Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1912 — OASIS IN THE ADIRONDACKS [ARTICLE]

OASIS IN THE ADIRONDACKS

Youthful Railroad Agent Has Flowers as His Only Friends, and They —Seem to Love Him. Travelers on the D. & H., which is single tracked through the Adlrondacks to Montreal, yawn and stretch and sigh at the delay of stopping at flag stations, and Wadhams is the dreariest of all such stations Where a lone passenger or a package can hold up a vestibuled train. Nothing there except the usual platform, and it is very short, for passengers are few. Then the station, with office and sitting rooms, divided only by a partition, and the freight depot just next, and all under one roof. As the train comes to a halt a few look out of the parlor cars with unfixed gaze, then suddenly .become interested. The lone agent, a youth named Doty, has his telegraph Instruments ranged on. a desk beneath the usual bay window, so as to give a view of the track both ways. But at his elbow as he works, surrounding his head and easily to be seen from trains, is a profusion of the most beautiful and flourishing flowers ever raised by a professional horticulturist midst wintry scenes. The agent of Wadhams, who in his office embodies every position known in the Grand Central station, is only about twenty-three years old, and his life is a lonely one. He knows the name of only one or two of the many different plants' that thrive at his slightest touch, and says they, are pretty, when they are lovely almost beyond compare. The sensitive pink geranium blossom that is so hard to keep after early summer, and then only from a squat plant, is reaching out four or five feet high, with a bloom on every stem. No matter be it potted plant, a climber or crawler, every one grows luxuriously and blossoms in and out of season. A tbertnometer in the office marking 72 degrees is one indicator of Doty's success, but the greatest is his love for flowers. They are almdst his only friends in that lone station, with only one house in sight in the mllesdt mountains. And the train passengers from the windowsnotethe serious young agent and his work and smile at that beautiful bay window, and as the train pulls on they see colors on the barren mountains and in the cold and silent valleys they never dreamed were there before. What surprises-many of the travelers who have time* to step off trains when their’s wafts for another at the siding is that not one of the luxuriously flowering plants is in the regulation green painted or red pot One is a flat glass affair that might have been a fruit dish, another a squat butter crock, and so on. Any one who grows plants knows there must be a hole In the bottom of the pot or the water win sour and the plant die. So, having none of the regular Receptacles at hand when he started his conservatory, the horticulturist-agent borrowed for keeps all the glass and earthenware utensils he could at the farmhouse where be boards. These be lugged to.Wayoff station and painted a small btfllseye id the bottom of each. Then he calmly shot out the bullseyes

with his small game rifle, and there were the crockery and glass flower pots complete. ’'W