Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-09-14

Mr.. Morton could only come west, 80
that we could drive him around, and
show him the sights! It would just
skill" him, vulgarly speaking, to see the
farmers in harvest time, feeding wagon
load after %wagon-load of sweet potatoes
aud Bartlett pears to the COWS and pigs.
MI. Morton's optics would bulge forth
from the cavernous recesses of his crani-
UNI and hang suspended over his cheeks
with a pensive droop after the fashion Of
the American flag in the hands of the
democratic party, if he could be here on
market day, and see carload after car
load OF pumpkin pie and pineapple
sherbet hauled IN from the farm, where
it grows so luxuriantly as to be harvested
with a moving machine. If he could
but allow his official gaze to gambol I'M
restrained over the thousands OF acres of
WEIGH rarebit and escalloped oysters,
which wave in undulating billowy masses
IN the soft, sweet Autumn zephyrs, and
rlpen to a delicious, appetizing brown
under the genial warmth of the Septem-
be. sunshine. Thousands of acres of
these crops remain unharvested every
year, and go to seed along with the
Russian thistle and the tumbleweed.
And the olive crop. and the orange crop,
and the mushroom crop! The latter
averaging n or two bushels to the acre,
here, with a sun. Drowned slrloin on
nearly every vine! With Mr.. Morton's
knowledge of agriculture, as he has de-
rived it from the Congressional Record
and Hostetter's almanac, the farmers of
this country must not think they can
impose upon the department of agri-
culture. MI. Morton is just as we'll posted
as any farmer in the country, and when
it comes to guessing at the probable
yield of an acre of peanut trees, planting
tomato catsup so that it will give the
best results, stacking potatoes, baling
turnips. threshing beans, pairing eggs
and pruning watermelon bushes, Mr..
Morton is an expert, par excellence. Mr..
Morton is an exhaustive and unabridged
encyclopedia on improved agriculture,
and when he says fence posts should be
coated with whitewash to protect them
from the SUM-, so that they will produce a
good crop of tent stakes, it may as we'll
be understood that he is not warbling
through his tile. And if MI. Morton
says we mustn't irrigate, I suppose that
settles it.
One of the saddest things in connec-
ton with the Minnesota forest fires, is
the remarkable extent to which it has
developed the p~oetical instinct of the
citizens of that state. Almost every man
in Minnesota who was not disabled by
the flames, has manufactured several
%stanzas of poetry in commemoration of
the event, and some of it bears evidence
of having been wrought out with a
sledge hammer and a cold chisel.
Enough poetry has been published by
the newspapers of the twin cities to
fence in the whole state of Minnesota, if
the lines were fastened end to end, and
there are no indications of any exhaus-
ton of the supply. I am an intense adj
mirer Of good poetry, myself, but when
the muse is courted by every man,
woman and child, who has muscular
ability enough to drive a lead pencil, il
is time to call a halt. The great majority
of people seem to think that good prose
is utterly inadequate to a description OF
the fire horror, and as a consequence
they rush into the manufacture of poetry
The rhythmic substance is turned out
by the yard, and the newspapers reel
off mile after mile of it, with a cool self
assurance which is exasperating. It is
heart-rending to read a poetic des Grip
ton of such a calamity as the fire in
question, which begins as follows:
Was it hot? Well. 1 guess
It was hot, oh yes, yes!
Minnesota was a hot, hot place.
And the pine woods burned apace.
Was it hot, well l guess
1t WAS hot, oh, dear, yes.
There are columns of this brand OF
rhyme, the perusal ct one Of which is
agony almost as excruciating as was en-
dured by those who went through the
original blaze. But this Is not the only
style. There is another kind which I
have designated the "Half-Nelson,'
which shows plainly that the author must
have gripped the muse in an iron clasp
and choked her until her face was suf-
fused to bursting, and her tongue pro.
truded fully three inches before she
would respond to his appeal:
What an awful, awful fire!
l could never, never tire
} Tuning up my harp and Tyre,
Resolving now that I would die or
Tell about this awful fire,
Rising higher. higher. higher.
: Up above the great high spire.
Rushing through the swamp and mire,
Seeming never to expire.
In its angry, angry ire.
What an awful, awful fire.
With it's CHASTITY funeral pyre.
4 49, G.@-l@ = - l,.o -, 4-nIEA.H#. gre