The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1908-11-04
Don't lock through catalogues
HILL BROS.
Marble and Granite Works

HILL BROS.
Marble and Granite Works
and cut EN- down. After they are
dry you take long handled fork and
pile them into heaps and burn them.
Then you put boots on your horses and
pillow your lanu.
Don't they grow up again9' ask
ed the practical Kansan.
''Just look over here" said the
real estater.
And then we went back to a cotton
field we had passed without paying
much attention to it. The truth is
that the cotton field was brown, where
as the cotton fields of north Texas
and Oklahoma were green and we
thought it locked rather poorly.
We had forgotten that while the pick
ing season was just beginning in
Oklahoma it was well-nigh over in
south Texas. in fact that it was then
being picked. some for the third
and some for the fourth time. There
was no cactus in the field. We stop
ped and examined the cotton. There
was hardly plant that did not show
that it had borne or was bearing,
at least foty hollis Of cotton. There
were on the plants the dead leaves
where the cotton had bse en- picked,
the ripe. open bolls with their fluffy
ruffles, and the green hickory-nut
locking hollis which would ripen later.
We looked around for the irrigating
bitches, but there were none. We
were in field that without irrigation
was producing cotton crop, as valu-
able, yes more valuable. than any acre
of corn. raised on any hundred dollar
an acre farm in Crawford county.
That field would run between two
thirds and three fourths of bale 70
the acre. A bale is worth between
fifty and sixty dollars, making the
yield from $35 to $40 per acre and
the byproduct of cotton seed still
nnaccounted for. 1t is mighty good
corn land that is raising $40 per acre.
This is not all. The cotton field
was cultivated by Mexicans who had
mighty little brains to put in and who
arc mighty stingy with the little
they have.
This is not all. Cotton is crop
that does not impoverish the soil and
if a northern farmer had hold Of it he
would put it into use in the winter
months and make the summer crop of
cotton look like thirty cent Mexican.
The Bermuda onion fourishes here as
it does in hardly any other place,
luscious melons are ready for the
Northern market few weeks after
New Years. Green peas for Christ
mas. cabbage. sweet potatoes all
kinds of garden truck do we'll although
it was reported that one extra cold
year there was February frost that
injured some of the tomatoes
We saw orange trees and lemon
trees and fig trees. A lemon tree
with ripening fruit. with tiny fruit
just formed. with the delicate flowers
in full bloom and with tiny buds just
opening was one of the curiosites
shown US. The lemons were the
largest we ever saw, we are afraid to
state their size for fear our readers
will think we are handing them
one.' but they were whoppers and
looked more like gourds or squashes
than like the lemons we see up north.
The lady of the house told US she
used one lemon to twelve pies. She
looked truthful. too. We started to
tell her that in some place up north
they used DO lemon to twelve lemon
pies. but she looked so honest about
it that we did not dare TO joke her.
In the afternoon all hands were
taken for a drive. We sat with "a
Kansas farmer. hard headed. practic-
al farmer. named Smiley. lie had
his boy. young man. with him.
They took nothing for granted.
They were in dead earnest. They
contemplated moving there and they
wanted to know all about things be-
fore they bought. They kept our
guide busy answering questions and
then as far as possible they verified
his answers on the spot. Not being
a farmer | could not have asked half
the intelligent questions that this ex-
perienced old man put to the guide
Finally after we had ridden some
twelve miles. i'll and about therrplace,
old man Smiley sat back with a salts
fled grin. see that quarter, SOM
he said to his boy, Well. that just
about suits me- The more he lcok-
ed the better he liked it. The next
day he went out again and then he