Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-09-19


good horses reputation as to place
him where he, turned loose, will be in
daily and hourly contact with the
snorting engine and the moving cars.
Two or three days will entirely remove
his fear of them.
We can conceive of no more desra-
BILE rural condition Of living than to be
the owner Of good farm contiguous
to trolley road leading to the city.
The owner Of such place is assured
all the advantages of municipal life
with none of its drawbacks. He is in
touch with the good market and is GER
tain to sooner or later have demand
arise for acreage on his farm to pro-
vide homes for city residents who
have found out that it is entirely pos
sible to live with economy in the coun-
try and still work In the city.
Much has been written of late years
about the doom of the horse and it's
by the common use of
bicycle and automobile. We are not
yet in sight Of the horseless age by
good deal. In fact, it is not overstating
the case to say that there has never
been better demand for the good
horse than now, and no modern 1nven-
ton is at all likely to fill its place.
We know of no safer proposition for
the average farmer than to equip his
farm with two or more well bred
draft mares and, using thoroughbred
draft sires, raise colts just as he would
steers and with much greater profit.
Saddle and carriage horses may also
be most profitably produced.
In the building Of culverts and bridges
and the digging Of bitches reference
must always be had to the maximum
amount Of water which they may be
called upon to handle. 1t is the ex-
traordinary and not the average rain
fall which wrecks these structures and
determines the water carrying capac-
ity Of the ditch. We recall the case
Of the man who undertook to drain
and reclaim Il small lake bed. He
carefully figured out the average rain
fall and the area of the watershed
tributary to the lake and made out that
a ditch of certain size would easily
carry off all the water. He drained
the lake bed and had it all in crops,
when one day along in June came
cloudburst, a rainfall Of ten inches in
side of six hours, which covered his
crops with six feet of water, his ditch
not being one-half large enough to
handle such volume of water, 80
when it did finally dispose Of the water
the crops were all ruined.
If young calves are stunted during
the first two months Of their lives they
never get over it. We noted dozen in
a mans pasture the other day-bony,
lousy, dwarfed little brutes, which for
our use for any purpose whatever
would not have been worth IS cents
each. We think they were creamery
separator calves which were having
about the same sort of chance in life
that poor little Oliver Twist had at
the English orphan asylum. The sim
pie rule to follow to raise a good calf
where the butter Is wanted from the
cows is full milk for two weeks, taper
ing off on to skim milk during the next
two weeks and a careful fortifying Of
the skim milk with cornmeal to replace
the butter fat extracted; then all the
corn and oats the calf will eat with it's
milk ration. AS good a calf can be
raised in this manner as though it We're
allowed to run with it's mother, but it
is good deal more trouble and de-
mands great care in feeding.
After a county has been settled fifty
years or more, its courthouse, school
houses and bridges built, it would
seem as though the yearly rate Of tax
alton would and should be less. If
there is such county in all the west,
we should like to know its name.
Taxes, instead of growing less as a
result Of getting these improvements
made and Of the greatly increased
amount Of taxable property available,
either remain stationary or show an in
crease from year to year, the cost of
the administration Of county, school,
municipal and state government con-
stantly increasing. The moment sur
plus appears in any Of the several
funds that moment some new object
comes up to absorb 1t. A live political
issue could be we'll made in many
states and In nearly all cities and
counties demanding more economical
methods Of administration of govern
ment and lowered rate Of taxation.
The methods Of procedure in our
criminal courts have come to point
where case Is almost never disposed
of, where. for even the most heinous
offenses the defendant Is allowed trial
after trial granted on the most trivial
and fictitious Of grounds. Nothing
does the country need more than the
Importation of few English judges
to show our courts how to try a case
and finish it at a minimum Of expense.