The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-02-10
THE FARM AND HOME.
THE ADVENT OF POWER
ON THE FARM.
A Boon to the Horse-Peach YeIlows-
Good Points on Stables-Make Ey-
cry Acre Pay-Farm Notes
and Home Hints.
Steam Power for the Farm.

fNUAAVooOi VI AHy ToCf0AnCy TO our
,oA-time favorite, the horse, when we
recognize, as all must do, that for
many things the horse used to be al
most entirely relied upon steam pow
ier has in modern days taken it's place.
In fact, we regard steam power and
electric power, when it comes into
more general use, as rather the
friends of the horse, as they are I'M
doubtedly friendly agencies for MAX
ing human life more easy, and there
fore more natural. Steam is doing
for the horse, as we'll as for man, what
the horse has done for man. It has
become the drudge, patient, and, let
us all be thankful, unfeeling. The
patient, feeling horse steps to
higher plane. He becomes mans as
sociate and friend as much as any
four-footed animal can become
There is such higher love of the
horse as is not at all brutalizing to
those who cherish it, but rather
wholly ennobling. It is that kind
of horse love that we wish every
body to have, and the substitution
OF steam or electric power to do
much of farm drudgery is one of
its most evident means.
Whoever watches closely the con-
struction of any great mechanical
work must note as the most sur
prising fact the small part that
either human muscle or horse mus
Gle plays in the more laborious
parts. Both are necessary in places
where steam, or dynamite, or cleo
trio power cannot reach. But the
human muscle and the horse mus
Gle can be and are guarded from in
jury, as was impossible while the
great bulk of the hard drudgery
that always belongs to mechanical
construction is mainly thrown upon
them.
Is there not much suggestiveness
in these facts for farmers? Steam
has not so generally superseded the
horse or human muscle on the farm
as it has in the city. That, perhaps,
accounts for the fact that human life
has tended to the cities since steam
power was invented as it has never
done before. It is not always and
we trust not long to be thus. Coun-
try life has thousands of advantages
which will receive more full apprecia-
ton when it's few disadvantages are
removed, as they easily may be. The
Introduction of electricity as motor,
to which steam power may be easily
changed, gives the new power an
adaptedness to the many varied work
Of the farm such as steam power
alone could not hope for. Yet who
that has seen steam power easily and
cheaply threshing the farmers grain
Or cutting his silage does not feel
grateful that the horse creation is at
last relieved from the treadmill round
by which the necessary work used to
be done? An occasional painless
screech of the engine to blow off SUI
perfuous steam sounded rather like
triumph than like pain, and the work
was done at far less expense every
| way than it could have been by horse
power. Let us all rejoice if the
horses liberation from much of the
drudgery of which he has relieved
man, or has shared with him, seems
at last to be drawing near.
Peach Fellows.
The growing of fruit is not at all
the easy thing to do that many sup
pose it to be. A writer for Practical
Farmer says that it is more the rule
to set out fruit trees, expecting them
to take care of themselves than it is
to look for giving them any attention.
When insects and diseases come, as
| come they will, it creates the impress
sion that the locality is a bad one and
not that good fruit demands good care
everywhere. There is really no ex-
emption anywhere from cares of this
kind. If it is not one thing it is an
other. In France, England and bor-
dering countries there are pests as
there are here. So bad are wasps on
the peaches there that bottles of sweet
liquids have to be hung among the
peaches to catch them. Every fruit
has to be fought for. In this country,
! in addition to the risks from short
crops, poor prices and such things, to
one who grows for profit, there is an
| additional one of the trees becoming
attacked by the disease known as the
| yellows. Concerning this disease
| the writer referred to above says:
There is no installing this disease
when it comes, as the yellow foliage
announces it at once. It's approach
may even be told the season previous
by the fruit ripening earlier than it
ought, a sure precursor of its advent.
There is, too, lack of flavor in
the fruit. In some districts this is
the most formidable enemy the tree
has. Let alone, the tree dies in
year Or two. Whole orchards have
been swept away by this disease, as
it spreads from one tree to another
if not interrupted. If I mistake not
laws have been attempted, if not
passed, in some states to compel the
digging up and burning of infected
trees. This idea, however, has
caused considerable comment, as it is
asserted, and with considerable evil
dence of it's correctiveness, that the
disease can be fought successfully.
The mode is to rely on cultivation,
| pruning and the free use of potash,
and the doing of everything possible
that tends to make trees flourish. It
is contended that the disease really
| attacks but such trees as are
/ 81 x,ifo1ifv. crl <I,;c