El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-01-30

- We rented a small farm a few
miles from town." said the ton
serial artist, "and I am going
Dack to natures heart this spring
arming is the only free and indepen-
cent cent life. I've barbered so long I can
s1sIS Whiskers. Of course, 1 haven't
I-4ch capital to begin with, but Pm
sung TO some of the auction sales and
PICK up team of horses and the
iieSSSS5SSsary implements"
That's the plan adopted by most
ooWh lmbeciles when they decide to
eusase IN agricultural pursuits" COM
uehled the village patriarch. That's
gIe reason why town men always go
broke when they break into the coun-
Try, They buy up all the old junk
ChdI experienced farmers have cast
aside as being in the nature of an
a!!achr onlsm, and expect to till the soil
win IT. When I contemplate such
uolngs ] am inclined to eXclaim with
me sweet singer of Michigan, What
Tools these mOrtals be
II you buy team of horses at an
aHcton sale you are sure to get some
Old plugs which are afflicted with
HOusemald's knee or humps or some
othef disease or blemish. When a
Town man buys a team of farm horses
ne should pay a retaining fee to
veterinary surgeon and have him ex-
anime with an X-rays, every horse
ming 5000 horses he may find two
which he can warrant not to rip, ravel
or run down at the heel. If a farmer
hasn't good horses to pull his dufun-
MES and other implements, he might
as well go out of business; and farm
horses have something wrong with
them in almost every instance. 1t
would take you a year to pick out
two horses you could depend on, yet
you propose going to an auction sale,
among strangers, to buy your steeds.
That was what I did, long years
ago, when I had the agricultural fever.
bought two chargers at an auction
sale. They were matched to a hair
and looked mighty fine, and the auc-
toner led me behind a haystack after
the sale was over and told me cOnfl-
den1ally, as man to man, that had
picked up the biggest snap he had
ever heard of. Then he borrowed 81
of me in a friendly way, just to show
that good feeling prevailed, and LED
my horses home. The honest old
farmer who had owned them had spent
all his waking hours Tor three weeks
getting those horses ready for the sale.
He had filed their teeth down so they
looked reasonably young, and had in
flated the hOllOWs over their eyes,
for the same purpose; he had dyed
theme here and there with nitrate of /
silver, so they would be a good match, I
and had kept them standing in a mud
hole for days together, to take the in
flamation out of their front feet, Tor !
both horses were foundered.
you can imagine how indignant !
was when I discovered all this. |
loaded the family shotgun, a fine old !
weapon my grandfather useh at Lun- |
dy's Lane, and went to have an inter- |
view with that honest old farmer, but |
he had moved away to Saskatoon or |
some other jumping off place.
Il bought a lot Of second hand inn /
plements at the same sale, and they I
were worse than the horses. When I I
hitched to the wagon a front wheel |
came off and fell overheard and hit i
my head against a grindstOne, and /
knocked a piece out Of II. When /
got the wheel back on and started to Il
move off, the l5ingbOlt came out, and 4
the wagon doubled up like a folding I
bed and nearly broke my back.
1t was the same way with the /
allows and cultiVatOrs and other i'm 1
pl dement's I had to be tying them to- /
sether with strings and wire when /
should nave been cultivating my corn, /
and the neighboring farmers used to /
come over full OF sympathy to tell me /
how many kinds of a chump I was.
" hen the summer was over and the !
harvest ended I WIS saod sierhitnn.6 .ma 4
harvest ended I was so disguised L !
lei the horses down to the woods and /
put them out of their misery, and 4
hen I made a bonfire of my imple-
nents and walked back to town to get
/ OBJ in a feed store
IF you are bound to begin farming,