The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1884-03-28
Farm Improvements.

There. are very few farms which car.
not be greatly increased in value by
some Improvement Nearly every Farm
has some waste ground which q tax
upon the remainder. just as badly SO
as if q farmer were to keep a few dry
COWS or crippled horses which lived
only to consume feed and rob the useful
ones. Here is = 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 bare
subsistence 10 few sheep who pay for
their feeding in wool torn from the
fieeces by the briars. Everywhere
there are poor fences which are not re-
quired, ttngled 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
gaukt arms to heaven asking to be put
out of the wsy. Roads that are mud
holes in the winter and spring and dust
drifts in the simmer. Barns and sheds
in which tie suffering cattle SILVER
away their food and come out lean and
wermin ridden in the spriRg. Every
farmer can see all these on every hand,
and if he will only look for them at
home he nav find thena there, too. 1t
! is this which makes men land poor"
But it is rot business; it is not farming,
and it is gerry 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 al his efforts. He
undertakes too much. He LAYS out too
big a Job, and finds, when he has be-
gun, be can rot finish, and so what hiss
been tdone is work and labor lost,
and must be done over again the ncxt
year.
Nov, there is n WY of doing all This
work of improvement successfully. 1t
is teffinish piece a time; to under
take no more tha1 can be completed In
thorough mannereand to finish it and
have done with -, There is an old
storT of Hercules who fought with "a
monster which had immortal heads. It
was reared in a swamp. and had mine
heads, each of which when struck off
grew again instaKSly into two. 1t was
caaed hydra. Hew many farmers have
a hydra like thisr-eared in a swamp and
whose heads cu5' off one bv one grow
again into two? But Hercules, byithe
he p of a servaaI, overcame the mon
ster by burning lis heads as each was
Topped off and so finally destroyed 81
All these old NEUROLOGICAL tales have Is
Lesson, and this has very pertinect
moral if the farmers will only see it and
learn by it. Finish one head a. n time,
80 that it is done for and can neyeITre-
~ pear. Drain piece of swamp;
grub it: pillow 1t spade it even, if itcan
Rot be done any other way seed it
blown and never let it sprout up again.
Tho swamp hydra will then be Killed
AID be no more trouble. So with all
o. her things that need improving. A
neighbor nearly four-score years old,
who has lived or his farm all his Life.
was moving btown n lot OF locust
SPROUTS last August. Said he: II h&Se
been cutting this brush. trying no kill it,
fer more than~siXty years. and every
year it seems Be grow thicker. What
to do with it don't know why
son't you grub. out the roots and pillow
it and put corn;ss nd potatoes in it? lit
IL only little piece. well, suppose
q at would have lone ii; but 1t is too
lac now for me. and Jake will have to
do it next year Jake will read these
liz es, and perhaps they may help him
&c make an endaf these costly sprouts.
I'LL.