The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-08-16

oil @S
N~e>y-E'angled Diseases-Old Rem
edies and New Cnes-His Cure for
PeiIasra-Hurries Away at the Ap-
proacf of a Candidate.
(Whiteville Ne~ws-Reporter.)
Mister Editor" remarked our Ola
farmer friend, as he took his seat IN
our sanctum last Saturday and wiped
his nose on his coat-sleeve, II jest
drapped in While passing to SWAP a
few lies and let you know that we all
out our way are still in the land of the
living and on praying ground, thank
the Lord. We've got the upper hand
of grass, except in a few low, wet
spots, but it's been a hard fit fout l
don't know that I ever seed a year
when we armer had a harder tustle
to keep our craps clean. With plenty
of fruit, we are now getting er long
middling we'll, and [ don't see nothlng
special that we N nave to groWl
about.
But you know, Mister Editor, it is
natur with a farmer to grumble, for
it seems bred in our bones. I have
been travelling this vale of tears for
sixty-nine years, and | never knoWed
a season that exactly suited the glner-
ality of armers It's too wet or too
dry, or there's always something the
EIIlItI. ~ SAS A-o1S NNS
bring a terrible calamity on US for our
-ungratitude.
"Since' T seed you [ have been read
ing up on them new ailments that are
~ravaging the land, like a wild varfnint,
seeking whom they may evOur When
/ was growing up I could count on the
fingers Of one hand the Affections we
had to contend with There was chills,
fever, collie, the rheumatics, and some
times a bone felon. Then the children
a the humps whooping cough,
measles and like ailments. When any
one was tuck down, we always called
in some Old oman in the settlement,
with her poke full of YARDS, and nine
times out of ten she made a cure. II
the spell got real bad we sent for a
doctor, who came with his saddle bags
full of medicine, and if he couldn't
cure the sick body we charged it up
to the dispensation of the Lord.
But these days, with the stock law,
ortermObiles, canned music, and all
kinds of new-fangied doings, the good
old~-fashiOned ailments have taken to
the bushes or hid out, and there have
come on us all kinds of neW-fangled
diseases hat nobody ever hear'n of be
fore. When a fellow is tuck down
these days it costs more to doctor him
than the bill OG a whole township
came to before the war. h doctor
rolls up in his kerridge,
SKccIS 81 1tIlO" neatly IeI dcdCn Ny
sticking a little glass bottle in his
mouth, humping his sides, and then
perhaps winding up by telling him he
has one of them new ailments that is
taking the country, and ordering that
he be sent to a hOspittle. You know,
Mister Editor, h that means. That
poor fellow had as well sign a deed
to all he's got, make his peace with
the Lord, and raise that good old tune,
I'm bound for the happy land
"VVhen the Lord created man He
put diseases here TO punish him for his
sins. But He also planted some Varb
in the woods or the gardin to cure
every ailment. And any old oman
with experience can find better medi-
cine in the wood than you can buy in
a doctors shop. But these days folks
don't want to take nothing onless it
is put up in a fancy package or bottle,
with red, blue and green printing on
it. I hear'n hat most O them medi-
cines, or the best Of EN-, are made
from truck gathered in the woods and
fields, SIGH are at the hand Of every
family. But onless they come from
some doctor hop, folks don't think
they are 10 good. There amt nothing
better for chills than a tea made of
boneset or dogwoOd bark; slippery
elm is mighty cooling for fever, silk
weed will cure a sore quicker than
anything else I know, and then there
is sassafras to purify the blood, pink
root and hin berry for worm in chill
lun. In fact. Mister Editor, | can Jake
you into q strip of woods gack of my
house and pint out YARDS that are
worth more than all the drug store
stuff 0 a load on q kyar. But
instead Of gathering 'em folks send
for a doctor, and hen pay out
enough one for drug store truck to
buy a farm. =,
Il see the doctors now say that this
thing they call bellagra is caused by
the bite of q gnat. AT first they laid
it on folks eating rotten corn I don't
take no stock in neither. [ think when
a human perVarts the laws of nature,
and stuffs his stomach with all kinds
Of n~eW-fangled eatirgs, it is bat natur
that he is 'gWine ter get his digesting
apparatus out of gear. If a fellow with
that pellagra will live with me six
months, and let me put him through
o course of Observation-Disclosures