The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1888-04-14
BILL NYE ON HIS TRAVELS.
He Meets a Hard-Fisted Farmer on Q
Railway Train.

railway Irain'
The Agriculturist Unbosoms Himself-Jus
Why He Is Not Enamoured with a Bucoli
Life-Some of Its Drawbacks-T Man win
Makes Money Writing Farm Hints''-Re
marks About the Tariff.
! On board n Western train the Other
day. held in my bosom for over seven
ty-fve miles the elbow of a large maj
whose name ] do not know. He was
not railroad hog or would have
resented it. He was built wide and he
couldn't help it. so forgave him.
He had n large, gentle. kindly eye,
and when he desired to spit he went tc
the car door, opened it and decorated
the entire outside of the train forget.
ting that our speed would help TO give
scope 10 his remarks.
Naturally as he sat there by my side,
holding on tightly TO his ticket and
ev IDENTIFY afraid that the conductor
would forget to come and get il. be.
gan to figure out in my mind what
might be his business. He had pound
cd one thumb so that the nail was
black where the blood had settled I'M
der it. This might happen 10 be q
shoemaker. carpenter, 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 AK,
and nobody but farmer would try to
DO that. Following up the clue. L dis
covered that he had MIXED on his
boots and then l knew was right.
The man who milks before daylight, in
| dark barn, when the thermometer is
down TO 90 degrees below and who hits
his boots and misses the pail. by rea-
son 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 q farmer unless he re-
moves the 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 l have heard it expressed by
others either in this country or Europe.
He said it would.
my cattle has gone through a now
full O. hay sence October and eleven ton
o. brand. Hay don't seem to have the
goodness to it Lhet it he'd last year. and
with their new process griss mills they
jerk all tho juice out O brand, SOS you
might as we'll feed COWS with excelsior
and upholster your horses with hem
lock 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?"
We'll, prob'ly you got that idee in
the papers. A man that earns big
wages writing Farm Hints for agricult-
ural papers can make more money
with soft lead pencil and two or three
season-cracked idees like that N lean
carrying of 'em out on the farm. We
used to have n Teller in the drug store
i'm our town that wrote such good
piece for the Rural Verm1onter and made
up such q good condition powder ont
of his own head that two years ago we
asked him to write a nessay for the
annual meeting of the Buckwheat
Trust and to use his own judgment
about choice of subject. And what do
you s'pose he had selected for a 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 subject
of The lnhumanity of Dehorning Hy-
draulic Rams How's that?'
"That's pretty fair"
swell. farm n is like runnin' apaper
in regards to some things. Every Teller
in the world will take and turn in and
tell you how to do it, even if he don't
know a blame thing about it. There
amt q man in the United States to-
day that don't secretly think he could
run airy one if his other business bust
ed on him. whether he knows the diff
ference between a new mich cow and
horse hayrake or not. We had one
of these embroidered night-shirt farm
ers come from town bette IN three years
ago. Been toilet soap man and
done well. and so he came ont and
bought n farm that had nothing to it
but a fancy house and barn, a lot of
medder in the front yard and south
ern aspect. The farm was no good.
You couldn't raise disturbance on it.
Well, what does he do? Goes an gifts
passle of slim-tailed yeller cows from
New Jersey and aims to handle cream
diversified farming. Last year the cuss
sent a load of cream over and tried 10
sell it at the new crematory while the
funeral and hollercost was goin' on.
l may be sort of chump myself
but ! read my paper and don't get left
like that"
What are the prospects for farm
ers in your State?"
"Well, they are pore. Never was so
pore. in fact sence I've BEN there.
Folks wonder why boys leave the farm.
My boys left so MS to get protected,
and so they went into a clothing-storc.
one Of 'em. and one went into
hardware and one is takin' protection
in the Legislature this winter. They
said that farmin' was gettn' 10 be
like tishin' and huntin', well enough