The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1880-11-25
Written for the Farmer.
IMPORTANCE OF HEAT IN
ECONOMIZING FOOD.

A man seeking a way to reach the
north pole will eat a dozen of wild
ducks at meal, and drink Il pint of
oil to wash it down, and still be in
danger of starving with cold and
hunger. If the same man is search
ing out the sources of the Nile, a
single cocoanut will make his dinner,
and with a tllink of milk or pombec
beer in the evening, his appetite is
satisfied for that day. Animals ex-
posed to our winter weather, with
only the lee side of hay stack for
shelter, will eat almost all day, con-
Stunning their own value in feed in
one winter, and yet become lean as
Pharoah's phamished COWS, while the
same animals in our summer heat,
will eat little grass at twilight and
lie all day in the shade, growing fat
and frisky in the genial atmosphere.
Our farmers have their stockyards,
yraineries and cellars we'll filled, and
their stock fat and sleek in autumn,
but by spring time, the hay, grain
and roots are eaten up and the ami
mails are spring poor; many of them
lighter and of less value than they
we're in the fall. The winter has con-
sumed the product Of the years toll,
and the farmer, though a year older,
may be none the richer. Mortgages,
grasshoppers and ''tater bugs" have
eaten out many settlers i'll the north
west,but
MAINTAINING ANIMAL HEAT WITH
INADEQUATE SHELTER,
has eaten out more than these three
pests combined. We cannot temper
the frosts, nor hush the winds of
winter, but ingennety can accommo-
date the conditions in many ways.
Albert Pelton, our neighbor, farms
only by hired labor and makes a good
cash profit, besides improvements.
Bnt he does this by taking his teams
and hired help to the lumber woods
in winter. Dalrymple discharges the
hired help from his great farm in the
fall, and winters his family in the
city, and thus secures his large mar
gin Of profit. Men might take les-
SONS from the animals in acconlmo-
dating the climate. The wild geese
suggest the cultivation of one farm in
the north and another in the south,
thus enjoying perpetual summer and
i succession of harvests. But man
cannot yet travel direct and free as a
goose, and he turns to the example of
the bear in his winter den. Here
again man is inferior to the animal,
for. though man can make the den,
there are yet few men who can sleep
in it all winter, like the bear, with
out food. The practical solution of
this problem might employ some sur
plus yankee ingenuity, and furnish
business for the Patent Office. For
encouragement we have the example
of Rip Van Wrinkle, who slept twenty
years on a snrfeit of strong drink; and
of DR.. Tanner. who tasted forty days,
although wide awake most of the time;
and this without any special prepara-
ton either inside or out. Benjamin
Franklin solved this problem with a
fly he found in a bottle Of wine which
had been buried in a vault for 200
years. The suns heat revived the fly
and Franklin bought Il pipe of similar
wine in which to repose himself for a
century, and then be revived to finish
his days after centennial of improve
ments. But the busy times confused
his calculations and instead of the
philosopher getting into the wine, as