Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1888-03-09
BILL NYE ON HIS TRAVELS

On board western train the other
day, / held in my bosom for over sew
enty-five miles the elbow of a large
man whose name | do not know. He
was not q railroad hog or | would
have resented it. He was built wide
and he couldn't help it, so | forgaye
him.
He had large, gentle, kindly eye,
and when he desired to spit he went
to the car door, opened it and decora-
ted the entire outside of the, train for.
getting that our speed would help to
give scope to his remarks.
Naturally as he sat there by my side,
holding on tightly to his ticket and
evidently afraid that the conductor
would forget to come and get it, be
gan to figure in my mind what might
be his business. He had pounded one
thumb so that the nail was black
where the blood had settled under it.
This might happen to shoemaker, a
carpenter. q blacksmith or most any
one else. So it didn't help me out
much, though it looked to me as
though it might have been done by
trying to drive fence-nail through a
leather hinge with the back of an axe,
and nobody but farmer would try to
do that Following up the clue, | dis
covered that he had MIXED on his
boots and then | knew | was right.
The man who milks before daylight,
in a dark barn, when the thermome-
ter is down to % degrees below and
who hits boot and misses the pail, 10y
reason of the cold and the uncertain
light and the prudishness of the cow,
is a marked man. He cannot conceal
the fact that he is a farmer unless he
removes that badge. SO ! started out
on that theory and remarked that this
would pass for pretty hard winter
on stock.
The thought was not original with
me, for | have heard it expressed by
others, either in this country or Eu-
rope. He said it would.
My cattle has gone through NOW
full O hay since October and eleven
ton O brand. Hay don't seem to have
the goodness to it thet it he'd last year,
and with their new process griss mills
they jerk the juice out o brand,
SOS you might as well feed the cows
with excelsior and upholster your
horses with hemlock bark as to buy
brand
well, why do you run so much to
stock? Why don't you try diversified
farming, and rotation of crops?'
well, prob1y you got the idee in
the papers. A man that earns big
wages writing Farm Hints for agri-
cultural papers can make more money
with soft lead pencil and two or
three season-cracked idees like that n
can carrying of 'em out on the farm.
We used to have a feller in the drug
store in our town that wrote such good
pieces for the Rural Veymonter and
made up such good condition pow
der out of his own head that two years
ago we asked him to write nessay
for the annual meeting of the Buck
70 I.<
ment about the choice of subject
And what do you s'pose he had select
ed for nessay that took the whole
forenoon TO read?''
What subject, you mean?"
Yes"
Give it up!''
We'll, he'd wrote out that whole
blamed intellectual wad on the sub
ject of The Inhumanity of Dehorning
Hydraulic Rams How's thatg"
That's pretty fair"
well, farmin is like rnnnin' pa
per in regards to some things Every
feller in the world will take and turn
in and tell you how to do it, even if he
don't know a blamed thing about it,
There amt man in the United States
to-day that don't secretly think he
could run airy one if his other bust
ness busted on him, whether he knows
the difference between a new milch
COW and a horse hayrake or not. We
had one of these embroidered night
shirt farmers come from town better'n
three years ago. Been a toilet soap
man and done well, and so he came
out and bought a farm that had
nothing TO it but a fancy house and
barn, a lot of medder in the front
yard and southern aspect. The farm
was no good. You couldn't raise a
disturbance on it. Well, what does
he do? Goes and gifts passle of slim
tailed, yeller cows from New Jersey
and aims TO handle cream and diver
sified farming. Last year the cuss
sent load of cream over and tried to
sell it at the new crematory while the
funeral and hollercost was goin' on. /
may be sort of ehump myself, but L
read my paper and don't get left like