Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1920-07-19
TIMES REPUBLICAN. MARSHAILTOWN IOWA. JULY 49, 1920

existence as they must and as best
they can on $500 an acre farms in
houses that probably cost less than
$4,000 and only have lighting sys-
TENS, water in every room, baths and
so on and get along somehow with
out a butler and with but one or two
automobiles. Their toll lined faces
will light up when they learn that
a few sticks Of dynamite will take
out a post stump clean as a whistle.
Henceforth when the hired man
goes out on a rainy day to fix little
fence, he will look like a bombadier
going over the top. All he will carry
along will be steel bar about 10
feet long and two inches thru, a
spade, a few fence posts some fuse
and a sack of high explosive. The
boys will put few sticks of so per
cent in their pockets along with a
..aramer and few nails when they
so to the field. The children can play
with the dynamite stock building
cob houses and the like while the
folks are in town Of Saturday. Of
course now and then something will
happen to Ole but that would be in
cidental and break the dread mon
otony of farm life as the Homestead
sees farm life in Iowa.
This thing could be carried much
farther and the Homestead in its
sweet paternalism and holy zeal for
the Iowa farmer should crowd 1t
along. F"r instance: Nothing would
be more certain to kill ground
squirrel deader than a mackerel than
the explosion OF hand grenade
There must be lot of those grenades
left over from te war which might
be secured by the Iowa farmer for
this purpose at cost of not more
than SIS each. Perhaps the we'll known
Influence of the Homestead with the
administration might be used to
shade that price a little.
Then why not save time and labor
in planting potatoes on a side hill by
usinS one pound cannon or tank
guns. substituting a hunk of potato
with one or two eyes for the shell
and use automatic rifles for planting
corn in similar place and perhaps a
machine gun or two to SOW oats
with? OF course the expense for
powder would be greater than the
cost of labor but what's the differ
ence between that and using dyna-
mite to blow out a post stump that
anybody can dig out in Ave minute S
with spade? A few eight inch shells
could be piled up back of the kitchen
and the fuse cut in the morning to
explode at noon thus rendering the
ringing of the dinner bell unnecessary
and saving the strength of the hired
girl for an evening session with her
steady. Ihere'S no end to one Of Jim
Pierce's suggestions for the Iowa
farmed. He loves them so and strives
SO to serve them and manage for
them and do their work and work
them.
If you hear a fusillade day after
day, popping and banging and see
the air cloudy with splinters and
hunks OF dirt, be calm. It will not be
a cyclone or an invasion of a foreign
foe but just the Iowa farmer &C
cepting one Of Jim PMrce's well
known and celebrated suggestions
One fly sticks in the ointment. How
do we know whether Jim or one of
the hired help made the suggestion ?
Since Pierce gave that astonishing
testimony as to the publishers views"
everybody has been at sea. The whole
force from the panitor on up can't
be fathers to the Iowa farmer. It is
confusing.