Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-10-16
Enjoyment at Home.

DOH Suub up your IlOJS' l''S' tlt sun
should fade your carpets; and your hearts
some of the musty old cobwebs there. If
you want to ruin your sons, let them think
that all mirth and.isocial enjoyment must
be left on the threshold without when
they come home at night. When ouce a
home is regarded as only place to eat.
drink and Sleep in, the work is begun that
ends in reckless degradation Young
people must have fun and relaxation
somewhere: if they don't have it at their
own hearthstone it will be sought at other
and perhaps at : less profitable places.
Therefore let the fire burn brightly at
night; and make the homestead delightful
with those little arts that parents so per-
fec!ty understand.
Don repress the bnoyant spirit OF your
children; haif an hour of meTrimerts
around the lamp and freight of home
blots ont many Il care and annoyance dur
ing the day, and the best safeguard they
can take with them into tue world is the
unseen influence Of bright little domestic
circle. Put home first and foremost, for
there will come a time when home cir
Gle will be broken: when You viii long
for the touch Of vanished hand, ard The
sound Of q voice that is still. - and when
your greatest pleasure will be in re-
memIer;ng that you did all in your power
10 put a Song under every burden to make
each oil er happy.-Albany Journal.
The Lessons Of The Year.
Each year brings with it its own peculiar
lessons. One year emphasizes in most
impressive way the necessity of drainage,
another the necessity of conserving mois-
ture. One year compels the farmer to
utilize all his roughness, and another
to conduct his operations rather with a
view to saving labor than feed. There
are winters which preach the most effect
i've sermons that set the farmer to study
ing with new energy the matter of water
supply. There are years in which almost
any one can farm and grow reasonably
good crops, and there are others in which
a good crop can be grown only with skill
and pains.
The closing season has been one of this
class, as the past was one of the very op
poslte. A close inspection of the corn
fields this season will teach some very i'm
portant lessons to any but blind man.
There are large sections of the country in
which the good farmer and the poor Jared
exactly alike Where there was no rain
fall, or where there were untimely frOsts,
or where there were rust and blight con-
ditions, the fields we'll farmed Jared much
the same as the lily cultivated. There
are extreme conditions which no wisdom
can foresee and no skill avoid.
| On the other hand. there are exceeding
| ly impressive object lessons In almost
every township and on almost every farm
! where there has been total failure of crops.
| In any FIVE miles the traveller can see corn
fields, on apparently the same kind of
| land one yielding fifty to sixty bushels to
the acre and others from thirty to twenty.
| Sometimes they will be in such close prox-
| imity-as. for instance, on opposite sides
of road or of partition fence-as to
preclude the possibility of any great differ
ence in the quality of the soil or tie
character of the season. The difference is
! wholly in the farming, this Is by no means
a special lesson of this year. 1t is so every
year. 1t stands this year with more
startling distinctness. 1t is emphatically
the good farmers that have the good crops
this year. Good farming means more than
blowing, sowing and harvesting. 1t means,
first and foremost, keeping the land in the
best possible condition of fertility. A
great many farmers excuse their light
corn crops this year on the plea that they
had 'oId land, by which they mean that
their land has been in corn, or corn and
oats, or corn. oats and wheat, number OF
years in succession. This is not good far
ming anywhere, although some farmers are
obliged to do it. Again. there are many
fields which show widely different results
soly because of difference Of management.
Two farmers may have clover sod for in.
stance, on practically the same kind OF
land. and yet there is difference OF
twenty bushels per acre in the crop as it
stands on the ground today. An inquiry
into the facts will show that one knows
how to handle sod and the other has not
learned that yet. Whether plowed in the
fall or in the spring. the SOD must be
thoroughly worked up and brought t. a
fine condition of tilth. There are many
things that may reduce the crop-some OF
them, as, for example, hail or storm. un-
aviodable by any human skill or foresight
but for the most part they are
included in the terms good and poor farm
ing. Last year almost any man could
grow a good crop of corn; this year it is
generally the good farmer that does it.
Take, as another example of the differ
ence between good crops and poor, the re-
suit of the difference between good and
poor farming the crop of winter wheat.
Like corn, it was failure in some Sec