July Snowfall on East Side

Cottonwood Trees of Second Ward Give Annual Imitation of the "Beautiful."

With the mercury running well up toward the boiling point, the East Siders have decided to exhibit their annual summer snow fall.

To make snow fall in July in this climate is no slouch of a feat, but the denizens of East Minneapolis manage to get away with it every year about this time. The secret of the whole thing is that there are hundreds of cottonwood trees growing in that section of the city, and in the early summer they begin to "moult," to borrow a term from the chicken fanciers.

The feathers in this case consists of fine tufts of cotton that are attached to the seeds of the tree. Nature contrived this fluffy attachment in order that the seeds would be scattered far and wide by the wind, and the scheme works to perfection, as the East Siders will bear witness.

From the condition of the cottonwoods the prediction has been for "snow" for some time on the east side, but the first real fall did not begin until this last week. The result to date is an accumulation of no inconsiderable size scattered about the lawns and walks, and in some instances the residents have seen fit to get out their brooms and sweep away.

Unlike ordinary snow, the cottonwood fall is not content with collecting on the walks and other places outdoors, but it forces itself into the houses. That causes an annoyance to the neat housewives, and for several years the women have been trying to have the cottonwood population of the east side decimated.

In fact, many of them have been cut down during the last few years, but there are still enough left to make a respectable snow fall, as the appearance of the east side streets today will show.

Time was when the East Siders were very proud of their cottonwoods. That was when the city was still in its teens, and the inhabitants thereof were laboring under the delusion that no other kind of tree would grow in these parts. Accordingly, they planted hundreds of cottonwoods, and the east side has been unwittingly raising a cotton crop every June since then. There are cottonwoods in other sections of the city, but the east side, notably the second ward, probably has the lion's share of the nuisance.