Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-01-05

fund or working capital, and for illus
tration, | offer the following. About
50 years ago was working in field,
and adjoining was corn field, where
hired boy was blowing corn with a
badly worn cultivator. The owner an
old farmer, was in the habit OF plow-
ins and planting this field in corn
every year and true to his habit, had
done so that wear. When the corn
came up it was a poor stand and had
a sickly look similar to that of q.
starved pig. a starved calf or a starved
kitten, and seemingly. Disguised with
its own existence. But there was a
little spot in the middle of the field,
where many years previous, there had
been stack yard, perhaps threshing
and straw stack and a resting place
for live stock and this spot was rich
with humus matter and here the corn
was q full stand. The ground was
loose with no clods and here the corn
was kneehigh before it got above the
clods in the balance of the field, where
the clods We're so thick that couldn't
find room for my big foot, only on
top of one of them. The hired boy
said he wished it had all been like
that spot, and no doubt the horses
would have said the same and it would
When the boy plowed it the last time
the corn was above the horses backs
on that on spot and on the balance OF
the field. hardly knee-high. When the
corn was gathered There was about
10 bushels of nubbins to the acre. but
on the rich SPOT. one tenth of an acre.
there was about 10 bushels of good
corn.
don't know where I am at when a
man with full senses and pair of
eyes to read with, fails to read these
plain laws from this code of natural
science. which are written so plain
that a green Swede or a green Dutch
man can read them (and let US not
forget that they do read these laws.)
We don't have to be scholars in Greek
or Hebrew to read from this book.
God wrote it himself and he didn't
call in set of men to write it for
him and make at botch of it.
The Farmers Boy.
/ mentioned the hired boy working
on the farm. The farmer had boys of
his own. but they had left him. There
was nothing especially wrong with the
boys. but it was hard work and poor
pay and therefore nothing in staying
at home. The oldest left home TO
work in a machine shop, joined q
labor union, stood picket around the
factory with big stick in his hands,
and his pocket sfull of rocks, intending
to trample down other peoples rights;
that of working where and for whom
you please and to manage your own
affairs.
The second boy left home to work on
a railroad and was run over by the
cars and killed.
The third boy was his mammals pet,
for he was the baby. She did not want
him to go to work and you are safe in
betting that he didn't want to. When
he was old enough to choose between
right and wrong. the question came
up. what to do for a living. He did
not make the choice of his grandpa
Adam, to eat his bread in the sweat
of his brow. He thought of how nice
it would be to, eat his bread with a
piece of yellow legged chicken with
it, in the sweat of somebody else's
brow, and to tell his brothers and sis
tiers that God had told him to. go and
preach to them for a thousand dollars
per year and fine residence free, thus
telling a lie on his maker to start
out with. The last ! heard of him was
a hot day in. harvest time. The bread
winners were busy in the field while
he, a strapping young fellow was re-
dining ON a lounge in the parsonage
and an old man was moving his front
yard with a lawn mower. The bee
that gets the honey, doesn't hang
around the hive.
l am convinced that il the farmer
had used correct methods in his farm
ing and il he had made such deposits
on his land as the drafts he made upon
1t. his boys would have made prosper
GUS farmers of themselves instead OF
good for nothings. The farm would
have produced three or four times as
much as it did, there would have been
] vol ~, rtn3
over to the railroad company, and
three or four times as much goods
bought Of the merchant for spot cash
in place of desolation, destruction OF
Jerusalem kind Of look all over the
farm. There could have been comfort
to man and beast, systems of under
drainage and system in everything
Lut the way of the transgressor is
hard, and such as man soweth, such
shall he reap.
Fertility that goes down the Hill side
into the creek and finally goes down
the Mississippi. does not go to Chicago
as freight on the railroad trains in the
shape of horses, fat cattle, hogs, corn
wheat, eggs and butter, but il you see
| it starting down the hillside in big
rain, you might as well exclaim like
the Indian did about the wigwams
Gone. Gone forever from my view
Great Spirit, can it be?'
An open letter to Mr.. Soil Robbe1
and Mr.. Land Skinner.
To Iowa Sol,
Very dear and expensive sirs:
l am informed that you once farm
ed the n. e. quarter Of the N. w
quarter, in section IS in the county o.
somewhere; that you got the land o.
the government and came in righ
after the Indians. You had good crops
of wheat. corn and oats. The dry mat
Ter OF each crop would have weighed
3 and A tons to the acre per year. Yol
farmed the land ten years and tool
30 or 40 tons from the soil and re-
turned nothing. You became disgust
ed when crops began to fail. You sal
the land was worn out. When yol
first came to Iowa you wrote letter!
to "1njany" and told them Of the biz
crops and deep soil.
suppose that when you got you
deed from the government, your un.
Outstanding was, your right reached
down to China and was full of fertil-
ity all the way down and ineXhaust.
ible. You We're a disappointed man
when you found out that the fertilit,
extended down only ten or twelve
inches and after, drawing 40 tons o
substance from it. you had taken thu
hide off Of it. You said it was worI
out and left it like pair OF old boots