Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-06-27

A mechanic-a bricklayer, for in
stance-who, receiving $3.50 per day,
will strike for bigger wages and quit
work cannot command a very large
measure Of public sympathy. Neither
does he deserve 1t.
After you have laid the loss of your
little chickens to the weasel the minL
and the skunk, suppose you watch that
old house cat When she gets on to the
trick of the business, an old tabby can
clean out brood of young chickens as
slick as any wild animal known.
The wornout and abandoned farms
of the east may be used and made prof.
table in either one Of three ways-they
may be used as poultry farms, be set
out to fruit OF timber, and many are
being bought up as country summer
homes by the wealthy citizens of the
larger cities.
The fundamental difficulty in the
way of securing more general intro
ductlon Of the farm separator through
the creamery sections &C the country
is found In the fact that it involves a
radical change in existing methods.
The creamery men are generally 3D.
posed to the farm separator.
The time employed in the growing Of
five acres Of corn If devoted to the care
of the home premises would keep any
farm homestead in perfect condition
and care for good garden and small
fruit. The five acres of corn will be
worth, say, $50, while the other things
would be worth 500 to any man.
An agitation is on foot which will
finally result in all eggs being sold by
weight and not by count. Queer that
this reform has not been brought about
before when there is difference of so
per cent in the real value of eggs.
When this time comes, 1t will affect
the popularity Of some of the breeds of
fowls.
Illustrating railway methods in Eng
land as compared with those in this
country, we note that the freight trains
on the London and Northwestern rail-
way, one of the big roads of England,
only haul on an average IS tons, while
the freight trains on the PENNSYLVANIA
railway in this country average 4SO
tons as trainload.
The old Bohemian oats swindle,
which was one of the longest lived and
most successful fakes with which the
farmers of the country were ever work
ed, has died q natural death at last,
and we hear no more Of 1t. The an
Gent lightning rod swindle still lives
and will live, we suppose, so long as we
have thunderstorms.
A newspaper man once essayed to
write an agricultural item and said,
having In mind the Darwinian theory,
that, IL the farmers persisted in remov-
Ing the horns from their cattle, in the
course of time all cattle would be born
without horns. He was embarrassed
when we asked him If he had ever seen
q calf born with horns.
We noticed late Chicago quotation
Of IL cents for packing butter and 20
cents for creamery extras-a difference
Of cents per pound. Just why
there should be any packing house but
ter at all made is one Of the unsolvable
dairy problems. All enterprising agri-
cultural communities have quit making
IL cent packing house butter.
The rose breasted grosbeak has a
wonderful liking for peas, a sort Of
depraved appetite In this direction. Not
content with stripping the peas from
the pods when they become large
enough to eat, he likes to nip the ten
der shoots from the vines just about as
soon as they appear above ground.
This Is q trait peculiar to this bird
alone.
We notice that cows which have d
supply Of rock salt In the pasture APP
pear to be just greedy for handful Of
barrel salt as though they did not have
access to the rock salt. Try and see If
it works that way with you. II this
is q fact, it suggests that the dairy
cow should be supplied with a larger
ration of salt than she gets in the pas
ture.
In France the vineyardists are using
cannon to keep off untimely frosts and
1isperse and break up threatening hail
storms, while in Algeria the firing of
cannon is used successfully to scatter
he swarms of grasshoppers. This is a
modern paraphrase Of the old pro-
'hecy that "the sword shall be turned
nto plowshares and the spears into
running hooks"
Z We saw man with a load Of shelled
TORN the other day which he had haul