The Worthington advance., 1877-09-13


Fer = delicate invalid, q course of treat
fifteen hours : day, through q rocky field,
would be likely 70 make another man of
him IA . short time. It might possibly
be = dead man, but. still it would be
another man. i held, . Plow once and
helped .to break Up piece Of new, land.
Through the Kindness Of friends i was
taken into o. machine shop. and rebuilt
over a. we'll :as the. e.machinist. could do, the
job. soI have never. seemed to feel exactly
right since, but Ldon'tl suppose I. ought
to blame the man. He said my arms
we're both pulled out of the sockets and
l was all stretched out Of shape, and he
did as we'll as anybody could for me-;
shall not hold = Plow again as long AZ I
hold my reason, and when that leaks out
Of me It will not matter much what I hold
or what holds me. :: ii
When q farmer wants little play, in
stead of putting out his croquet set, he
turns to and builds. piece Of stone wall.
Building stone wall is more exciting then
playing billiards, for there is, more variety
TO it. Amateur. Billiards always reminds
me of the itch, there is 50 much scratch to
it, but building stone wall is diversified;
something to do all the time, like catch
ing fieas. 49, 1 : I : = 3: = '~.',-~--
No one can realize the charm of dig
ging round q big rock, and getting a
chain under it, and twitching It onto a
drag, or of getting crowbar under, it;
and lifting and straining on 1t, enough to
strain the whole Atlantic Ocean, and then
Of having the bar slip, and the stone roll
back, barking q shin or otherwise bruis-
ing you, while you plunge forward with
force enough to drive your head into the
ground"n:l say! no. one. can realize the
charm Of this unless he has sat on a fence,
as have, and seen it done. =
VII. The bug problem to the farmer is a
stupendous one. It amounts to more to
a small farmer than it does to the biggest
hotel proprietor in the country. A good,
smart chambermaid and bottle of dou-
bic B poison will fix q bed so tftRt YOU
can plant man at nine o'clock at night,
and have to haul him out of bed with a
steam-tug in the morning, he will sleep
The potato bug is a native of the West.
He originated in the canyons of Colarado,
and may be called an off-shoot of that
section. The State is rammed full and
loaded down with them. They formerly
lived on wild plants, but one of them
went:up toEDcnver on aslittlc pleasure
trip,and at thesshotel there he had some
fried. potatoes, and they struck him as be-
ing about the best thing to quiet hunger
he had ever lighted on.
He went homo and advised his breth.
rem to 90 East and they simply packed
upa few collars and a change of clothing
and started. The potato-bug dawns on
the farmer very rapidly he sees his po-
tatoes nicely up; their green tops remind
him that potatoes in the fall, at dollar
a bpshel, are better than serpent's tooth
or a thanklcss child, and'he goes to bed
dreaming Of f;wealth, pouring in on hlm in
;urrows, and the next morning he visits
his field and sees some red spots on the
potato vines, about as big as pin heads.
He notices that they give rather genteel
look to the leaf: In a day or two he
sees these red drops begin to grow, and
then to crawl, and in three or four days
he goes out and is 80 surprised at what
he sees that you could not paint his look
Of establishment nor even prime it over
one coat with less than a bucket of paint.
He sees that the potato-bug has arrived,
and has brought his whole family aud all
his wife's 500 friends. He is there with
all his tools and implements of labor He
sees bug about as large as the letter O,
when it drops from the lips of small
boy, as he incautiously sits down on an
adult bull thistle. He sees this bug laid
off in stripes endwise, like the marks Of
gridiron on slice of broiled liver. He
sees that what the bug lacks in size he
gains in quantity. He is there and keeps
coming He has as much mouth in pro-
portion to his length as the Amazon River
or Soldene. He can beat hersefy lay
ing eggs, and have seen him do the
job at the rate Of twelve miles an hour
The only sure way to get rid of the po-
tato-bug is to move off somewhere else
There area number Of methods that work
somewhatly. s$onesman set up a steam
trip hammer on his farm, and hired 9
half-grown Sunday-school to catch the
bugs and run them under the hammer
After trying this week he found as the
nights grew longer the bugs gained or
him, and he gave it up. Next to the Eng
lish sparrows, there is nothing that in
creases faster than potato-bugs, unles,
It's the interest on an unpaid note.
A farmer told me that he tried Pari
green on his bugs. He said he'd b.
hanged if he didn't use up, about q barre
Of the stuff ana the bugs ate it all up
and in two or three days they set up
store in, the corner of the field and ad
vertised that they would sell Paris gree,
at retail cheaper than he could buy it a
wholesale. He said he lost his confidenc
then in Paris green, and gained a COZ
responding amount of confidence in tn
bugs.
The farmer is independent. He ca
stay on his farm from one years end t
the other and raise all he needs to sustai
lite and be under obligations to no one
He can have the pleasure of feeling tha
/ on the fruits Of his : toll depend til
! national strength and prosperity. H
truly earns his bread by the sweat of hi
brow, and unless he is bald headed,
seldom has brow in proportion to tn
sweat. ,
Nearly all our great men were raise
on farm, and it is their especial deligt
in their speeches to mention the fact, an
remention it, and tell how happy the
'1swere, and how they leves thes old. plac
7 With its old farm -house,, and how the
look back on their boyhood days an
wish they had never left the farm, an
; long now to return to it and pass the +,
mainder of their days, and resign a IS
900 office and settle down and be happ
again. ',4f7i4r''' :. -! ~s-!'. ii :
I have listened to these speeches an
| read them and havo a,>or< <,r,o ,or,,, r.