Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1899-08-17
SNAKE IS USEFUL.
Northern Rather Has Ability to De-
velCp Latent Genius.

! Il have noticed a peculiar thing
| about rattlesnakes," said Simon Kent,
| of Clinton county, Pa, to the Chicago
| Inter Ocean, "and that is that if I'm
! trout fishing and the trout are biting
| good l am always sure of running
across all the rattlesnakes any rat
tlesnake hunter would care to find in
a days foraging for them; but if the
trout are not biting I won't run across
a RATHER maybe all day. I don't know
why it is that there are always rattle
snakes where there are trout and
/ huckleberries, and that there is never
malaria where you find that com bina-
/ ton Of reptiles, fish and fruit. Instead
/ of Iocality's being Stunned because
rattIesnakes abound there, it should
be just the place for people to seek,
because wherever rattlsnakes are
found there you will find a heaTthfuI
region. l am speaking now Of our OWL
brilliant and Up-to-snuff rattlesnake,
and not the lazy, overgrown, vim
dictfye RATHER of Florida and Texas.
Wherever you find an overcheerfuI
RATHER giving forth his music and tell
ing you to watch out, there you will
find the purest water. the freshest air,
the dryest, highest land. AS long as
you live IN a country where you have
to kick a RATHER Off your doorstep
every now and then you needn't be
afraid Of chills and fever sneaking
across your threshold.
Clinton county used to be the fin
est region for rattlesnakes that any
one could have found in a years
search [ can remember when the Wild
meadows along some of the creeks in
the higher parts Of the county were so
lively with them that the sounding of
their rattles as you made your way
through was like the whirring on a
summer day of a field full Of the big
locusts we call the grasshoppers. RI
was somewhat Of gatherer Of rattlers
in those days, as their oil was, and is
now, greatly in demand, and one day,
in going across meadow along
YoungwOmen's creek, bagged SO nice, !
fat fellows, that yielded an average of
So apiece. That was before the days
that rattlesnake skins had become |
commercially valuable, or S. a snake |!
would have been low yield for that !
trip across the meadow. It used to be !
so, in the Leidy neighborhood, par |
that a farmer counted as
much on the crop of rattlers he might |
gather while cutting his hay as he did |
on the hay crop. But there has been
a lamentab1e decrease in rattlesnakes
in the county in the past 10 years, and
the backwoods natives are not a little
worked up over it. They believe that
all the prescriptions that have been
put up since Adam had his rib healed,
and every ointment that was made
since Aaron had his beard oiled, can't
compare with rattlesnake oil when a
cure-an is wanted, particularly for
Sometimes think that the decrease
n rattlesnakes up our way is due
largely to the big blacksnakes that
have their home in the Black Forest
region north OF US, but which have I
been coming down in the rattlesnake
domain Of late years to forage. Those
1lacksnakes are not anything to won
Ter at if they are not 10 feet long. :
cad in one Of our local newspaper
If an old resident driving along one
If the mountain roads in the upper
,art Of the county, accompanied by his
.wo daughters. Suddenly the horse 7
stopped and tried to turn around in I
he road. The old resident whipped '
lin up, but he refused TO go forward q
nd began to rear and plunge Then :
ne OF the girls, looking ahead, saw a d
,uge blacksnake lying in the road. ! c