St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-26
VIEWS ON THE PRAIRIE.
About the Season, Low Price OF
Cattle and Hogs, Shelter Needed
and Other Notes.

and Other Notes.
Special TO the Globe.
FOUNTAIN, Mimi, Dec. 17.-IhlS
month opened colder than at any time
this season. 1t has been reported that
farmers have been blowing right along
all the fall. AS yet, the frost cannot be
SO deep that blowing may not still be
done, as the weather has been warm
and full of sunshine, with scarcely
day of clouds, and no rain SINCE the last
of October, and that did not do any
good so far as wettlng down the SOIL
was concerned; while the three little
flurIieS Of snow were of no duration or
depth-in fact, it was just show OF
white, and that was all. On Thanks
giving day we had little more snow,
that still lies on the ground in tiny
patches of dirty white, tor the dust is
equal to any time in summer, and the
winds sweep it away over the country
in thin clouds almost continually. The
wind comes colder since it crossed the
prairIeS of Dakota from the northwest,
and it will deepen any frost that may
now be in the ground around here. We
hear that some of our farmers Will not
try to raise
ANY MORE CATTLE,
as the prices have gone down until
there is neither satisfaction nor any
profit in the business to encourage
them to pursue it. All the calves will
90 to furnish meat for farmers tables
until such times as farmer can get
pay for the work required to raise beef,
TO say nothing of the cost OF feeding
they will throw the food part in and let
1T go without counting the cost of that
iG n
market for what they have to sell that
will pay-only the hogs OH hand and in
perspective, and this is not what it has
been in previous years, owing to losses
III one or more ways.
Some of the farmers are preparing, or
have done so this pleasant fall, much
more comfortable quarters for their hogs
than heretofore, and the hog house will
be comfortable in more ways than one.
On some farms they have been left to
sleep around stacks, just out of the cat
Tie yard, but that will be done away
with, and the hog house is TO be
made very comfortable and used
at night by them, letting them
run at large during the day, and
no close confinement will be allowed.
IL looks as if farmers were beginning
TO see their way out OF sSne of the
ullltnllItS llltN lidNC DNt'n oFtl
by, and that they are gong to remedy
the evil as much as in their power at
present to do. In fact. the present
prospect of the farmer seems to be pro
gressive, and when he once gets started
on the road to success he will hardly re-
turn to the old makeshift ways of yore
OF the letting of his
CATTLE AND HOGS
md shelter wherever they lind place,
behind fence, shed or stack, when the
winter storms are sweeping around, in
and among them, wherever they can
huddle together during such penetrat-
ing storms as sometimes prevail in all
the West and Northwest. 1t is too
much work and requires too much food
to grow stock in the way it has
been done by so many farmers,
and the cost has been greatly
outbuildings where the stock could
the naked, often destitute appearance
of many farms was anything but a
pleasing sight in the landscape, VIII
the farm houses so far away from eacr
other. No matter if the shelter for
stock is of logs or small timber, or poles
that are covered with straw, they do
most certainly answer all purposes for
the protection of live stock, and can be
made very warm, too, by using the
straw stack for such purposes; and
there's the manure resulting from the
thick bedding that should he given to
hogs TO rest in, and 10 cattle for bedding
all the winter through. without Stinting
in that respect. 1t will pay in the long
run. and be satisfaction for the care
bestowed on stock.
Mrs. MARTHA CRANDALL.