Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-07-28

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| lS1lJS. TRteG. ROCKFORD. IA. S0
ESDWe CORES PohoEhcE SOLICITED. OlQ
e5DsGS $500 > zS54GS8
Good roads are to community what
good clothes are to man.
We would never put an organ or
piano in the home until there was q
good bath tub there.
| Fire is the worst enemy Of the forest
sections, and it usually gets in its de
structive work as the result of mems
carelessness.
With us this year all vines Of the
squash, melon and cucumber tribe are
entirely free from insect pests. Last
year they were cleaned out root and
branch.
Any man with quarter section farm
and four or five children in his home
will find $40 invested in good papers
and periodicals the very best invest
ment he can make each year.
Up in the north country they are this
fore part of July having eighteen hours
of daylight and sunshine, developing
great crops of the cereals. There is
hardly darkness enough up there to do
old fashioned counting.
With cotton quoted at 10 cents and
wool at IS cents we can't see what
motive there can possibly be in adul-
terating wooden goods with cotton.
| Under these conditions all named wool
en- goods should be all wool and a yard
wide.
When the syndicate of farmers who
had invested in $1,000 horse on the
strength of what they thought they
knew about horses sold the beast the
other day for 5000 they fully realized
the truth of the old saw about the fool
and his money.
This thing worked wrong: A man in
q western county thought to drain a
large slough by boring a hole down in
the middle of it. The result was that
instead Of draining the slough he de-
veloped an artesian well, a spouter,
which has made the problem Of drain
age more difficult than ever before.
The traction engine is coming more
and more into, use along agricultural
lines. 1t has found no more useful
| field than in hauling the modern road
grading machine, furnishing steady
and even power which permits of these
machines doing their best work. 1t
should entirely supersede the horse for
this work.
| We noted lately long row Of round
willow posts about six inches in diam
eter which had been set this spring for
a fence. Every last one Of these posts
because of the excessive moisture of
the month of May-has gone to grow
ing and is now rapidly developing
into tree. We know of no other va
riety of timber with which this could
be done.
No single industry is developing with
greater rapidity than is the manufac-
ture Of cement. From a total produc-
ton in 1892 Of S,75S,G21 barrels the
business has grown to production of
26, 437, 800 barrels in 1902. We are
rapidly coming to what may be termed
cement age. 1t is taking the place Of
wood, tile, brick and stone in all direc-
lions.
A father sitting in the car seat be-
hind us short time since was busily
engaged in showing his ten-year-old
son how to match pennies. The boy
| learned easily, and if the father in q
few years has to mortgage his home to
pay poker debt contracted by his son
he will have nobody but himself to
blame. We do not understand what
excuse man has to offer for being as
| big fool as this.
There never grew anywhere in all
the known world such a magnificent
body of timber as may be found on the
westerly slopes of the Cascade noun
tains in Washington. In this connec-
ton it is worth noting that there as
nowhere else will this timber quickly
reforest the mountain slopes as it is
removed, and so make it possible un-
der reasonable care and regulations
to maintain for all time a great forest
reserve for the future use of the
country.
Intelligent and sensible methods Of
agriculture will redeem many OF the
seemingly waste places, for it is a poor
soil and most ungenial climate where
nothing can be successfully grown.
The Doggy marsh may be drained and
made the most productive acre on the
farm. the bleak and barren knoll may
be converted into thrifty grove of
pines and cedars, the duck pond be
changed into cranberry plantation
and the white sand, piny sections be
made to support thrifty farm popula-