Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-07-15

sheep, and it is largely because Of the
dogs that SO few sheep are kept.
The state Of New York bids fair to
harvest a splendid crop of apples this
gear.
In 1862 we sold a load of wool for 81
per pound. Those We're the days when
1t paid to keep sheep.
The first car of new wheat from Tex
as was on sale at Chicago May 80. 1t
brought IS cents per bushel.
II you buy any butter after July /,
there is one comfort-you will know for
sure whether cow or steer made it.
The good brood mare should never be
sold from the farm. Properly cared
for she can be made the most profit
able animal on the farm.
IT man wishes to change the type
of cattle kept upon his farm, it is bet
ter to sell out clean and start with the
kind wanted rather than to attempt to
cross breed into it.
Said farmer to us the other day:
Il don't have to pay $1.50 per day for
a hand to pillow corn. My wife takes
the team and cultivator and does as
much work and does it as well as any
hired man."
There are being prepared for ship
ment to South Africa $4,000 Texas cat
tie wherewith to restock the war raid
ed plains. Cuba is also prepared to
take large number of the same class
of cattle.
A friend of ours finds very effective
stump puller in his twenty horsepower
traction engine. On all stumps partial
ly decayed and live ones up to ten inch
es in diameter the engine does good
and rapid work.
The northern range pasture land has
never been better than this summer
and that of the south seldom worse.
Feeders are being moved by the hun
dred thousand from Texas to Montana
and the Dakotas.
Given immunity from late spring
frosts, good cultivation and sufficient
moisture during the blooming and
fruiting season, we find the strawberry
by all odds the most certain crop pro-
Queer of any Of the long list of fruits
commonly raised.
The general introduction of the rural
mail route is working great change
in the status of the American farmer.
He is writing more letters, reading
more papers and is brought thus more
closely in touch with the busy world |
which to him before has been
little save market.
A man who planted the locust for a
and timber belt has this to
say of the tree: st never makes a de-
cent tree, suckers terribly, breaks down
badly, its black pods look horrible, it
leaves out in the spring tardily and
parts with it's leaves prematurely. /
hate it thoroughly"
We have drilled all of our corn this
year. Those who have tried it claim
that SO planted the yield will be in
creased from six to ten bushels per
acre over the old way Of planting in
hills. 1t looks reasonable that stalks
of corn growing one foot apart in the
row should produce larger and more
uniform ears than if grown in hills.
Altogether there are about $50 buff
faloes left in the whole of the United
States. While these. which are nearly
all in captivity and partially domesti-
Gated, will breed to some extent, the
greatest care will have to be exercised
or the bovine which once could be
counted by millions will become utter
ly extinct, us in the case of the passen-
ger pigeon.
A drove OF 100 two-year-old steers
running on a good clover and timo-
thy pasture and on full corn feed dur
ing the last half of May and the first
half Of June made the remarkable
gain in weight Of 119 pounds each in
the thirty days, or nearly four pounds
per day. This happened near the
writer's home, where he saw the cattle
and the certified weights.
Thousands of farmers during the
past four years have changed from
farmers into bankers-that is, they
have their savings (no small sums
either) invested in the stocks of their
home banks-and they are now able
to see the world from the standpoint of
the capitalist as well as the producer,
and thus they are more conservative
than they were when corn sold for 10
cents bushel.
A part of the casein which contains
the protein elements of the milk should