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This newspaper page contains 24 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Semi Weekly Herald
Location
Eldora, Iowa, United States of America
Date
May 14, 1904
Page
6
A rich American woman abroad asked a Paris dressmaker to create a gown that would elongate her and slim her figure. The taftta gown, nearly four inches from the floor at the front, features a long graceful back and full skirt shaped at the hips with fullness dropping below. The piece proves exceptionally flattering.
Nine gore walking skirt with fullness over hips and tailored finish. Describes tan cravenette fabric, corbb ell silk stitching, fibre braid trim, and pattern 4709 in sizes for waists 22 to 30 inches. Details fabric yardage for multiple widths and nap conditions, plus trimming braid quantity.
Lovely cotton ornaments are described for spring wear including hanging balls and braidings. Hand braided in old fashioned twirls, the narrow white and colored braids decorate skirt panels yokes caps and sleeve cuffs. A pink figured cotton dress features circles braided in white edged with lace as trim.
The article describes a natural linen dress with detachable white collar and cuffs in Buster Brown style for girls aged 4 to 12. Various fabrics offered, front and back plaits, waist belt, and back opening. Pattern 4707 covers sizes 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 with yardage details for different widths.
The London Queen criticizes two or three drawing rooms described as unsettling and jarring to the artistic soul, noting rooms where every detail provokes a sharp reaction and discomfort.
Handsome nickel bread trays in old Colonial design feature fluted and beaded borders with a polished finish. The boat shaped trays display pierced ornamental work, while new thin delicate nickel teaspoons mimic the great grandmother era spoons, appearing genuinely old fashioned.
Young French girls favor soft gray, simple white collars, and belt buckles to ease over dressing. The fashion spreads to American girls of good family, who adopt understated costumes with little trimming, often featuring a white fichu or chemisette.
The washable lawn and the washable muslin are nearly obsolete as shirtsed skirts and gathered waists become hard to launder. Laundresses cannot wash them effectively, and the remedy lies in careful wearing and preserving of these gowns when not in use.
A cream lace over chiffon waist pattern 4708 features a silk embroidered yoke with French knots and a cream messaline belt. The design offers an invisible back closure and optional fitted front, with full sleeve bands and precise yardage for sizes 32, 34, 36, and 40 inch busts.
White and colored moire pillows are described as beautiful when crafted in the new fashion with white embroidery, silk, and honiton braids. A pale green pillow finished with a white silk cord is noted as dainty and useful, highlighting that such combinations are rare in pillows today.
A notice explains that readers can secure a May Manton pattern illustrated above by completing the coupon and mailing it with 10 cents to E. E. Harrison & Co. at 65 Plymouth Place, Chicago. The pattern will be mailed promptly.
A notice invites readers to submit new ideas to the Air Wrage column. Contributions may be sent to M J Wragg in Waukee Iowa and readers can request information on discussed subjects.
The article notes cool springs in the western states favoring fruit set, with Iowa forecasts for apples 85 percent cherries 70 pears 90 and American plums 100. It urges protecting strawberry beds from severe winter exposure and starting early dust spraying to combat fungous diseases and insect enemies.
Advice on pig housing emphasizes dry well ventilated conditions to prevent stiff tame hogs. Build pens directly on ground with level floors and a central well lit weekly cleaned alley. Sleepers and feeding pens arranged in rows with gates across the central passage to aid cleanliness.
A reader asks whether to transplant or seed. The column favors transplanting using bottomless paper cans, 10% 11 inch strips, filled with soil, kept warm then sunlit. Deep plantings with seed leaves covered, watering, and wind protection. Also notes raising green feed with lettuce and rape for chickens using small plots.
Wages for farm hands will be lower this season across the middle west with contracts from 18 to 22 dollars per month for eight months versus 21 to 28 last year. Farmers seek to reduce hired help through method changes and neighbor cooperation amid rising country demand.
The cotton boll weevil threatens the Souths chief crop and demands swift action by state and national governments. Early warnings by L O Howard and others noted its spread from Mexico into the United States. With cultural and hygienic measures it can be checked, but prompt state laws and extermination efforts are essential to protect crops and prevent economic loss.
The passage warns that many dairy farmers fail to build efficient barns. It argues cost is not the point, stressing plentiful windows and ventilation for fresh air without drafts, ample sunlight, open doors when weather allows, smooth floors, long cow platforms, gutters to catch droppings, and regular whitewashing for disinfection.
A farmer laments missing library and household goods in a humorous rhyme about misplaced titles from Hawthorn to Goldsmith and Chaucer. The verse catalogs vanished books and tools like a cook, a cook’s gear, and fishing and farming items, ending with a note on intensive farming’s broader sense and a Norfolk-like mischief of mislaid goods.
An opinion piece stresses protecting birds to curb caterpillar outbreaks threatening forests and shade trees. It urges strict bird protection laws, nesting boxes, winter meat for birds, and general knowledge of avian habits, cautioning against overbearing floral and fruit exaggerations driven by cultivation.
A published bulletin summarizes actual costs to grow one acre of strawberries. Land rent for two years 11. plowing and fitting 7. setting plants 4. cultivation 16. straw for winter and fruiting 15. labor hoeing and weeding 10. total cost about 73 dollars, with some growers lower or higher depending on location. The note adds advice for swine husbandry emphasizing bone in feed and grazing legumes to strengthen bone, as corn alone is insufficient.
The article advises rapid cream ripening and thinning if thick, proper temperature and thermometer use, and washing timing to avoid buttermilk flavor. It stresses brine salted butter, keeping cream sweet at low temps, and the farm’s aim to produce nutritious food while studying markets to gauge worth.
A historical classifieds style page contains medical ads for Doan's Kidney Pills claiming cures for Bright's Disease and kidney pains. It includes testimonial by Frank D. Overbaugh of Catskill New York, a free trial offer, and price details. Also brief notes on matrimony alimony jokes and notices for pension officers and a miscellaneous line about eye wear in Britain.
An advertising fragment claims Defiance Starch is produced by a different process, offering superior quality and about one third more for each container. It notes a business moral: a man above his business may one day find his business above him, attributed to Drew.
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