The Florida agriculturist., 1906-03-21
tx of milk and butter cannot be made

ty of milk and butter cannot be made
from silage.' These are only samples
of the stuff that goes the rounds of
the press, but the worst thing about
the whole business is, that people read
and believe these statements.
Then this slush gets into the patent
insides'' of the country papers, in
many cases the only papers taken in
some families, where it is read and
believed to be true. In such cases 1t
does more harm than can easily be
estimated, conveying false reports to
the very people it is most desirous to
keep informed of true progress.
Not long ago a staff correspondent
of this paper offered to pay anyone
one dollar to show an intentional mis-
leading statement in its columns, or
in those Of any other high-class farm
paper, and he might safely have made
the offer ten dollars. With the regular
farm paper, it is facts and instruc-
tiOns; with the others, sensation and
readable matter, without regard to the
character of it. Errors will creep in,
even in the writings of the most care
full contributor to any paper, but we
have all noticed how promptly and
cheerfully such errors are corrected
in the farm press, while in the news
papers they roll on and on like snow
ball, getting worse with each repub-
lication. The general public sat down
hard upon ''long range weather pre-
dictions" year ago, and now no one
of any extensive reading pays any
attention to the statements of long
haired professors, that lowing to a
conjunction of Jupiter and the moon,
-
16."
Long ago people stopped talking
about the influence of the moon on
vegetable growth, the signs of the
zodiac on animal surgery, or the seven
rainy Sundays that were supposed to
follow a rainy Easter day, and it will
not be long until they will cease to be-
ieve the wild stories emanating from
the general newspapers, turning to the
agricultural press as the source of
agricultural knowledge and truth.
Biggest Farm in the World.
In a moment of vinous enthusiasm
Daniel Webster put his hand in his
pocket, asked how much the national
debt was, and offered to pay it him
self. A Mexican farmer, Don Luis
Terrazas, a great friend of President
Diaz, once offered to assume the Mexi-
can national debt; and it wouldn't
have kept him awake nights if his
offer had been accepted. Don Luis
has what you might call tidy little
farm at Chihuahua; about eight mill
lion acres. Takes the Mexican Central
trains more than half a day to cross
it. Whew! Don Luis is thought to
own more than a million cattle, but
a bagatelle of a hundred thousand or
so more or less never bothers him.
His stable consists of some 100000
horses; his sheepfOld of 100000 sheep,
from 100000 to 100000 calves are
branded with his brand every spring.
More than a thousand cowboys and so
on keep his cattle on a thousand hills.
By the way, his farm includes a few
mountains, for diversifcation. At his
slaughter and packing houses near
Chihuahua city, 25O,OOO cattle, as many
sheep, and hogs innumerable are kill
ed; and away they go in his own re-
frigerator cars. Some 10000 persons
dwell on his estate and are ruled by
this Arabian Nights farmer, who lives
in two million (silver) dollar castle
and is a swell and nabOb such as these
United States know not.-EverybOdy'
Magazine.