Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-06-18

lie sOTTUMW-A RE
The shrike or'butcher bird was quick
10 note the availability of the barbed
wire fence as just the place for him to
mpale his victims upon.
Along the bottom lands of the Brazos
grow SO large that it is almost as much
work to clear the land for new crop
as it would be to clear it OF hazel
brush.
If no man asked or could get credit
and all paid spot cash what nice old
world this would be to do business in.
While such a system would be hard on
some the people as whole would be
better off.
One of the best ways to tget rid of
quack grass is to seed the field down
with clover and give it good coat of
fertilizer. The clover will then grow
80 dense and heavy that ittwill choke
the quack grass out.
Even where corn cannot be success
fully grown barley, peas, millet ground,
clover and blue grass will, with skim
milk, make lots Of pork, and mighty
good pork, too, and any'country where
these things can be produced should
raise hogs.
We have young friend who got his
home in shape, furniture and domestic
equipment all complete, before he got
which is so much better than
hiking off to some justice or parson to
get married and then going toslive with
the old folks.
A good many meniin the west in try
ing to produce both beef and butter on
their farms do well with neither. The
two interests are always and forever
clashing, and most men will make a
better combination with the steer and
the hog or the dairy COW anifthe hog.
A great deal Of very CAREFUL scientific
and thorough work is being done in the
states of Iowa and Illinois intfhe effort
to improve the quality of thescorn. Al
ready by the use of selected and pedi-
greed seed an increase in yield of
twenty-five bushels per acretis reported
from Illinois.
It is but reiterating a baldheaded
truth to say that any man is a fool to
ship to any commission house which
offers more than the going prices for
product, and still men are being bitten
in this manner all the time because
their greed and ayarice are better de-
yeloped than their common sense.
A lady who died recently in the east
left by will to her husband 500 per
month and her cat and dog $50 per
month. From this it would appear
that the deceased lady thought just
twice as much of her husband as she
did of her cat and, dog. We know of
cases where it is just the other way.
The kind of roads a whole lot of peo-
pie are clamoring for will cost the tax
payers not less than $4,000 per mile.
1t has taken 200 years to get this kind
of highways in Europe, and the peo-
pie there have been further favored
with an abundance of pauper labor
and military necessity to help build
them.
We made the discovery this spring,
in connection with a belated spell of
winter coming the last of april, that
the fruit buds of the apple, cherry and
plum will endure at least IL degrees of
frost, provided it comes before the
buds are open, and go through such an
ordeal without injury. Had the bloom
been fully opened such freezing would
have destroyed the fruit buds.
Spraying will not prevent the raw
ages of the curcuIio, the little beast
which punches holes in your nice plums
for the purpose Of .depositing an egg
and which causes the fruit to fall from
the tree before it is ripe There is only
one way to get him. Spread sheet
under. the tree early in the morning,
jar the tree, and he will fall on the
sheet, when he can be gathered up and
burned. He will commence his work