The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-05-09
SALEM.
May 3, 1873.

The day was lovely crowned with all
the charms of spring, and sauntered
out to call on friends, and to pick up
the happenings to itemize for the TEL
EGRAPH.
"Teeming buds and cheerful green
deck the landscape DER, and flowery
fragrance fills the air.
/ Rough roads are mementos of the IA
nous and long continued mud which
has at last passed away; but ram and
| fresh supplies of mud keep coming, so
the roads continue in a chronic state
of badness. 0
| heard gleeful voices of school chill
dren along the way which told me that
the pretty country school-ma'ams have
| resumed their duties in the school
room. Oh, how I did wish I was coun-
ty Superintendent.
The farmers wives were cleaning
house. | knew they would feel huster-
ed to see anyone come in all dressed
up, but that was their business and
Items mine, so I walked in to try my
luck in the item line. Households
were badly disorganized and the ladies
were busy, very busy scrubbing. How
tired they looked and their converse
ton too was void of items-the toll
and MOL Of housekeeping being the
burden of all they said. The discom-
forts of the occasion seldom invite long
calls. [ soon went ON my way after
Items, glad to escape the work and dirt,
smirch and smell, and confusion Of
housekeeping even if / did fail to
achieve an item; but of course I re-
Trained from telling the ladies so. And
as [ met the Salem correspondent Of
the UNION who looked inquisltive and
item hungry like myself, I told him
there's no use calling, that the farmers
wives were all cleaning house, and he
wouldn't get an item.
Next | saw the farmers out in the
fields going their rounds in the furrow.
What appeared most conspicuous in
the fields is the unusual amount Of
wheat sown, the luxurant growth Of
which promises an abundant harvest,
| if not infested with the little perfumed
chinch bugs.
Sowing is finished and the seed has
sprung up covering the ground with
growing green.
Planting is next in order and farm
ers are preparing the land when not
rainy. They work early and late going
through successfully with the four
fold, brow-sweating process of plow-
| ing, narrowing, rolling, and marking,
thus showing that there is no excel
lence without great labor as some one
has been pleased to say; for in point of
| fact never is the farmer so often seen
making his mark in the world as just
preceding planting.
Instead Of force of men being mus
tered in the field planting time, the
"Vandiver' corn planter in many in
stances takes their place, performs the
work and releases the overburdened
| farmers wife from the trying, soul
Wearying cooking for a lot of hungry
omniverous men.
Indeed, farmers appear to be living
in the palmy days of farm-machinery.
Their beautiful, we'll cultivated farms
with indications of wealth and comfort
are alive and glittering with machinery
of every description, wearing flaming
coats of paint, and at times the air re-
sounds with mechanical music. The
reign Of machinery is prophetic of
easier. more progressive Gimes for the
farmer, and invests him with new dig
nifty as he sits enthroned upon seat
of iron doing his work, the monarch OF
| his domains.
But farmers Of the first respectable
| ty who have "much CATTLE" and who
make butter and cheese, and lots of
money tell me that the service Of the
farmer is by no means easy with all
the help appliances; for the mother
earth, true to herself and just to her
sturdy sons, withholds her wealth fro m
them unless they inherit it by steady
industry.
1t would seem then, that farming is
synonymous with work no matter how