Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-11-29

9U4.
The peoplS are to blame FOR tEe
wholesale adultcration of their food
products by demanding at half price
clever limitations of genuine goods.
A neighbor last year packed barrel
full of alternate layers of potatoes and
Snow apples. These apples, which are
an early winter variety kept in per-
feet condition until May. This is worth
trying.
The mud cats of the south are not
high grade fish, but there are lots Of
them, and they are easily caught One
northern man has hit on Il scheme to
make money out of them and has the
darkies catch them, and then he cans
them and works them off ON an unSus-
pecting public as a brand of salmon.
this year, just one acre by measure
ment 1t cost $50 to produce and mar
ket the crop, which sold for 1920, leav-
ing us net profit of $155. The crop
might have been largely increased by
the use Of few dollars worth of
commercial fertilizer. but as it was it
was raised on just good corn land.
All Of our native plums are much
given to suckering, and single tree,
the product Of some seed which drop
ped in some fence corner on the prai-
thicket. These suckers are always of
the same variety as the mother tree,
which accounts for the quality of
plums In any one thicket all being the
same.
eve all do fade as leaf" is the
ancient and beautiful smile of human
life, some smitten and destroyed by
the winds and the hail Of the summer,
some coloring into beautiful old age
to give fragrance to the woods, few
to hang on through the wintry blasts,
brown and withered till forced to fall
by the bursting of new life and gen
Grafton.
A friend works it this way: He sows
his cornf1eld to rye when he cuts his
corn, and as he cuts it he shocks the
corn on the sowed portion of the field,
which is entirely practicable when the
disk and seeder follow close to the
corn harvester. He tells us that he
finds rye on corn stubble great sue
cess as late fall and early spring feed
for the cows.
The little workers of the soil have
much to do with agricultural prospect
ty or misfortune. The work of the
earthworm in nitrifying the
soil can hardly be estimated; the army
of beetles which live on decaying
vegetation contribute much toward
valuable humus for the
soil, while the ants, the pocket gopher,
the mole and the cutworm are recog-
nized enemies which the farmer knows
but too well. These pygmy soil work
ers have to be reckoned with for good
or evil.
Woods adame with color, as though
the Great Artist were using them for
q palette; here fash Of red from
some sentinel maple. massed by the
yellow and old gold of the elms and
poplars and the greens, russets and
maroons of the oaks-a pageant Of
splendor and beauty which vanishes al
most as you gaze; flood red sun
and moon peering dreamily through
purple haze on dying summer; west
winds freighted with the odor of prairie
fires and falling leaves; on all things
the quiet and languor preceding the
long winters sleep. 1t is October.
The quiet call Of bevy of quail in the
weeds by the roadside, the trumpet call
Of cranes and wild geese en- route from
arctic swamp to southern lagoon, the
cav of the lazy crow, the subdued CHR
rup of a few belated robins and black
birds, the stridulous squawk Of jay
and the chilly song Of the chickadee-
all there is left Of June's bird orches-
tra-this is October music. A deep and
quiet pool in the river fecked by the
fallen leaves, rapid above and one
below; vigilant, hungry, gamy, here
lies the king game fish-the black bass
You cast lively club into the pool
a swirl, mad rush; hear the music of
the reel! You bend your split bamboo
almost double-you have him! He
fights gamely for liberty, but he is
yours if you land him right. There he
lies a-quivering on the grass, a two
FOUNDER. This is October sport
He was German, what we call q
timer by trade in the old country. He
had wife and five children whom he
managed to get over to this country
somehow few years ago. Not find