Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1915-08-24
CROP P[CUDAR|1|[S
UNUSUAL CONDITIONS FOUND IN
ADJACENT FIELDS IN PowE.
/ sHIEk COUNTY.
YIELDS GOOD BECAUSE
OF CONFLICTING FACTS
Many Stalks Trying to Produce Two
and in Some Instances Three Ears
Portion Of Old Eureka Trail Of 1s49
Still Visible in Poweshiek County
G. e. Wilson's Rural Observations.
|pecial to Times Republican.

Brooklyn, Aug. 24.-In the judgment
OF some of the leading farmers tho
earliest OF the corn in this part of the
country Is about two weeks later than
it should be to be normal. Some Of the
crop will need about six weeks of good
growing and ripening weather to insure
maturity. There are peculiarities to be
observed in the cornield this season.
One of the best field in the Montezuma
vicinity was planted the first week in
May and is good because it was
planted early enough to give time to
make crop" and one Of the best in
the section OF Brooklyn was planted in
June; it is extra fine due to the fact
that it was planted after some of the
early cold rains and was never
stunted." There has never been year
IN the history Of corn growing in
Poweshiek county, perhaps, when there
were so many stalks trying to produce
two and even three ears. The oats crop
In this part Of the country is unusually
heavy, so is the hay crop. One local
farmer, Ed Dee, took little more than
two tons of clover per acre off his
meadow and estimates the second crop
at almost two tons; four tons per acre
of hay. An extremely late killing frost
means bumper all round crop in this
section; anything else and two addi-
tional words must be used, viz: except
corn"
Everything the work Of man has its
day. 1t flourishes with attention and
decays with neglect. So with the
Eureka Trail" the old route Of the
"F'orty-niners" which passed thru what
are now the towns of Marengo, Tama
and Marsha!itOwn. A section of the
old road is plainly visible on the farm
Of Mr.. Dee mentioned above. There
were few remaining timbers Of a
corduroy bridge in low place on the
farm until few years ago when they
were removed. The trail passed thru
a point named Eureka somewhere be-
tween this farm and the present site
Of Tama. It is said there was hotel
on one side Of the road and saloon on
the other.
Austomobile are distance annihila-
tors said somebody endowed with
fondness for the use Of long words. It
Is true. 1t was circus day in Grinnell.
Brooklyn Is two towns" east and the
newspaper man thought that not many
farmers from SO far away would stop
threshing for the show. These farmers
own autos, tho, almost to a man and
the number Of empty farm garages in
that part Of the country that day was
Simply staggering" Joe Mcconnell,
of Brooklyn, started for the circus
grounds anu punctured a tire a short
distance east Of Grinnell. 1t required
about forty minutes to put the ma
chine in running order and while the
work was going on Mrs. Mcconnell
killed time counting the passing cars;
the last tina. rolled by was No. 1856.
There is nc such thing as "thresh-
ing neighborhood" any more 7 stopped
at farm house near Montezuma
shortly after noon one day and in
quired for the proprietor. He was
gone TO town but would be back in a
few minutes as he was going to help
a man thresh. Ten minutes later he
returned, new pitchfork in the back
seat, and started on to thresh miles
away. The i6ea Of travelling two or
three miles to town to buy a pitchfork
then five or six miles from home in an
opposite direction to help with an aft
ernoon's threshing would have seemed
strange indeed In the days before the
automobile. Conditions change; less
than dozen years ago an Iowa daily
paper contained an earnest appeal
from prominent farmers wife urging
the prohibition Of automobile drivers
from using the public highways on
Saturdays to the end that the farmers
wives and children might with safety
use horse ana buggy to market the
butter and eggs and return with groc-
cries, etc. while the farmer finished his
weeks work in the field. Brooklyn
Is not a very large town some twelve
to fifteen hundred population but 1t
contains six garages, all apparently
prosperous concerns.
Poweshiek county contains one far
mer who Is able to disregard some of
the accepted principles of corn raising
with impuntiy. J. A. wickham has a
six acre field that has never been
touched by a cultivator but which
gives every indication Of an extraordi-
nary yield. Last year it was a thicket
Of hazel brush and second growth
He cut the brush and sap
lings down last winter, scratched up
the surface in the spring with plow
planted the tract to corn, hoed the
sprouts that sprang up and if frost
stays away until the latter part Of next
month Jake" will surely take some
think like six hundred bushels of corn
from the field he has farmed SO scien-
tifically (?) this year.
G. E. WILSON.
7