Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-04-17

up to date.
Another improvement is the INSTALL
ment of telephone in the country
schoolhouse connecting the children
with their country homes.
The best hay when made and the
most difficult to make is clover When
it gets to be worth IS to $40 per ton,
we will make it in the right way-in
the cock.
A spring chicken weighing two
pounds sold in July will bring as much
money as the same bird weighing four
pounds sold in December. Does it pay
to keep it?
A good bathroom should have place
on every new farm home built, even if
not more Than $1,000 is spent on such
home. 1t is not in any sense lux
ury, but an absolute necessity.
While possible crop of onions is
300 bushels per acre under exceptional
conditions, an average crop may be
placed at 300 bushels, or about twice
as many bushels per acre as of pota-
toes.
The old man runs a good deal of
risk with either & young, spirited
horse to pull his buggy or young and
spirited wife to keep house for him.
He is liable to have runaway in
either case.
A scolding wife in the home Is not a
pleasing thing, but it man makes her
gather her own fuel, won't furnish her
soft water and takes the egg money to
buy his tobacco she has right to
scold all she wants to.
Men who have triedNAe White Hol-
land turkeys tell us that while they
will stay at home and bring more in
the market than the bronze birds they
are too tender and lie down and die
without any provocation at ALL
We are pleased to note recently the
fact that in an audience of over 100
ladies, all well and fashionably dress
ed, not one, so far as we could see,
had bird on her hat. We hope that
the bird on the bonnet craze is about
over.
Skunk farms are failure, the two
or three which were started in this
country having been abandoned for
the rather curious reason that when
these animals are raised in captivity
the quality of their fur so degenerates
as to become almost worthless
We incline to the opinion that it is
all right that our nice girls should get
married after they have taught school
two or three years. Teaching wears
out woman faster than maternity.
We cannot pension our wornout teach
ers, and it 10 better for them to quit
the business before they become bro
ken down.
1t has generally been supposed that
| where the cornstalks were cut up and
| then fed to the stock no harm would
| come to the cattle SO fed, but we have
the past winter come across two cases
where the stalks were so cut and fed
where several head of cattle died, with
| all the symptoms Of the so called corn
stalk disease.
If you have drove Of hogs to feed
| this summer, plan to have an acre of
rape for each thirty hogs. Pillow up the
old hog pasture and sow to oats one
bushel, rape six pounds to the acre
and turn in when the growth is six
inches high. If the hogs don't keep the
| field fed down, turn in the cattle once
In awhile. This makes the cheapest
and best summer hog feed to be had.
While many men think chat they
cannot farm successfully unless they
have at least eighty acres of land, it is
still entirely possible for man to
farm very proftably on five acres pro
| vided he is located within easy reach
of any large town, and if he works his
| five acres in the right manner he will
sugar off at the end of the year with a
better profit than most men with eighty
acre farms.
DON'T PLANT CORN TOO EARLY.
1t is well to remember that corn will
do little in the way of terminating
and growing when the temperature is
below 65 degrees F. For latitude Al
and north April planting of corn is
usually blunder, cold weather and
possible frosts being almost sure even
If the plant does get out of the ground
to give it setback from which it new
er RECEIVERS. Our own experience and
observation prove that corn planted
not earlier than May 10 will, taking 4