Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1903-04-01

A~N~~>
All kinds of stock enjoy a variation
In their food ration just as much as do
human beings.
The supreme court of the state Of
Nebraska has recently held that grow
ing crops on a farm sold at judicial
sale do not go to the purchaser.
Plant the odd corners around the
homestead with sunhowers. They will
hide a bleInish, take the place of weeds
and furnish very valuable food for
your poultry.
1t would be worth $500 to any man
who raises hogs to get five acres Of
land into an alfalfa pasture for the
pigs. 1t makes the best pasture in the
world for them.
The difference of a few degrees Of
temperature or few inches of rainfall
will usually definitely settle the ques-
ton of what crops may or may not be
raised in any given country.
For the first time in several years our
old favorites, the bluebirds. are back
again in very large numbers. On a late
March day on short trip in the coun-
try we saw over 100 of these birds.
Scientific agriculture will reclaim and
restore the deserted farms of the east
and will double the productiveness Of
rich western land. The work of the
agricultural colleges and experiment
stations has only just begun.
The stock food companies do not
show any disposition to take hand in
the several stock feeding experiments
undertaken at the experiment stations
this winter. They ran up against a
very hard proposition year ago.
We heard a successful potato raiser
say recently that no matter how he
might prepare and fertiliZe specially a
field he could not now raise on old land
more than one-half the crop of potatoes
he could in an early day on new land.
No other of mans inventions has so
materially affected the food supply Of
the world as the modern reaper and
harvester. If all the grain used for
bread today were cut with a sickle,
-four would be So instead of ST sack.
A friend of ours is setting out thou
sand evergreens this spring around his
farm homestead. He will probably
make the mistake so many do and
plant them about ten feet apart each
way when they should be twenty feet.
The thickly planted evergreen wind
break is always a failure.
The practice of economy in the earlier
years of q mans life sometimes devel-
ops Into stinginess as the man gets old
err. This is bad. AS between the USE
fulness of a lazy man and stingy one
there is not much to choose, save that
the latter can be meaner in his stingi-
ness than the former in his laZiness.
We have seen barb wire fence sep
arating two droves of hogs, one Of
which was eXterminated by the chol-
era, the other with never a sick hog in
It. We have also seen wire fence di-
vide two cornfields, one of which yield
ed sixty-five bushels an acre, the other
twenty-five bushels. Wire fences are
great things.
An average Of thirty inches of rain
fall will usually provide sufficient mois-
ture to insure good crops of grass and
grain without irrigation. With only
twenty inches crops may still be sue
cessfully raised if due care is given to
conserving the moisture by proper cul-
tivation. With only ten inches irriga-
ton is indispensable.
Would not it be good idea to take
enough pride in the school grounds of
your district to see that at least doZ-
en- good shade trees are planted this
spring? Get two or three OF the neigh
bors to join you in this patriotic work.
If you will take the common water elm
and cut the tops back well, the trees
will live and do well under schoolyard
conditions.
The continual tramping of stock will
kill trees of any sort. even the bur oak.
Thus when you turn stock in your or
chard or in your grove you are taking
the surest nd most effective method
to kill your trees. This fact should be
remembered by men who work hard to
set out groves and orchards and then
deliberately take this means Of de-
rroying them.
The chief barriers in the way Of the
adoption of generally improved sys-
TEN of agriculture are ignorance and
prejudice. Too many men still think