Weihaiwei, Jan. 14.—Balbus muram aedificabat is a Latin tag which almost every child has quoted to display his budding knowledge and I remember that I always pictured Balbus (the Stammerer) toiling single-handed at his task, and little thought when later knowledge came, that I would one day see a man actually build a wall with-his own two hands and no other implement than a farmer's hoe to dig up the rocks. But that is precisely what I have seen during the past month as I walked along a narrow hill-path close to my house. This Balbus is a local farmer who has taken to growing apples and during the past few weeks he has with single-handed toil built a strong "dry wall" a hundred feet long; no mortar is used and each rock and stone has to be carefully selected and placed so that the whole stands firmly against any weather: further up the hill he is now building another wall and on the levelled soil between these he is planting his tree. These trees consist only of a single twig of which about 18 inches appears above a conical mound of soil, so I have been making enquiries as to how these patient "pomologists" acquire their stock. It seems that, lacking any suitable wild stock on which to graft their twigs, they first plant apple seeds which, as everybody knows, produce trees which seldom if ever run true lo-type: after two or three years the roots are strong enough to use, and on to these they graft selected twigs taken from i trees (probably some of mine—and I rather hope they are!): these are planted in winter and piled up Fwith earth to keep them warm; then in the springtime when the sun shines warmly again the earth-mound is removed... the sap runs into the new stock and, lo and behold, the farmer has an "imported apple tree" which may bear him crops four or five years hence. If this is not true patience I would like to know what lis... and I take off my hat to Balbus the wall-builder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.