PEWTER'S INDUSTRIAL BUGS.
Silas Pewter, of Hendricks township, Chautauqua County, who discovered the adamant bug, is getting rich fast off his discovery. It was in August when he discovered the bugs, and several weeks had passed away before he could get things shaped up to "colonize" them properly.
He now has at least a dozen different "herds" of them. Some are removing the stone from fields for farmers by eating it into sand and letting it go back into the soil when the ground is plowed. Pewter gets two dollars an acre for this.
One herd is working on the road in Harrison township cutting the rock out of the hills. Several herds are at work in the sandpaper factory between Elgin and Hewins.
Mr. Pewter says his sandpaper mill has paid well, but thinks he will close it down during the spring months because so many road overseers want the bugs for spring road-work.
He says he is about to close a contract with the Santa Fé for the mastication of the big boulders along its tracks west of Elgin. This, he says, will give the bugs work all season.—Kansas City Journal.