Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1903-07-09
FARMERANDP PLANTER
THE "BLUEs" AND HUsTLERs.
Different Mem show Different Meth
DDS In Meeting the Emer-
gcncies Of Life.

While / was trimming an arbor-
vitae hedge, two farmers met on the
road about thirty feet from me, and
after exchanging greetings they be-
gan to talk farm. One said he had
over three hundred bushels of corn
stin in the field, and he did not know
how he was going to get it out be-
fore plowing-time. The continued
wet weather kept the ground in such
a condition that a wagon would sink
to the hubs in the field. He said it
gave him the blues"
IF / had three hundred bushels of
corn still in the field" remarked the
other sit wouldn't give me the
blues it would give me the hustles!'
1 would get it out if l had to pull it
out on a sleddrawn by dogs"
He then told how he once got out
five hundred bushels with a home
runners made of pine plank two
inches thick, and these runners had
shoes four inches wide made of oak
board one inch thick. The shoes were
spiked to the bottom of the runners,
and prevented them from sinking
down in the soft soil. The box held
fifteen bushels when full, and a team
of horses could draw it without much
difficulty. He husked about thirty
bushels at a time, throwing it into
piles, then hitched to his sled and
hauled it out. He said it was slow
work, but he got the corn out just
the same. Il wouldn't let a little
thing like soft ground keep me from
getting out my corn. If | couldn't get
it out one way l would another" he
added, as he started on
What appears to be insurmounta-
BILE difficulties to some men merely
stirs up inventive genius and in
creases determination in others. Some
farmers think they are not getting
along unless the are doing things in a
wholesale way. They must do their
teamwork with a whoop and a hur-
rah or sit down and do nothing. The
idea of pegging away at a big job.
like the man who got hs corn out of
the field with a sled, is too slow for
them, consequently they fail where
the pegger succeeds. | knew one
man who was unable to get help in
haying-time, to haul in and put in
the barn five tons of hay by himself.
He was able to put considerably
more than half a load on his wagon
in the field, and on reaching the barn
he would manage the horse hayfork,
having a neighbours little boy to lead
the horse, and when the load was in
he would go inside and level it down.
He saved his hay crop, and afterward
declared that it was not half such a
job as he feared it would be when he
began. 1t made him feel almost in
dependent of hired help. l knew an
other man to dig and wall up two
wells, each eighteen feet deep, by
himself. / once needed a well very
badly myself, and was unable to OBJ
tain help from any source, so l dug
it and walled it myself. 1t is twenty
feet deep, After d~iooing as deep as
I could throw out the earth. l put in
a ladder, went down and filed a buck
ct, came up and hauled it out, then
went down and filled it again. and so
on until l reached water. 7 would
lower the bucket of brick ever with
the top of the wall, lock the windlass,
and go down the ladder and lay them.
1t was not such a task as many seem
to think it would be.-Mrs. Grundy, in
Farm and Fireside.