The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1895, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1895. 21 SCIENCE AND THE FARMER. Method and Skill Needed in Agriculture. Valuable Studies in Soils and Disgases of Plants. Written for THE CALL By PROF. E. W. HILGARD, Chatr of Agriculture, University of Californta. Science properly so called is experience summarized, di ed and systematized into-principles definitely connecting cause and effect, th enabling us to foresee and frequently to control and produce the | effe ially interest us. Experi- ment pon such general principles enable us to extend the limits of the ex- in actual practice. But it v understood that experi er to be useful and decisive, ctly devised and carried out question will mostly be an- .| tenance of fertility, but by scientific in- | and cheap supply of potash is assured to the farmer. He isthus relieved from the supposed need of raising cattle for the sake of making manure; a system once sup- vosed to be the panacea for the main- vestigation quickly proved to be a fallacy. The exact scientific determination of the ingredients taken from the land by each crop enables the farmer to give back to the soil just what is needed to maintain its fertil: and no more or less, instead of fertilizing at random for all crops alike. ‘This is extremely definite practical infor- mation where the land bas been long under cultivation; but where it is rela- tively new, as in this State, investigation shows very commonly that many soils | contain a large excess of certain kinds of | plant food, which can therefore b: omitted from the purchase of fertilizers in favor of those in which the soil has been shown'to be poor. Thus, the investigations of the California experiment station have shown | that potash is superabundant in the soils { of most of our valleys, while phosphoric acid is rather deficient almost throughout the State; and that in some soils thought | to be in need of fertilization saltpeter is | so abundant that to add more by the use of Chile saltpeter would injure | instead of benefiting the land. The alkali ands of the State, once considered next to vorthless, have bheen shown to be ex- raordinarily rich in plant food; so that what is needed is not to fertilize them, as | wered in accordance with its folly. It s that in agriculture experiments ally subject to such complex con- , ot easily controlled, that it is often ous what has been the real erved fact, and even the iemselves often require more trained observation than is commanded by the average farmer. Take for example the old and ever-repeated delusion regarding the supposed transformation of wheat into “cheat,’” whict ¢ reported from where as a ‘‘solid fact,” against which ook scienc of no avail. Here we have simply a served appearance; the appearance of cheat is a fact, but that it results from a transformation from wheat is an inference ed upon inaccurate observation by un- trained observers. If the inference drawn were correct, all that the farmer pays for varieties ““true to name” would be money thrown aw: for it is obvious that if (as 1s contended) not only wheat but any use of an o of the cereals—rye, oats, barley, etc. —can be transformed into not one, but several changelings, so y different as the several weed cheat” in different locali- 3 tudes of a single season, then it would be the extreme of folly to pay high prices for special varieties of the ains for seed when that seed is iled known to have been derived from the ordinary kinds asons of careful selection. farmer who jbelieves the *wheat transformation theor; should I v see without surprise his bitch bringing forth a litter of of agricult- aid of science to difficu! ura] problems render tt impc we are confronted with an un- ave situation in the general ce- which seru y curtails or even 3 es the farmers’ profits, and of course necessitates, first of all, the applica- tion of the most obvious remedy i i the cost of production. thing shall be ; and this again means that iderable dose of brain must be used alongside of the brawn that in the past has in alarge measure been ed to be the one thing needful in iculture. Brawn certainly cannot be ispensed with, but it should not be use- lessly wasted; and it is here that science stéps in most usefully in explaining “why” and at once gesting thereby the “how” to act with the least waste of energy or | money. R The use of brains and educated judg- ment is the only point on which we need net fear Asiatic or any other competition | until we shall be much nearer the millen- nium; and in this the established prin- ciples of science must be our guide. A fertile soil is assuredly one of the most telling advantages a farmer can have; the maintenance of fertility is therefore a matter of the utmost importance when- r the population begins to be stable. It is only the pioneer settler who objects to having his neighbors nearer than ten miles, and expects to “move on’ before nearer approach, that can afford to ore this prime need. not well move much further west and e usually object to moving east; the attract- | ive climate renders the population really more stable than in many of the older States. Hence the guestion of the main- tenance of fertility has come upon this Siate earlier than nusual, and is actually mooted in many cases before the rich virgin soils have shown any sign of being ‘‘tired.”” Indeed, it is not an uncommon thing to find persons who are taking profusely rich land into cultivation for the first time, inquiring by what means they can “push production” beyond what the natural exuberance of the soil yields. Especizally in the case of orchards the de- sire to “hasten production” has very often led to premature and improper fer- tilization which actually reiarded, in- stead of advancing, the bearing, at heavy expense. In the Old World, and in a measure in the Eastern States, the practice of cen- turies has established. certain rules of procedure in agricuiture that until re- cently have served their purpose fairly weli. But under the present stress these old landmarks have even there largely proved inadequate to secure financial suc- cess, and hence in Europe, particularly, the most active investigation is constantly carried on by the experiment stations, with a view to the cheapening of produc- tion by doing everything to the best possi- ble advantage. All the various methods and materials for soil improvement are being tested most rigorously in order to verify the correctness of the old rules; and thus a number of rather startling facts, contradictory of old ideas, have been elicited. It has been shown, for instance, that under the old system gnite one-half the original value of stable manure—the great stand-by of agriculture in the past— has very commonly been lost; that when stable manure and that valuable and ex- pensive fertilizer, Chile saltpeter, are jointly used, the latter may be rendered aimost ineffective; that bone meal cannot be considered as a paying invest- ment unless treated with sulphuric acid, now largely produced from iron ores here- tofore considered worthless, is one of the most efficacious ana cheap sources of phosphoric acid. The time was when farmers made pot- askes for sale from the wood and weeds cut from their land. Fortunately for agri- culture, the discovery of a cheap process for replacing commercial potashes by sal- soda drove the former out of the market, and so this needful plant-food 18 now saved to the soils of the world; while still farther, large supplies of potash salts have been discovered by the investigation of certain salt-beds. so that now an abundant rterpretation of an ob- | of the prices of agricultural Californians can- has often been done, but simply to do away with the eifect of the noxious excess of saits by appropriate treatment, which 1s plainly indicated by the investigation. ops adapted to them, such as the Aus- tralian saitbush, nave been sought and found by us in othercountries. The costly failures resulting from the random plant: | ing of adapted to them can most!, | be avo an intelligent preliminary { examination of the land. In a very large number of eases crop failures supposed to | be due to lack of plant food in the land and attempted to be remedied by fert. | | HORTICULTURE AND FORESTRY. Application of Science to Tree Life. The lountain Forests lMust Be Preserved. Written for THE CALL. By CHARLES H. SHINN, Inspector Experiment Station, U. C. There never was a time when the popu- larizing of scientific principles was more necessary than now. Californians have been slow to learn that the permanent prosperity of their orchard-planted valleys must largely depend upon the mainte- | nance of the forest reserves of the Coast | Range and Sierras, but wisdom increases from year to year, and it is becoming pos- sible, by concerted effort, to passand en- force judicious forestry laws, State and National. Twenty years ago there was everywhere a tendency, in outdoor California, to de- stroy the small farmers, the small fruit- growers, the ten-acre colonists, the gar- dener and his garden. Vast empires were being conquered by capitalists, stolen from the Government, seized from herdsman and miner, watered by sown to wheat and alfalfa, or planted with orchards and vinevards of ten thou- sand acres under a single ownership. Doubtless there will always be room for a few of these noble estates, but the trend of modern scientific thought is all toward that higher horticulture which intensifies PROF [Drawn by a OR E. W. Call” artist from a photograph.] HILGARD. { | to entirely different causes, | died. No less important than the establish- | ment of rational relations between soils, | crops and fertilizers has been the influence | of science upon the agricultural manufac- | turing industries. The manufacture of sugar from beets is wholly a creation of | | scientific investization, largely of the most | recondite and seemingly unpractical kind. | The establishment of rational feeding | | rations for stock under different conditions ! easily reme- ‘ | and with different objects in view has rev- | | olutionized the methods of feeding and | enables the farmer to use his feed to better | advantage and with a definite object. | In the practice of dairying particularly, | | not only the exact determination of| the best feeds as to kind and amount, but | also the ready testing of the quality of the | milk for the making of butter and cheese, has wrought most important changes, | giving the careful dairyman his rights as | against the slipshod farmer, and rendering possible the production of more and better butter and cheese by the study of the | precise conditions under which the best | products and particular kinds of the same | are obtained. The centrifugal creamer, by which the cream is separated from the | | milk within a few minutes, instead of the | | protracted and laborious old “setting” | process, is the application of a rather recondite principle of physics. In brewing and wine-making the old rule-of-thumb modes of procedure, which fail so soon asapplied to new conditions in different climates, are being revolution- ized by the application of principles that | apply everywhere, ana by the observance of which the best product possible under existing natural conditions may with cer- tainty be obtained. Thus a very much larger proportion of good wines are ob- tained in France and Germany than for- merly; and in Algeria, where the same cli- matic conditions and difficulties that ex- ist in California are met, the very pro- cesses and remedies long ago suggested and published by the California station are being recommended and put in operation by the French Government, resulting in a great improvement of the quality of Alge- rian wines. The benefits arising from the scientific study of plant diseases and insect pests and their remedies are too familiar to the public to require more than mention. The sprayingmof orchards, the fumigating tent, the saving of the orapge industry from destruction by the introduction of the Vedalia, have become matters of daily ex- perience and comment. The discovery of the necessity of cross-fertilization for cer- tain varieties of orchard and other fruits has rendered productive vast numbers of trees supposed to be intrinsically unfruit- ful. The systematic production of new varieties upon definite principles offers prospects of untold usefulness in the fu- ture as in the past. That in a new country like California, where the farmer works largely under con- ditions never before thoroughly investi- gated, the aid of science is perticnlarly needful in preventing costly mistakes at the very outset, is manifest. Hence the education of ¢he farmers of the future for their particular pursuit is with us a matter of greater importance than even in the old countries; a fact whereof the multitude of demands upon the University Experi- ment Station for information, almost swamping the regular work, furnishes elo- tion have on examination been found due | and concentrates powera hundred and a | thousand fold and gives commensurate re- turns for all the brain-force expended. The protits of the large ranch have les- sened or disappeared, while the man who owns his well-tilled small farm and who bas the skilled intelligence to adapt him- self to modern ideas is permanently se- cure in his homestead. In fact, the small fertile garden-farm represents more and more the California ideal, for which the whole superb land with its broad valley plains and wild mountain wildernesses is most completely suitable. By no other system can the horticultural possibilities of California be properly developed. Much has heen already done in this direction. Within a quarter of a century the total annual value of the purely horticultural products of the State, such as fruits, wines, vegetables, flowers, seeds, plants, bulbs and nursery stock, has increased from about $5,000 000 to nearly $50,000,000. But during that period the total area under plow Las not increased more than 10 per cent. o But there are other departments of orchard and vineyard. With the growth of finer horticultural skill and under the pressure that greater population will cer- tainly bring to bear we shall finally wit- river-like canals, | horticulture besides those which relate to | as soon as new and rare varieties are pro- duced the profits would be much greater. Suggestions of this kind of original work can easily be gathered from different parts of-California. Mr. Purdy of Ukiah grows hundreds of thousands of native bulbs (which find ready sale) on a 50-foot town lot in that picturesque county seat, half hid in its madrone forests. Mr. Burbank of Santa Rosa, who is widely known as an originator of new fruits, once hybridized a plum blossom, sowed the pit, grafted the seedling on an older tree to hasten fruit- ing, and finding that his new plum was an acquisition, finally sold that one tree to an Eastern nurseryman for $3000. Mrs. Shep- herd of Ventura makes her living by rais- | 1ng plants on a few town lots. She expe- rimented with Cosmos flowers in her little garden until she obtained many very beau- tiful variations and she sold fifty or eighty pounds of this choice Cosmos seed, the best in America, to some leading American seedsmen for more money, I presume, than | many a wheat farmer toiling cease- lessly and often helplessly has obtained | from the entire crop of a quarter-section | of land. Mr. Morse of Santa Clara re- cently produced a dwarf sweetpea which has been exhibited at all the flower-shows | of Europe, and is called one of the lead- ing novelties of the season. None of these and similar successes ever | came by accident. In each case a person | of trained horticultural intelligence was working night and day on parallel lines | with the hidden forces of nature, not con- trary to those forces; it was the skill of the specialist which wrought these splendid re- sults. If any one reading this thinks he | has only to imitate Mr. Purdy, or Mr. Bur- | bank, or Mrs. Shep&zerd by purchasing a | Jittle 1and, some sceds and a pamphlet on | “how to garden” and so make an easy liv- |ing and incidentally gain renown, that | person has wholly missed the dnft of 1 this article. The essence of intensive horticulture, first and last, is divine individualism. Every plat of land is | full of prcblems hard to solve. Every | separate hillside and valley has its own dfficulties, which no one can fully answer except the workers there. Long and sore is the road to horticultural achievement, but what a California we shall have, some- where in the twentieth century, when this is understood; when the man with ten acres can live peacefully, happily, intelli- gently thereon, neither peasant-drudge nor gentleman -experimenter, but simply a business man, earning his living by some one of the multifarious industries of inten- sive horticulture, and keeping that living well up to a self-respecting, American | ideal. : g Nothing except horticulture in its more scientific aspects is capable of uplifting whole districts, so that while densely popu- lated and really suburban in respect to the conveniences and refinements of civilized life, they still remain country-like in charm and strength. From' such communities of the future, let us hope, new blood shall flow into the body politic, and our laws | and social system shall be changed for the | better. Therein may we find the true equi- | poise for great overcrowded cities in the complex life of the commonwealth. Never shall the unkept, unprofitable ranch bring help to the social order! That way lie Jandiordism, a discontented peasantry, and the feudal system of the middle ages, under subtle disguises. Along the won- derful pathways of horticulture lie the best and purest hopes of the race—land used- to its highest capacity, land owned by those who use it, land as the mother of new forms of loveliness and of & new and more glorious civilization. Intelligent horticulture, however, re- quires broad and equitablé irrigation laws, under which the most perfect system of water distribution that human skill can de- | vise may transform wildernesses into para- | dises, and so maintain them while the | social contract endures between man and man. Also, it requires, in order to fur- | nish perpetual water supplies to the hills | and valleys, the safety of those forests | which shelter the sources of innumerable | springs and streams high above all the | rezions which horticulture can niake) its inviohte | own. California must keep the alps of Coast Range and S8:er- | ras, or siow decay and irrevocable ruin will come upon her wide valleys. Every thoughtful and intelligent citizen | should therefore urge upon our repre- sentatives the passage of the Paddock bill, and other wise forestry measures which 1 will come before Congress this session. In | this respect no other State in the Union has more at stake than California. The State itself has also duties toward forestry in- terests, which support so many industries. | If California wisely continues its present | aid to experiments at the forestry stations already established, great good can be ac- | complished at small expense, and the gen- eral development of horticulture ®will be profitably advanced. Four groups of problems are thus closely ness the complete naturalization of large groups of important garden industries, in themselves seemingly of little value, but really of immense collective importance, financial and intellectual. In many de- partments California can supply the seed trade of the world and undersell Europe. High-class seed trade means the employ- ment of more capital per acre and neces- sarily of more labor than is the case with any form of the fruit industry. Under proper conditions a skilled grower of Hol- land bulbs could undoubtedly produce upon one acre of California land enough quent proof. S 7 bulbs to support his family from their sale—this, be it understood, as soon as he bad taught the American market to recog- nize the value of his California-grown tulips and hyacinths. With both seeds and bulbs the profit would be small if one only produced the common varieties, but (’,§\\ CHARLES HOWARD SHINN. [Drawn by a **Call” artist from a photograph.] related to progressive, modern horticult- ure—the preservation of California forests, the education of our people in that exten- sive forestry knowledge which aims to naturalize the available wealth of other countries, the proper utilization of all our water cupplies both for power and for irri- gation, and, lastly, but in truth of pri- mary importance, a mental and moral evolution of a kind not easy to describe in a sentence. In some way the men and women of California must take a greater interest in the problems involved in horti- culture. As & community we must go. back to the soil and base our civilization more directly upon that homely corner- stone. CONSTRUCTING WAR VESSELS. The Great Cruisers Built in California. One of the Giant Industries of San Francisco. ‘Written for THE CALL By IRVING M. SCOTT, President of the Union Iron Works. The attempt to construct war vessels of the type required by the United States Government on the Pacific Coast was viewed with great distrust by people gen- erally; looked upon by ftinancial ruen as chimerical; received the ridicule of the great majority of people of this commu- nity who generally belittle their own ca- pacity, and a United States Senator, now dead, went so far as to state to the Secre- tary of the Navy that these things could not be done upon this coast. This was the general impression of persons not well informed. The conditions that were charged agamnst and confronted the Pacific Coast enter- prise were: First, the higherrate of wages; second, higher rate of interest; third, the freight on such articles as were not manu- factured in this country, which would have to be added to the cost, and the lack of skill of our mechanics. The advantages claimed were a uni- form climate that enabled the an- nnal product of men in San Fran- cisco to average higher than in locali- ties where they were affected by the business which is gigantic in its propor- tions and capable of & development which, in time, should supply the entire wants of the Pacific Coast. This business is already here. It does not have to be developed, and is awaiting a young, energetic man Wwho will use the same methods in manu- facturing here as are now used by the most advanced institutions of the East. If intelligently handled, there can be suc- cessfully built in this State all the locomo- tives, cars and paraphernalia that apper- tain to the running and equipping of a railroad as cheaply as they can be made elsewhere and brought here, and which, to the detriment of the entire State, are now supplied from the East and paid for out of moneys earned within this State. The only attempt made to supply street- cars or other cars in California has been successfully carried out Ly a man who in 1866 was working for but $4 a day for an- other person. By his own skill and hon- esty, unaided by outside capital or in- fluence, he has kept steadily at work bailding up an industry, until to-day he is building four electric passenger-cars a week and two 30-ton flatcars perday, giving employment to a large number of men and establishing an industry in our City worthy of the support and commendation of all. In 1866 to make a tenon and mortise took one hour’s work. Now the same work is done in twenty seconds, less than halfa minute, more perfect, more complete. The one represents the old method, which is still in voguein many places. The other represents the state of the art as it exists in the best manufacturing centers of the United States within the State. The building of warships and cruisers | in San Francisco made a market for the sycamore from the San Jose Valley, which is used for the decorative wood. The war- ships that have'been built here have been ornamented with California sycamore, and the decks have been laid with Oregon pine, which has proved so satisfactory that | the ships built for the Government in the East are now permitted to and do use toa IRVING M. SCOTT. [Drawn by a *‘Call” artist from a photograph.] intense heat of summer and the intense cold of winter, with a fall of snow so great that it had to be carted out of their yards, and required their ships to be housed over to protect them from snow and rain and the inclemency of the weather, adding greatly to cost of construction; the cost of heating the workshops and ships to make them comfortable for men to work in, which is not needed in this climate, and is not only a considerable bill of ex- pense in the first place, but requires con- siderable expense for maintenance. Again, the cheapness and accessibility of ornamental woods, which can be ob- tained here cheaper than in the Atlantic ports, being brought from Mexico and the Central American States, and that won- derfully valuable wood for deck purposes known as “Oregon pine,” which can be obtained almost any length clear of knots, and when used and laid with the grain vertical lasts sufficiently long to justify its use in competition with yellow pine, and the cheapness of teak, the best of wood for ships’ fittings, coamings, etc. These facts combined reduced the ad- vantages which other localities had in cheapness of labor, cheapness of money and nearness of the shipyard to the manu- facture of plates and armor, to a sum so small that it cuts no figure at allin the construction of a first-class battle-ship. The first effect of building a battle-ship in San Francisco was to develop the ability of the steel works here to supply such cast- ings of steel as the specifications required, both in quality and quantity. That step having been successfully reached the next was the rolling of plates, angles, shapes and Z bars, the making of rivets, and all the requirements that enter into the mak- ing of a ship here instead of bringing them from the East. Also the rolling of plates up to thirty inches in width, leaving only the wider plates, armor and guns to be brought from other localities. The attempt to build warships on the Pacific Coast, in spite of all criticism, ex- ceeded in results what the best friends of the ‘coast hoped, and compared favorably with the best performances obtained in England from ships built from the same plans, thus demonstrating that the intri- cate details of ship-building once mas- tered, skill was available and ready and means at hand to overcome the apparent difficulties that seemed to exist at first sight. El‘he quality of the work performed on the Pacific Coast obtained universal in- dorsement wherever these ships appeared, and at Hampton Roads at the Columbian Naval Exhibition vhe San Francisco re- ceived the unqualified indorsement of all the nations represented as being the finest finished ship on exhibition. The same thing occurred at Kiel av the opening of the great canal when the San Francisco was present, representing in a creditable manner the high quality of her design and workmanship. In the performance of the ships built on the Pacific Coast the records show a high degree of efficiency, with an unusually small cost for repairs, and unusual speed, he Olympia leading as the fastest of her ciass and the Charleston and San Fran- cisco exceeding previous records of the same class. The Monterey is considered the best fighting ship in the navy, and the Oregon the highest type of battle-ship yev designed. The annual consumption of locomotives, cars, etc,, in the State of California alone in wear and tear exceeds $3,000,000; a large extent Oregon pine for deck pur- poses. ‘Why should not the hides and leather produced upon this coast be used here to supply our wants instead of the same go- ing East as hides and leather and coming back as shoes and harness? Why should not the hoofs and horns and the residue of cattle slaughtered here be worked up into the various wants that they supply in other communities, and why should not the labor that idly watches thg steamers come and go, the trains arrive and depart, that haunts the stock board and pool- rooms and surround the groceries and places of amusements, utilize its spare hours in putting into shape, ready for the wants and markets of our people, the ma- terials that now remain unused all about our City and State? Even if they made buttons out of the horns and hoofs and sold them by the great gross to meet the sharpest competition. They do nothing now and the materials rot unused. The question of canned fruits put into shape to meet the Oriental market must be trans- ferred from tin cans to glass jars. Why not manufacture these glass jars here? The building of warships in San Fran- cisco has made a demand for many mate- rials. For instance, cellulose, for its obdu- rating qualities placed along the inside of the ships to prevent leakage after a shot has penetrated a ship’s side above the wa- ter-line, is manufactured hete in San Fran- cisco as successfully as it has been made in France. Decking, ornamental woods, steam pumps, electric lighting, hydraulic steering gear and turretand gun-mounting materials, which have been supplied by local manufacturers. All the implements that go to supply the various wants, by a little attention and care, can be successfully supplied here, ana if the Government of the United States in its wisdom sha!l continue its past policy and extend to our coast the privilege of building other ships all of these various accomplishments will develop into fixed trades and fixea manufactures whose wares will supplant those that have heretofore been brought from the East or elsewhere, provided the same skill and facilities are used in their production. This most wonderful State of California and its wonderfu! City of San Francisco is to-day full of people who are importing heavy hardware, all kinds of brass fittings, engines, boilers, machinery of every kind and description made in the East, which 18 just as effectual in its competition to crush out home industry as the cheap arti- cles mentioned in the late cry rased against the possible invasion of Japan with her cheap products. 1t is folly for us to maintain the methods in use in the fall of '49 and spring of ’50 and at the same time ask and demand the right to the markets on the outside. If we wish to go outside of our own bounda- ries we must go with the same prices and on the same conditions that other people supply from any other community, or else we must abandon the attempt. The first cruiser, Charleston, was obtained in com- petition direct with the whole country, and while in some cases there has been some assistance by legislature, the ma- jority of the ships built here have been ob- tained in open market with competition with the best bidders in America. THE MODERN JEWISH VIEW. How Christmas Is Re= garded by Hebrews. Liberal Judea Sympathizes With Christianity. ‘Written for THE OALL By EMANUEL ELZAS, At this latter end of the nineteenth cen- tury, when anti-Semites are stumping the country in an endeavor to infuse into American citizens the idea -that the Jew holds himself separate and dise tinct and does not throw in his lot with the general community in whose midst he dwells, it might be well for non- Jews to understand what position the modern Jew occupies in reference to the observance of the general festival— Christmas. The term modern Jew should be un- derstood to apply to that section of Israel- ites who reject absolutely forms that have been conceived in Babylonia, in Egypt, in Germany and in Spain. Modern Judaism is another name for reformed Judaism, which does not stand on talmudical or rabbinical ground. With its birth- place in Germany, it has become the Juda- ism of the enlightened English-speaking peoples of the earth. The character of the Jew has under- gone a trangformation since the time, long ago, when he was settled in the little land by the Mediterranean. Contact with cultured Western peoples has changed him from the bigot that he might have been to the cosmopolitan thbat he is, tolerant to all faiths, sympathetic with all creeds, respecting all beliefs, Israelites, freed from the trammels of superstition and from, the restraintof a ghetto not more physical than intellectual, have come to the opinion that a closer relationship is desirable between themselves and their fel- low-men. It is in this latter and wider aspect that the modern Jew regards the observance of Christmas. Time was when a great deal of feeling was injected into this question of the He- brew’s recognition of Christmas in his holiday calendar. With many the burden of the complaint was not so much the fact of the Jew’s participating in what was to him a heathen celebration as that when he adopted the festal customs of his neigh- bor he allowed hjs own holidays to lapse into neglect. This argument was met with, the response that Christmas has ceased to be a strictly religious festival, that 1t has practically been deprived of its sectarian import, and is becoming the holi- day of all humanity. The liberal, as in all other mundane affairs, seems to have gained theday. In spite of those who might desire to keep raised the barriers which now separate Jew and Gentile, the yuletide spirit is spreading. The imitative faculty is strong in the Jew. It has always been so. The customs of those “in whose midst he dwelt” have ever possessed a strong fasci- nation for him, which would probably ac- count for the stringent legislation made against his walking in the ways of the nations. But this feature in the character of the Jew has its commendable side, inasmuch as it indi- cates that the Hebrew isever reac'y to meet his neighbor whenever this can be done without the sacrifice of principle. No theological question whatever is involved in the matter under discussion, and hence there is no sacrifice of radical principle, As it was with the Hebrew, so was it with the Christian. A great change has taken place in his views held on the sub- ject of the Christmas day observance. We find that within one century after the first commemmoration of the nativity puri- tanically minded individuals arose who protested vigorously on account of the too much attention that was paid to the fes- tive character of the season, and the too little to its more solemn aspects. Yet, in progress of time, as I have said, the more liberal attitude obtained a footing. And this is particularly true in America. As a matter of fact the gentile, in cele- brating Christmas, but rarely thinks of the history of the day he is celebrating. He does not associate it with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, it may seri- ously be doubted whether the 25th of December is really the anniversary day of the birth of Christ. Eminent historians, Gibbon and Josephus among their number, are unable to fix precisely the date of his birth. The liberal Christian rather thinks of it as a universal day of rejoicing, and as such does the liberal Jew. To the modern Jew, the day comes as it comes to his gentile brother, as a time for festivity, for family reunions and for good cheer. There exists nothing, and I assert this without fear of contradiction, in the day itself, in which the Jew cannot readily take part, nothing with which he fails to sympathize. To the older gen- eration of Hebrews, it appeals from the fact that the festival arrives without menace of danger; tothe youngerelement, the joy, the merriment, which would appear to have been especially created for the young, that they might fittingly com- memmorate the day when the mighty founder of a great belief was a child ‘him- self. In medieval Rome, confined as the Hebrew was to his ghetto, it is probable that he had little opportunity for exer- cising the imitative side of his nature. It can well be understood that, proscribed and badgered and hounded, hehad no de; sire to participate in celebrations given in honor of the originator of an alien creed, if, indeed, Christianity can be termed an alien creed, founded as it was by a Jew. The condition of the Hebrew was for many years little better even in free and merry England. It is to the account of his treatment when ‘‘suffrance was. the badge of his tribe” that his ofttimes un- sympathetic attitude must be charged. The fact cannot be too strongly empha- sized that there are no institutiond, no enterprises, no benefactions which the modern Jew cannot share with his gentile fellows. At any time of popular rejoic- ing the Jew enters. as he should, into the’ full spirit of the proceedings. The advent of Christmas affords him opportunity for social gatherings, which, in these days of the somewhat loosened bonds of the family, should be encouraged at all cost. Abroad, old-time prejudice and respect for precedent will keep many a Jew from taking part in the festivity of his neighbor, but here in liberal America the Christmas tree will be visible in many a Jewish home, and many is the Jewish child who will bang up his stocking and await with anx- iety the bounty which he prays Santa Claus may liberally dispense. by ook e et