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Newspaper
Semi Weekly Herald
Location
Eldora, Iowa, United States of America
Date
May 02, 1903
Page
7
A quirky compendium notes that a man judges meat by his teeth and observes Latin settlement limits in South America. It recalls hog market booms roughly every decade, cites a Dakota school director advertising for a wife for a bachelor, and jokes that a marriage prospect improves teaching quality.
The item discusses hog prices around $30 each and farm income, shifts in oleomargarine tax collections from February 1902 to 1908, pruning guidance for fruit trees, Ireland’s potential land ownership reforms, and silage losses when comparing a large square-corner silo to a round silo.
Western communities report lean wild fowl due to prolonged hunting from Manitoba to the north, risking rare ducks and geese as spring flight arrives. Farmers face uncertain seasons, weather, pests, and market prices, with held over crops like onions, potatoes, cabbage, and apples often yielding losses despite high storage costs.
The passage extols dried sweet potatoes as a wholesome addition to food. It discusses farming progress, soil fertility, and the need for labor, teachers, and practical homemaking education for girls, contrasting pioneer methods with modern understandings and noting arid western lands can become fertile with irrigation.
An old bachelor farm hand, described with sandy whiskers, found happiness in home life and Sunday chores, while lamenting the rapid depletion of white pine across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The three states have supplied 188,381,000,000 feet of white pine in thirty years, and its replacement by lesser timber varieties is noted as a concern.
The state proposes spending 100 million dollars to enlarge the old Erie canal to carry 1000 ton barges from the Great Lakes to New York City. If built, the project will set freight rates for the era, benefiting agricultural interests in the northwest as well as New York City.
A sober Dutch society traded a single tulip bulb for extraordinary goods, including four tons of wheat, eight tons of rye, four oxen, eight pigs, twelve sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four barrels of beer, two barrels of butter, 1000 pounds of cheese, clothes, and a silver pitcher, illustrating the 1637 tulip craze.
The author urges farmers to choose a single specialty such as fruit poultry sheep swine horses or cattle and even children to raise something on the farm that yields profit and local fame. He notes producing the best requires advertising the enterprise.
A call for practical domestic hygiene in rural homes notes filthy wells, dirty cellars, fly and fever risks, and poor air and light. It urges teaching women home making and sanitary skills to prevent illness and reduce doctor bills and obituary risks.
A heartfelt admonition cites a poverty-stricken elderly couple whose sons failed at running a town merchant venture after farm life. The piece urges would-be young merchants to gain ten years of wilderness labor from the bottom before starting on their own, arguing parental support should come first.
The article explains farm labor shortages arise from high wage demand across rail, construction, and manufacturing. Workers seek higher pay and prefer gangs, drawing them away from farms. Farmers must modernize, expand crops and stock, and adopt better methods to compete.
The winds are said to blow less through the prairie states than forty years ago. Wind grist and feed mills once common have mostly been torn down as the wind lacks power to operate them. Groves planted around homesteads may lessen winds by breaking air currents, though this alone likely does not explain their disappearance.
The jack oak is a western native tree with strong ornamental value when given space. It grows symmetrically with glossy summer foliage, displays a vivid fall color range from blood red to russet and brown, and provides winter shelter for birds. It typically lives thirty to forty years and may die quickly if the ground around it is trampled.
In this era of rapid gains the idea of steady patient labor small savings and careful spending is portrayed as old fashioned yet still reliable for achieving financial independence. The piece defends a traditional approach as honest and effective.
Gordon Meggy recounts a small town tale in which Weston, once a fervent spiritualist, pursues Daisy Hardy amid cold weather and a rival solicitor. A morgue of misread signs, a burglary attempt, and a dramatic arrest end with Weston convicted of assault. Daisy marries the rival. Weston abandons spiritualism.
Lenard rays and cathode rays are trains of tiny negative charges moving at high speed. Roentgen rays are solitary waves of radiated energy emitted when fast electrons strike solid matter.
A well worn adage appears in a column noting that a friend in need is a friend in hard times, emphasizing mutual aid and solidarity among neighbors and peers. It reflects a community ethic expressed in streetside wisdom.
A London Irish scam tale recounts a ruse where informers earned rewards on thieves. Pat and Tim exploited a reward notice to split fines, leaving £35 to start anew as the governor learns the wheeler and dealer was the principal witness.
An old farmer recounts Nesbit & Ferguson advising non resident defendants in a land dispute. Ferguson used a publication notice, the farmer weighed each word before answering. The client asked the cost and the lawyer warned that calculating expenses invites trouble, advising to stay out of lawsuits.
Miss Martha Havemeyer recalls a spring morning in a city park when a boy lost his balloon. The young Alice Roosevelt, with her nurse, comforted the boy and said the balloon had gone to heaven and he would get it again when he dies.
Mrs Susan D Crossman mother of Elisha Crossman of Chicago and pioneer of Rock county Wis marked her 100th birthday at home five miles from Beloit on Sunday March 29. Five generations were represented by fifty relatives at the gathering. Born in Cheshire Mass her grandfather Earl Clapp was a Revolutionary War major. In 1848 she and her husband settled on government land near present Afton Wis. Of seven children four survive, including Mrs Helen M Chandler a missionary in Siam for 39 years.
A fragment from a New York Times column quotes poetry about moonlight and celestial harmony then recalls Senator Gorman hearing a disappointed Maryland admirer who drove fourteen miles to hear him but was wedged by a crowd of African Americans. The senator replies with a gallant line about a jewel set in yet.
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