Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-05-19
Looker-On In Iona

Milford, May ia rather peculiar
thing is that in Iowa, where the hay
and grass crop is of more value than
any other soil product, there is so Ut
tie said about it. From now on till
killing frost comes next fall, we shall
all sit up nights and worry about the
corn crop. We had frosts in April
that injured the fruit crop and the
voice of lamentation was heard all
over the land. But the early growth
Of the grass crop has caused little
rejoicing Farmers who were paying
$40 ton for hay and IS cents per
bushel for corn certainly appreciated
the fact that stock could get living
in many pastures as early as April 25.
1t is true that the early pastures this
wear, have literally saved the farmers
of Iowa more than one million of dol
lars.
Now butter is off in price and some
farmers begin to realize what the pas
ture was bringing them before the
decline. How this grass and hay crop
runs into money where marketed as
cream has an illustration in our town,
Sutherland, where I called last week.
Three firms in this town have places
Of business where they pay spot cash
for the cream brought in. Each can
is tested and paid for in cash when
delivered, the same as hogs or grain.
These three firms in this small town
are paying on an average, 5000 day,
or say $4,000 month for cream. Two
of the dealers represent creameries,
$50 miles away, while the other buys
for himself, buys cream and sells to
any creamery that will give the best
price. All this is somewhat of a
change since the days when the cream
was all made into butter on the farm
and all TRADED OUT at the stores.
There is now a. cash market and a
cash price for everything the farmer
raises or has to sell. M
This town, located only four miles
from west Okoboji, naturally talks fish
about this time Of the year. Like all
other favorably situated towns the cit
liens here do very little fishing. They
say it's the outsiders that appreciate
the fishing of the Okobojis-the Getty
chaps" whose fish cost them on an av-
erage a dollar a pound, this weighing
up bullheads and suckers with the
game fish. And like nearly all resi-
dents on the shores of a lake, the
farmers here cannot see the enormity
of the sin of using a seine or catch
| ing game fish out of season. The wild
game on their land and the fish in the
water belong to them for their use, and
not for the especial sport of the strang-
er that comes every year after them.
Many at least, feel that way and con-
| seuuently fish warden in fulfilling his
duties is a very unpopular man. Some
/ owners of land on the lake shore are
beginning to have an idea of what the
Getty chaps are willing to pay frr
resident lots. 1t requires very little
stretch of the imagination in fifty years
from now to have the shore line all
around these lakes dotted with cot
tages and an electric line making ten
minute trips around the entire lake.
BY that time however, it will not be
necessary to watch the man with the
big seine. There won't be anything
left but bullheads, suckers, buffalo and
perch.
| 1t was on the branch. in the smoker
Somebody want to play pitch?' said
the well dressed stranger. Another
| man said he didn't care. and the young
travelling man out on his first trip
said he'd take hand. what shall we
make 1t, ten cents and twenty-five
set up?" asked the proposer of the
game. To make the story short, In
Thirty minutes the travelling man had