that a stunner. Then I tell them that I don't eat everything that a hog eats. Chickens from some cause never touch them. Pawpaws may lie in piles on the ground and not be touched by a chicken. In fact, I do not remember of seeing any kind of a fowl eating the fruit, but opossums, coons, skunks, and squirrels eat it with great relish. I am glad that hogs do not eat the papaw. I attribute it to a wise provision of Providence that they do not eat it. Often have I gone to the woods where great herds of swine were hunting in the woods for nuts and wagon loads of the most delicious pawpaws were lying thick under the bushes. Whereas if the hogs had relished them I should have returned home with a sad heart and an empty stomach. If there is anything that ever grew below ground or above ground that is better than the pawpaw it is the custard apple which is only the Yankee name for the pawpaw. It is sometimes called the Indiana banana.

It is easy to understand why the pawpaw has not been cultivated. It is because it has always grown so plentiful in a state of nature that anyone could go out to the woods pastures and get all they could carry home, so there was no need of cultivating the trees. Farmers formerly raised no objections to pawpaw hunters trespassing, but as the timber disappears and land is put under cultivation, papaws are becoming scarce and land owners are complaining because there is a demand for the fruit and they say people had as well pilfer their apple orchards. The farmers object especially to hucksters gathering the fruit and taking it to