties of cocaine H with none of its sinister effects; that It renews H the life of the feeble while a strong man could H travel upon It as long as did the prophet on the H locusts and wild honey. But we suspect that for H a winter journey the white sage out on the desert H would servo a better purpose. H It is a wonderful plant. It is sent as a provi- H sion of kindly nature to feed her wild animals in H the winter. It is so bitter in the summer that no H animal will touch it, but the frosts of early win- H ter touch it and change it more than they do Hjj celery, as much as a licking sometimes changes HI the disposition of a shrew, and animals feed vo- Tj raciously upon it. Hj The other desert plant, the Tempi, is still Hi more wonderful. Steeped and drank it will cure Hj fevers, billiousne3S, and many other diseases; it Bi regulates the human system better than all the Hi medicines that fill the drug store it is the proper B, spring, summer and autumn medicine. H Mother nature is most thoughtful in providing H (for her native children, birds and animals. Up Hj In one of our most desolate deserts, some pros- H pectors camped one night at some hot springs H that burst out of the foot of a desert mountain. H The water, hung up over night in a canteen until H ' cooled, was perfect drinking water. H The waters which started in a big stream H grew less and less and sank a third of a mile H below. But some buBhes grew along the banks H of the stream and, on being examined, it was H found that they were loaded with luscious cur- Hj rents. The one thing that a traveler in an alkali H desert covets most is something sour to drink. HI Nature knew this and so had planted those cur- H rents for her birds as they trained their flights H over the desert. H There are a hundred plants in the desert L which the chemists should analyze for they certainly cer-tainly possess marvelous medicinal properties. They were planted there to serve wild men, birds and animals, some ages before any of the gentlemen of the schools were to put in an appearance, ap-pearance, for before the world was planned the power that planned it, thought not only of man's needs but of all the creatures that were to be and what they would need, and perfect wisdom will come when all those plans are discovered and what was intended shall have been found out. |