Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-03-28

- u
M eeea. - SSSA II
0Xx&VTVV1
The crow always takes kindly to the
evergreen grove for a roosting place.
as does the mourning dove to it for q
nesting place.
The effort Of warm air to rise and the
tendency Of cold air to fall are respon-
sible for all phases of the varying
winds and also for all types Of storms.
If the willow post is cut seven feet
long, 1t may be made to double its
period Of usefulness by inverting the
posts as they begin to show signs of
decay. &
Every professional man, men in all
branches of manufacturing, mining
and numbering, the butcher, the baker
and the candlestick maker, each and
every one has special trade papers
which he finds 1t profitable to take and
read. Now, why should not a farmer
do likewise?
We met poultry man lately who has
brought the egg product of q large flock
OF hens-Leghorns-u to an average
snf
did not ascertain how long hen would
wear worked at this rate, but should
not think she would stand it more than
one year.
One of Americas great fortunes
awaits the discoverer of a process
which at low cost will convert the
upper six inches of prairie dirt high
way tot width Of six feet into a frost
and rain proof strip. Here is problem
Tor inventors and scientists to work on
with the certainty that the fortune is
theirs when the problem is solved.
Everything points to another pros
porous year for the agricultural in
terests Of the country. The mines,
mills, factories, railways, will be work
ed to their full capacity and all avail
able labor given employment at re-
munerative wages. This insures de-
mand for all farm products, for the
American laborer is always good
liver when he is earning good wages.
Three men, neighbors, owned adjoin-
Ing farms through which passed a
small creek Each kept many hogs.
1t came to pass that the man farthest
up the creek lost all his hogs by
cholera, as did the man farthest down,
the man in the middle losing none.
When the latter told us of this singular
freak, we advised him to go and cut off
an inch from the tail of every one of
his pigs in the full of the moon and
thus start a new hog cholera remedy.
While an advocate of early seeding
for all our small grains, early sown
grain maturing before the excessive
heat of the midsummer. we still never
did believe in ''mudding" the grain in.
but would always rather wait until the
soil became in a fit condition to work.
The disking. dragging and tramping of
all clay OF gumbo lands as the frost Is
going out in the spring is to put such
lands in the worst possible shape for
the proper development of the crop
sought to be raised upon them.
Climatic conditions are far too often
charged up with the loss of fruit trees.
There are other things aside from
climate which ruin the orchards of
the country. One is, pasturing the or
chard with stock, another is the work
of the borer, another is permitting the
trees to overbear, and another is
drought and the failure to properly
conserve the moisture in the soil. Blue
grass sod, pasturing, borers, overbear-
Ing and general neglect have killed
more fruit trees ten times over than
were ever destroyed by climatic condi-
.tions.
All the rich prairie loan soils Of the
west and northwest should be stirred
with the pillow once in every six or
seven years to depth of not less than
eight or nine inches. So treated, such
soils will produce good crops if plowed
not over four inches deep in the inter
vening years. This periodical deep
blowing will further be invaluable as
moisture conseryer for the crops in a
dry season. Four horses on 10 inch
pillow will do this special blowing in
good shape, and it should be done
just as early in the fall as possible,
July and August being the best months,
and 1t should never be done in the
spring.
1t is of interest to note the relation
which our wild animals bear to the
settlement and development of . the
country. In the west the coyote was
contemporaneous with the buffalo and
disappeared with 1t. 1t was succeeded
by the prairie wolf. which always in
creases with settlement, the enlarged
forest covered incident to stoppage