Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1903-12-10

blue grass will take to as soon as the
land is pastured.
The farm telephone is no longer a
luxury. but a necessity. If you have
not got one, get one.
One of the most profitable crops
raised by greenhouse men is winter
lettuce, FOR which there is a constant
and good demand all winter long.
A man can never do his bent in his
business unless he has a love for and
an enthusiasm in his work. Too many
of us work like the slave, counting Ia
Dor as toll and decentralization.
We are asked whether a telephone
company has the right to build its line
across your land without your consent.
No; it has no such right, and, if done
against your protest you can chop the
poles down and throw them over the
fence.
Some Of the humblest forms of crea-
ton are the most useful. The common
earthworm, one of the lowest forms of
animate life, is constantly at work
nitrifying and enriching the soil. Still
there are plenty of people who think
the worm has no mission save to serve
as a bait for suckers and bullheads.
Just as Dol as a man gets hog
pasture well seeded with alfalfa he
feels like kicking himself that he had
not done it before. If it can possibly
be obtained. the five or ten acre alfalfa
hog pasture is really today the very
greatest improvement which any man
can put on his farm. This item will
bear reading three or four times.
Corn husking machines have been
quite generally tested this fall. So far
they seem TO do fair work where the
corn all stands up, but at only a small
saving in cost over the old way. Where
the corn is down they are a total fail
ure. 1t looks as though we shall have
to pick cotton and husk corn and milk
cows by hand for many years to come,
and perhaps it is just as well.
It is not with regret that we note the
failure of some of the big centralized
creameries, one going under recently
owing 1000. dairymen large o small
amounts. There are well ordered limi-
tations to the dairy business. and the
limit of successful operation seems to
be reached when the farmers of a given
community cooperate in the manufac-
ture of their dairy products. This plan
is almost always successful. il
-- } q
The pigs like the new corn. and IL
they keep healthy will convert 1t into
pork at a rapid rate, but fed as a sole
ration they are quite likely to die. The
indiscriminate feeding of new corn has
probably killed o hogs than any
other one thing. 1t is an incomplete
ration. heating and deficient In flesh
and blood making properties. 1t should
not form to exceed one-half OF the hogs
food until during the last thirty days
OF his career.
In a hog feeding test conducted at
the Wisconsin experiment station with
four lots of hogs -one Of Arkansas
r~azorbacks, one of razorbacks Of the
second generation, n Of razorback.
PoIand-China cross and one Of Berk-
shire-razorback cross-three pigs in
each lot. weighing $50 pounds each, it
was found that at the end of eleven.
weeks the first lot showed a gain OF
1856 pounds, the second lot. 266 pounds,
the third lot 346 pounds and the fourth
lot 1858 pounds, which clearly shows
the value of good blood.
While no American farmer works his
countries. or compels her to do all the
hard work while he loafs. as do the In
dams with their sQuaws, there are all
too many Of them who indifferently or
carelessly or out of pure c~ussedness
permit their wives to hunt for fuel or
carry water when a few dollars and a
little snap and ingenuity would relieve
the wife and mother of these burdens.
If we were a woman and a man made
us hunt for fuel to cook his meals we
would give him soggy bread and pies
and raw meat until he could not rest.
1t is the only way to reach some men.
The country is on the downward
grade so far as lower wages and re-
dueed prices for commodities are con-
cnrned. 1t is now the day after the
spree, and there is the fiddler TO pay
and pretty severe headaches for not a
few. We do not look for n panic or
financial disaster, for be it said to the
credit of the money trusts they have
titf POWER and will under no circum-
stances permit a panic il it can be
avoided. 1t is not going to be so hard
to hire n man to do a days work. the
gambling and speculative fever is dead,
business will get down 10 %hardpan,
IND men will be content with smaller
gains-in a word. we are entering upon
. healthier condition.