The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-06-29

G. s. Rogers in Mt. Pleasant News:
Jerry Pickett, who is the farm boss
out at our place. says that any ordi-
nary man should make q good living
off our eight little acres. With the
fruit and the garden. and the chickens
and eggs, and the COWS and milk and
butter, and the horse to help out, he
thinks that there is no need Of news
paper to help out the farming opera
tions. Jerry is probably right, and we
often feel very conscience stricken
that We do not make a living farming.
because the papers are full OF 1t and
all the technical magazines emphasize
1t, and tie short course teaches it,
that farming IS dead easy. 1t used to
se you know, that W. en- a man couldn't
make go Of 1t on the farm he would
sell out and come to town and go into
business. Nowadays every business
man Is trying to get hold of enough
stuff to buy q farm SO that he can
tickle the soil.
But Jerry's view point may be diff
ferent from ours as I'd what makes a
living. Now we suspect that II Jerry
gets three square meals day, q com
Portable bed at night. plenty OF filling
for his old pipe, good suit for Sunday
and piece OF silver for the contribu-
ton box on Sunday and q little laid
away for a rainy day that ne feels as
comfortable and indep andent as Sena-
tor Seeley, who lives In the best house
In town, or J. G. McCoid with his
White Steamer. But Jerry don't have
to make contributions to get tile fac
tories or wrapper concerns to come
here to live; hold-up committees don't
hunt him out for fives and tens. He
didn't have to subscribe stock to the
auditorium or help build churches, or
pay fifty cents per hundred pounds for
creek Ice, and dollar and half for
gas. and fifty cents per thousand for
city water, and be assessed for street
sprinkling, or night police. or band
concerts. And he doesn't have to pay
taxes to keep up the public library or
take subscriptions to the Y. NJ. 9. A.
and the college, nor rent once year
swallow tail suit to attend the Com
mercial club banquet.
Jerry escapes all tais because up
where he lives these committees don't
circulate. And these committees are
all right and are part Of civic prog
ress, but all these things enter into
the cost Of existing here and 1t would
take prolific eight acres to square
these expenses.
And SO while Jerry could undoubted-
lily make fine living off the eight
acres, we are still are obliged to de-
pend on the paper to some extent to
make both ends meet. 1t depends upon
how you figure, this making farm
pay. We have made SOME things pay,
and we make slop and the profits OF
the one goes glimmering in the losses
/ OF the other. snd makes you feel like a
misfit and a trespasser.
Now there is that Gov we bought OF
Ralph Crane. The COW had the repu-
tation of being the hest milk producer
in this part Of tae state, and when AL
Williamson had his auction sale last
i fall everybody who pretended to know
| anything about cows and dairying
went out to pick up snap. Every
body out there wanted that COW, and
bidding got SO fast and reckless that
the first thing Crane knew he owned
/ her at $50, which was topnotcher
/ Crane took her home and went into
the milk business, and SO great was
/ the fame of the cow that he was soor
supplying all the neighborhood. After
| choring that COW all winter, and get
ting up In the morning at five TO break
the ice and get her fresh water and
mix warm bran mashes at ten above
zero, and milking with milk freezing
on the bucket, and cleaning stables
with blizzard blowing, and then ped
ding a pint OF milk four blocks fol
two and half cents, became monoton
GUS and he sold us the COW for what
he paid for 1t.
It was big price to pay for a COW
in these times sure enough and one
of our neighbors comforted US with
the assurance that we had been stune
for fair-that the COW was too old tt
be any good, that she never gave the
milk that she was said to give and al
of that neighborly and gratuitious so
licitude. But we wer not stung aftel
all, because after using Ill the bes
milk we ever had, and cream SO thicl
that we have to cut 1t with pie knit
we have sold enough to make the ne
cost of the cow to this time thirty
eight dollars and she is still doinl
business at the old stand.
But all the good luck we experience
with the COW was offset by the Mem
, esis Of that pony which we bough