Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-02-11

tural Journal:
Farmers throughout the last dis
NAL autumn have been looking on one
another in abject bewilderment, not
knowing what to do or how to face
the multiplicity of disasters. They
have heaped themselves one on the
other necessarily, AMI so fiercely that
it might almost be supposed all the
fates had leagued together TO give Brit
ish farmers all the excruciating tor
lures possible before running them
outright. The battering down of the
corn crops, the impossibility to harvest
them without great spoliation was
bad enough; but when it was found
that the clouds deluged the land ten
fold worse in October than they had
done before; that neither the thrash
ing Of corn nor the pursuance of
autumn cultivation, the digging and
harvesting of potatoes, the lifting of
mangels. wheat sowing, or any kind
of field work could be performed, the
agony that could not be avoided seem
ed past endurance
! Stock owners and occupiers of pas
lures have had their troubles, too.
Graziers and dairy farmers had to tie
up their cattle in stalls in the midst of
summer and give them hay Low ly-
ing grass lands were deluged, and
those on higher levels were too soft
at their surfaces to bear tramping.
There has been abundance of keep
all through the summer and autumn,
but there has been little or no heart in
the heritage. Dairymen have been
surprised at the poverty of the milk
yielded by their cows, while graziers.
even in August, discovered that the
emasculent, securing grass was do
ing their beasts harm instead of good.
throughout the last month the hoofs
OF cows trod into the earth three or
four times more grass than their
mouths could consume, and except on
the soundest lands, grazing bullocks
were far better in boxes, stalls. or
yards, if variety of fodder and roots
,, with hay could be given them.
Nor do stockholders ills end here
for there has been considerable decline
in the values both of cattle and sheep
due entirely to the seasons disasters
as above depicted. Those who pur-
| chased steers high in spring find that
they would be worth from 3Os to 60
less now if we were compelled to sell
them half fat. And, indeed. some
have had to do this because their feed
ing grounds have been flooded. and
, the grass on them being sanded was
unfit for any stock to eat.
CAS- for sheep, not only has it been
impossible to put them on turnips or
to feed off any arabic crops, but it is
sadly apprehended that the focks will
be stricken with a worse pestilence
than they have been visited with since
, the results of those memorable deluge
years 1879 and 1880 swept off entire
flocks wholesale. The fatal fiuke dis
ease is already rife, so reports declare,
and when We recall to mind the large
number of farmers that were utterly
ruined and compelled to vacate their
farms after former deluge years the
, worst fears of what is about to happen
/ are justified by circumstances.
"A few of the lesser evils may DOS
sibly right themselves to some extent
in the event of the weather continu-
ing so fine throughout November as it
has proved in the first two weeks of
this month. A considerable quantity
[, OF corn was then out in the fields,
, the greater part of which has, it is to
be hoped, been secured since, and pos
i sibly the pitch on the land may be
, sufficient in many cases for arrears Of
/ field labor in potato digging and
mangel lifting to be done if farmers
could spare hands to attend to these
behind, waiting operations. But others
OF even still greater urgency may de-
mand prior attention and they are
F., unable to do everything at once. The
, loss of the wheat crop out of the rota-
ticn may not be so important a matter
as it used to be when the grain was
worth from SOS to Cos a quarter: but
| heavy land farmers must sow some
thing, and when they find the whole
OF their fields in November choke full
of weeds, uncropped to anything else.
| it is no winder they feel the gravest
anxiety, if not alarm. The recurrence
of such spring as the last would
cause them to be unable to put in
barley or oats, either, in clean. fitting
/ condition
ITO have farm in the filthy state
/ too many are in now is in itself a
grave calamity. The last summer
was enc of the most favorable for
weed propagation ever known. and
the autumn turned out to be so per-
+, sistently wet and harvesting fell so
| late that no surface cleaning was pos
/, si5le. Digging plows win be in great
requisition as lands get more healthy
| fer the easiest way CT getting rid of
the weeds is to turn them TO the bot.
tom of deep furrow, to be complete
/ ly buried by the next turnover. But
this can only be done with soils that
have at least ten inches in depth of
, good earth. There is large proper.
ton that must he surface cleaned ere