Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-08-03
Repairs and Improvements.

Repairs and improvements.
| To keep a farm in repair requires
the careful attention of the owner from
the day it is put into use. Trees, ETC.,
| that are set for ornament or shade i'm
prove from the hour they begin to
grow; but pretty much everything else
upon the farm begins to show decay
from the day when it is exposed to the
sun and rain. The best of paint parts
with much of its luster in month, be-
gins to fade in three, is quite dull in
six months, and requires renewing in q
year. New pine-board fences look
| fresh, and enliven the farm scenery for
a time, but all farm fixtures are so ex-
posed to the elements that indications
of decay set in at the start, and this
tendency never dminishes.
| Hence, with these facts before him it
stands the farmer in hand to build
with a view to the natural tendency in
| buildings and fixtures to vary from the
perpendicular and to get rusty. Gate
| posts that are not at first set strictly up
right, unless changed, ever afterward
remain so. inexpensive buildings re-
ceive more or less injury from the
foundation ut any point becoming de-
! fective; hence it is better to guard
against a corner going down before the
structure is placed upon it. The sag
ging gates or the untidy bars affect the
appearance of all in the immediate vi
| entity. The gate post is never too deeply
or too firmly planted; and for heavy
| gate, hardly any depth or iirmness of soil
about the hinge-post will absolutely in
sure against sagging. But a heavy oak
stick, or three-inch plank, placed just
| beneath the surface, with an end against
each post, will, as a rule, hold the
hinge-post perpendicular and the gate
| level.
The impressions upon the minds of
railway travellers, as they pass through
farming district, vary as much as those
! OF the lover of art as he passes from q
merest Gaub by the scene-painter.
erSed by railroad tracks-no regard be-
ing had to lines-are seen at disad-
vantage. Yet, il fences are erect and
straight, and afford reasonably sure
/ barrier against trespassing animals; the
| buildings kept in repair, and the imnle-
date premises kept clear of rubbish; it
: the strength of the land is not unduly
taken by slipshod tiiage, the manure
| pile in the meantime being left to rot in
the barn yard, impressions received from
| any view will be favorable.
But perhaps the neglect to drain wet
| places upon the farm is as common a
| fault as any other, and one that shows
| the want of neatnesS in fields, and en-
| tails lessened profits with unvarying
certainty. When the team can be driv-
en-, with a load, over ground hitherto
too wet and soft to bear an empty
wagon, then it is evident that drainage
has been made available. No land
should be left about the corners or other
parts OF fields in such condition that
water will stand long enough upon it to
! prevent d good crop of corn being grown
| thereon. AS it has been proved possible
! to redeem impossible swamps, there can
/ be no reasonable excuse for continuing
to tolerate unsightly angular parcels
of wet ground in inclosed fields, kept
either for tillaye or for grass.
| 1t is said that a man may generally be
known by the company he keeps, so
| the business character of the owner of
| the farm on the right of the road, or
| that one on the left, may be pretty cor
rectly estimated at glance, even from
| the window of the Car moving at high
speed. The burrows being turned by
the moving team, whether these are
straight and deep or crooked and shall
| low, are facts that, disconnected from
| all others, have a pointed meaning. The
man who reclaims wet lands upon his
/ farm, stacks his straw in clean, we'll
| sheltered barn-yard, to be used as feed
and bedding, and to become incorpor-
ated with the winters manure, keeps
| his fences erect and his gates from sag
! ging. will give in these things evidences
| of thrift, and show premises strongly in
contrast with the farm of the man over
the way, who habitually neglects to at
tend to either of these very important
| details. -Nationak LiUe Stock Journal.
!
The Eastport (Me.) Sentinel says:
| There has lately occurred a decided
change in the sardipe business. The fish
have suddenly and 'unaccountably dis
appeared from the coast. and in con-
quence thereof all the factories are
| standing idle, and the operatives are
| found on the streets looking for work.
Lack of fish IN ,keS a vast difference In
the business in the town. To most of
the inhabitants it is their living, their
ALL Scarcity of fish also affects very
sensibly the storekeepers, as when the
factories are running trade is good, but
when they are tlosed the stores present
almost as deserted an appearance as
the factories. As this same condition of
affairs prevails all along the coast, it is i'm
possible to foreteh when we shall see re-
vival in the sardine business"
|
DIR. Mcclellan, the famous rifie-shot,
gave an old colored man the other day
dollar to hold a target in the shape Of
| the ashes at the end of freshlv-lighte Ted