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OLDHAM were colored. The surface near the Ohio is hilly; the rest of the county is undulating. The soil is fertile. It is traversed by the Louis- ville, Cincinnati, and Lexington railroad. The chief productions in 1870 were 52,933 bushels of wheat, 514,745 of Indian corn, 127,650 of oats, 38,322 of potatoes, 301,285 Ibs. of tobac- co, 25,718 of wool, 124,560 of butter, 40,000 of cheese, and 3,201 tons of hay. There were 3,164 horses, 788 mules and asses, 2,028 milch cows, 4,345 other cattle, 9,226 sheep, and 19,096 swine. Capital, La Grange. OLDHAM, a market town of Lancashire, Eng- land, 6 m. N. E. of Manchester, with which it communicates by railway and canal; pop. in 1871, 82,619. Oldham is in the midst of a rich coal field, and owes its growth, which is compar- atively recent, to its manufacturing facilities. It has 66 places of worship, of which 16 belong to the church of England ; a blue coat school with an endowment of more than 100,000 ; a free grammar school, a lyceum, a mechanics' institute, and a subscription library. The principal branch of industry is cotton spinning ; there are in the town and vicinity more than 150 mills, mainly for this process. Fustians, velveteens, corduroys, hats, brass and iron castings, rope, and leather are also made. OLDHAM, John, an English satirical poet, born at Shipton, Gloucestershire, Aug. 9, 1653, died at Holme Pierpoint, Dec. 8, 1683. He gradu- ated at Oxford in 1674, went to London in 1681, and finally devoted himself to poetry and the pleasures of the town. He satirized the Jesuits, and was called the " English Juvenal." A new edition of his works, edited by K. Bell, was published in London in 1854. OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, See ASSASSINS. OLDMIXON, John, an English author, born in 1673, died in London in 1742. After pro- ducing several unsuccessful plays, he turned his hand to .political waiting, and was appointed collector of the customs at the port of Bridge- water. In the interest of the whig party he compiled a " Critical History of England, Eccle- siastical and Civil" (1726), and a "History of England" (l730-'39). These histories have little merit. He superintended the first edition of the collection of English historians which ap- peared under the name of Bishop Kennett. In his " Prose Essay on Criticism " and " Arts of Logic and Rhetoric," he attacked Pope, who made him conspicuous in the " Dunciad." OLDTOWN, a town of Penobscot co., Maine, on the W. bank of the Penobscot river, and on the European and North American and the Bangor and Piscataquis railroads, 12 m. N. of Bangor and 70 m. N. E. of Augusta ; pop. in 1870, 4,529. It contains four villages. Upper Stillwater, Great Works, Pushaw, and Old- town. Its principal business is connected with the timber trade. A large boom was placed across the Penobscot some years ago at a cost of $100,000, to prevent timber from floating out to sea. About 250,000,000 feet of lum- ber are rafted annually, employing 200 hands. OLEANDER 613 The principal articles of manufacture are lum- ber, shingles, carriages, barrels, furniture, and saw-filing machines. One of the saw mills is among the largest in the world. There are Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist, Roman Catholic, and Universalist churches. Oldtown was separated from Orono in 1840. OLEANDER (Fr. oleandre, from low Lat. lorandrum, a corruption of rfiodendrum), the name of plants of the genus nerium. Though derived from the French, the common name in that language is laurier-rose or laurose (lau- rel rose). The genus nerium (the ancient name) belongs to the dogbane family (apocy- nacece), and consists of shrubs with opposite or whorled, thick and rigid leaves, and clusters of showy flowers in large terminal clusters. The corolla is salver-shaped, with a crown of five slender-toothed scales in its throat; the five stamens have their anthers terminated by a long, twisted, hairy appendage; the two ovaries become in fruit long cylindrical pods contain- ing tufted seeds. There are not more than six or eight admitted species, most of them natives of India; the best known is N. oleander, a very old house plant in the northern states, but har- dy in the south ; it is a native of the Levant as well as of more eastern countries ; its large odorous flowers have the appendage to the an- thers scarcely protruding ; the ordinary color is rose, but the named varieties have white, purple, and variegated, and partly or wholly double flowers. The sweet oleander (N. odo- rum) has narrower leaves, the appendages to the anthers protruding, and fragant flowers; this is often confounded with the other by flo- rists; it is more tender, and distinguished by Oleander (Nerium oleander). the characters here given. As a house plant the oleander is kept indoors during the winter and set outdoors during the summer, where it blooms in July, its flowers remaining a long time. The plant is easily propagated, a very common method being to put the cuttings into