Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-05-30

Sllvs are being successfully con-
structed Of cement, and cheaply at
that. We question if better material
for this purpose can be found.
It takes about fourteen ears OF corn
to plant one acre Of ground. If one
ear Of the lot is poor there will be
from 800 to TOO defective seeds plant
ed.
II you are getting an annual poultry
product from the farm worth, say, $50,
you can double 1t Just as easy as roll
ing OF log. Every farm should sell
poultry products worth $500 each year.
It is a poor policy to let the stock
tramp over the cornstalk fields when
the frost is coming out in the spring.
Such tramping either on field or mead
ow at that time Is always Injurious to
the soil, yet most men do it.
If COW will give an average of
twenty pounds Of milk day for 300
days she is worth 500 of any mans
money. This would make her milk
product worth 500, which would repre-
sent a net profit on the COW of at least
$25.
Beef men have had to work out the
problem the past winter Of feeding
forty cent corn to three and one-half cent
feeders to sell on S4.75 or S. market.
Some have made rifle and many
have lost money in doing it. Only the
best type Of feeders will show a profit
under such conditions.
The agricultural college of one of our
western states has had no less than
5000 samples Of seed corn sent to it
during the past winter for the purpose
Of having it tested as to its germinat-
ing power. This was all unnecessary,
for every man could have just as well
have tested his corn right at his own
home.
The demand for iron and steel may
always be accepted as reliable evidence
Of the business prosperity Of the coun-
try. The demandffor steel means con-
structive work, tbs means employment
for labor and this means a good de-
mand for all farm products. The de-
mand for steel has seldom been more
pressing than now; hence another pros
porous period is in sight.
We never could understand why any
man should consider 1t a thing to brag
over that he had been able to raise
corn on the same field for twenty years
in succession. Supposing he has, he
still has not raised two-thirds as good
crop as he might have done by using
a sensible system Of rotation in work
ing his land. This sort Of Dragging is
like that of the man who boosted that
he had swallowed two dozen raw eggs
at one time on bet.
At this spring season everybody is
busy raking up and burning the leaves.
This is all wrong, for leaves are too
valuable fertilizer to be thus wasted.
Rake them up and put In compost
pile, where they will later decay and
afford leaf mold which is just what
the flowers and garden vegetables de-
light In, or else rake them up and use
them as mulching for the rosebushes,
grapevines and currant and raspberry
bushes. Don't burn them.
The fertilizer most needed on the
farm is brains. One man will shin
along on an eighty acre farm and grow
poorer each year. with unpaid store
bills and compound interest mortgages,
until he gets small sum for his equity
and strikes out to try the miserable
business all over again. Another man
will take the same farm and by COM
bining brain and muscle will not only
get first class living from 1t, but save
money every year. Farms are often
libeled when it is the owner alone who
is to blame.
The reason why so much trouble is
associated with seed corn and rarely
any with our cereal grains is that bar
ley, wheat, rye and oats mature early
in the season and, besides, are small
in kernel and not attached to a cob, as
is corn, while the corn needs quite Of
ten the entire frostless season In which
to ripen and at that grows on spongy,
fbrous cob retentive Of moisture. This
fact emphasizes the need Of securing
and thoroughly drying corn intended
for seed before the frost hits it, this
being the prime reason for defective
seed corn.
As the result of long series Of ex-
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