widely and generally as possible among the farmers of California, had made a positive rule to sell only one pound to any one individual. Harry, not a whit less enthusiastic than himself, and, if possible, a little more public-spirited, determined to have a field of those oats which would astonish the natives. So he went around among his friends, and got them to go one at a time to his importing friend, and purchase a pound of the precious oats, each on the pretext of desiring to plant them in their gardens to raise seed for hypothetical ranches in the country for next season. His virtue and perseverance were fully rewarded. He succeeded in getting together, in this manner, fifty-seven pounds of the coveted oats, which he proceeded to sow in a nicely prepared field of goodly extent. He had sown many a field with oats of the wildest variety in his younger days, but never had he regarded the expected crop with such blissful anticipations as in this case. He watched and waited. Days grew into weeks, and weeks into months, and still no green sprout showed itself above the surface of that promising field. Painful doubts began to oppress his bosom. He dug down and found some of the oats; they were just in the condition in which they were first put into the earth. Sore afflicted in mind, he waited yet a little longer, tried them again, and with the same result. Then he hurried away to his friend, the public-spirited importer, and sought an explanation of the mystery. It was easily given. He, the importer, had written to a friend in Edinburgh for "One thousand pounds of black oats such as are
