Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-05-09

KH sa'i5's &
e. &c. hi RI 5YssSgD
There is creamery in Wisconsin
owned and operated by Indians.
If not already done, it is not vet too
late to set out that strawberry bed. 1t
is losing a great deal to put thir job off
until another year.
The general level of prices for all
farm products is higher than a year
ago. Conditions on the farm have
never been better than they now are
One man whom We know drives
double sullly plow with four horses
and has q steady old team hitched to
Lis plow behind dragging the land as
he turns it over.
With the fat steer and the fat hog
each bringing 5 cents pound the av-
erage farmer will make a good deal
more money out of the hog than he
will out of the steer
The Jewish rabbi who fell from
grace and lost his job because he fell
victim to the seductions of a dish of
smoked ham is entitled to public SYM
pathy on general principles.
Seed flax imported from South Amer
lea last year and sown on North Dako-
ia farms proved so much superior to
the old sort that 5000 bushels of this
variety will be sown this season.
A New Zealand paper makes the
statement that a certain dairyman and
his wife regularly milk 10 cows be-
tween them twice each day. furnishing
q ton OF milk per day to the creamery.
a busy day at the Chicago stock
yards will include the receipt of $4,000
NtetliCs i7OsCOO -O,OOO SuScp
1000 horses, which would make a
train of freight cars 1G-miles in length.
Indications point toward the box
elder bug being an uImitigated nui-
sance this season in all localities where
this tree grows. They are to be seen
everywhere this spring and in large
numbers.
A writer on timber culture in one Of
the agricultural journals gives the bur
oak tree as a rapid grower. This is
mistake, the bur oak being the very
slowest growing of any Of our native
forest trees.
With the annual butchering has also
departed the former almost universal
job of soapmaking on the farms of the
the north. The old I've vat and the
big soap kettle have departed with the
other accessories of pioneer life.
We feel like commencing red clover
as the best grass to grow in the or
chard. 1t fertilizes the trees, makes a
fine mulch and does not rob the soil of
moisture, as do other grasses. 1t is
never mistake to get clover in the
orchard.
Where the grain is needed for feed
on the farm more oat hay Goats cut
Just as the kernel gets into the dough
stage) should be put up. For feeding
on the farm there is no way in which
to get so much good out Of the oat
crop as by this method.
The price of hay nearly doubled in
the community where the writer lives
during three weeks of the worst spring
roads we have ever known. This need
not be if men would have forethought
enough to look ahead and provide
against such conditions.
The pelt Of black cat is worth 80
cents in the market. and the price Isl
inducing some persons to go into the
business of raising black cats just for
their fur. Before much is done in this
line we should like to have the surplus
black cats which we now have killed
off.
One of the last things done by Queen
Victoria and one of the best things
was to order that no more docking of
horses should be permitted on the
horses used for the court. This action
will result in making the locked horse
questionable. and thus the cruel prac-
tice will be stopped.
We are asked why, if it is the rule
that apples bear each alternate year,
nearly all trees. no matter when they
came into bearing, fruit the same year,
and why the regular order could not be
broken up in some manner. We do
not feel competent to answer this ques-
ton. 1t is probable that the climatic
conditions have much to do with this
matter Of fruiting.
There is in an elm tree in the writer's
ward q very dasira hla crotch FOR nest