The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1884-03-27
Farm I'm srOvements.


There are very few farms which can
not be greatly increased in value bv
some improvement. Nearly every farm
has some waste ground which is tax
upon the remainder. Just as badly SO
as If a farmer were to keep a few dry
cows or crippled horses which lived
only to consume feed and rob the useful
ones. Here is a swamp meadow that
needs draining. when It would be the
most productive part of the farm.
There is stony pasture covered with
briars and sprouts and yielding a bare
subsistence to a few sheep who paw for
their feeding in wool torn from the
heeces by the briars. EVERYWHERE
there are poor fences which are not re-
quired, tangled with brush which is cut
every year in August in the vain hope
that if cut then it will be killed and
done with, and which rob the fields on
either side of broad strips of soil which
Is worse than useless. Old, half-dead
fruit trees spreading their appealing
gaunt arms to heaven asking to be put
out of the way. Roads that are mud
holes in the winter and spring and dust
drifts in the summer. Barns and sheds
in which the suffering cattle SILVER
away their food and come out lean and
vermin-ridden in the spring. Every
farmer can see all these on every hand,
and if he viii only look for them at
home he may find them there, too. 1t
is this which makes men Gland POOR
But it is not business; it is not farming,
and it is very improbable. Moreover,
the farmer often frets about it, knowing
the misery and loss of it, and every year
determines to put an end to it once for
all But this is precisely where he fails
to do any good with all his efforts. He
undertakes too much. He lays out too
big a job, and finds. when he has be-
gun, he can rot finish, and so what has
been done is work and labor lost,
and must be done over again the next
year.
Now, there is a way of doing all this
work of improvement successfully. 1t
is to finish a piece at time; to under
take no more than can be completed in
a thorough manner and to finish it and
have done with it. There is an old
story of Hercules who fought with q
monster which had immortal heads. 1t
was reared in a swamp, and had nine
heads, each of which when struck off
grew again instantly into two. 1t was
called hydra. How many farmers have
a hydra like this reared in a swamp and
whose heads cut off one by one grow
again into two? But Hercules, by the
help of a servant, overcame the mon
ster by burning its heads as each was
Topped off and so finally destroyed it.
All these old NEUROLOGICAL tales have
lesson, and this has a very pertinent
moral if the farmers will only see it and
learn by it. Finish one head at n time,
so that it is done for and can never re-
appear. Drain piece of a swamp;
grub it; pillow it, spade it even, if it can
not be done any other way; seed it
down and never let it sprout up again.
The swamp hydra will then be Killed
and be no more trouble, So with all
other things that need improving. A
neighbOr nearly four-scOre years old,
who has lived on his farm all his life,
was moving down a lot of locust
sprouts last August. Said he: Il have
been cutting this brush, trying to kill it,
for more than sixty years, and every
year it seems to grow thicker. What
to do with it | don't know" "Why
don't you grub out the roots and pillow
it and put corn and potatoes in it? 1t
is only a little piece ''Well, l suppose
that would have done it; but it is too
late now for me, and Jake will have to
do it next year. Jake will read these
lines, and perhaps they may help him
to make an end of these costly sprouts.
N T. Times