Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-06-03
P[0N |O ROWS At ONCE
Farmers Are Solving Labor
Problem With Three Horse
CultivatOrs
CORN CRIB DEVICE
PecuIarities of Farmers Who Demand
That Mail Routes Pass by Their Door
Yards-The Modesty of One Post
master Wins Its Reward-Thayer's
Rural Notes.

Rural Notes.
Special to Times Republican.
State Center, June Sit is among
the farmers of Iowa that one learns
again the old adage about necessity
being the mother of invention" The
; scarcity of farm help and the great
i Willingness of Iowa soil 10 raise bumper
crops of corn, if only given fair
manded some method more effective
than the old system of driving team
up and down each row of growing corn.
I The man who invented the double cul-
/ tivator, which With the aid OF three
/ horses enables man to cultivate two
4 rows at a time, has removed from the
! troubles of the farmer tons upon tons
of his burdens. Last year there We're
/ a few of these machines put on the
market, but this year about 1000 have
been made and sold Only one was used
4
| in use around State Center. They are
peculiarly constructed affairs and have
| considerable machinery about them,
/ and require some understanding, but in
talking the other day with man using
one of them he said: There is my field:
part is done with a single machine and
part with a double; can you tell which
x,i,;, All
not. He went on to say: Il have 100
acres of corn and expect to do most all
my own work with thai machine. l
can cultivate 100 acres Of corn a week.
SO don't think the weeds will get much
the best of me-" 1t begins to look as
farm was fast being solved with i'm
proved machinery.
Many men accuse the farmer of being
tight-fisted. Maybe he is, but you go
out and show him machine which will
reduce the cost of production and see
how soon he Will spend his money. The
farmer has been worked time and
again, until he likes to be shown" but
once convinced he is all right.
From corn cultiYating to corn in the
crib is to view both ends of what often
proves to be an agricultural tragedy
and it reminds ME of what l saw last
week. When I drove into an Eden
township farm yard l found the farmer
and his sons sorting over large crib
of corn. most of which was completely
spoiled. He had iabored hard and long
thru the season before to raise that
crop and here it was largely dead loss
to him. All at once there flashed upon
me an explanation for queer kind of
a box arrangement l had seen the day
before running thru a mans corn crib.
Thru the center of the crib, running
from end to end. he had built a box
with the boards full of holes to admit
the air into the center OF his crib full
mans crib of spoiled corn it was seen
that the damage had all occurred in the
center of the pile, while the corn on the
outside had cured and was hard and
sound. The ventilator made of three
twelve-inch boards would have saved
this mans crop in the crib.
The recent laying out OF seventeen
additional mail routes in this county
has created many circumstances which
are amusing to an outsider. One is
that each and every man wants the car
rier to come his way first, and of course
wants the route right by his house.
mo. sir; if you can't bring 1t to the
house / will go to town for my mall" is |
a common threat. Then they can all |
tell you how much better it would have |
been to have their mail come from some /
other town. They overlook the fact that
the government has in its employ men |
who make a study Of this business and /
and are quite capable of doing the work |
we'll. Many things are lost sight of I
which an inspector must take into ac-
count: such as the arrival and depart
ure of trains, size and convenience of |
postotfice buildings in which to accom-
modate the handling of mail and many
other things too numerous to mention.
When the complete rural route service
is established in Marshall county there
will be only forty families who are more
than half a mile from routes or post
office. Now If there is any one who can
DO better job than that let him step
up: the government wants him in its
service.
Out of twenty-five Offices in Marshall T
county one finds many kinds of post
masters. This town Estate Center)
perhaps the most unique case.
Here is a man who has never found
fault with the fact that Ehodes got part
Of his territory with their route: never
to headquarters that he was
entitled to three routes instead of the
one he had and when the inspector was
laying out the routes did not bother
Kim to death telling him what was his
territory, but simply managed his Of
flee to the best of his ability. He now
has the satisfaction of having a greater
increase in number of routes than any
other office in the county. From one
route he got four.
AT another town in the county which
has a rural route the postmaster has
peculiar ideas as to the duties of his
According to instructions from
headquarters the carrier is required to
leave at a. m. but the p. NJ. keeps
his front and back door locked and
does nor allow his carrier to enter the