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This newspaper page contains 15 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Semi Weekly Herald
Location
Eldora, Iowa, United States of America
Date
May 30, 1903
Page
6
A mosaic of rural advice and observations on farming, households, and markets. It weighs cedar versus willow posts, notes the value of cleanliness in dairy, laments poor school upkeep, praises Gandy strawberries for flavor, discusses onion stocks, robins nesting, Alaska farming prospects, and Florida strawberry economics, ending with a critique of cheap common goods versus premium offerings.
A collection of agricultural notes outlines risks to forests and growth from lumber and fire, California celery shipments rising from fifty to 1680 cars, soft water cisterns of galvanized steel, a claim of 8,000,000 microbes in a box of strawberries, and a record for the single comb Black Minorca hen laying 292 eggs annually. It notes strawberries’ alleged digestion boost, sheep breeds for lambing and wool, advice for lazy breeders with 200 laying hens, India’s bumper wheat harvest and famine risks, and orchard revival through pruning, deep plowing, and heavy fertilization.
In north Texas timbered sections men girdle forests and plant cotton. A creamery requires 800 cows and at least 3000 dollars to be viable. Observations compare dairy costs and profits, praise registered Short horn stock, and warn against wasteful investments. A Maine dairy shows profit per cow around 25 dollars. western costs lower but margins vary. Part discusses healthful living, pork barrel ideas, and a farmer who paid off a mortgage then spent winter in California with family seeking rest.
A reminiscence contrasts farm motherhood fifty years ago with modern times. It highlights that then mothers spun cloth, cooked on fireplaces, baked in brick ovens, tended sugar making, hog killing, soap making, and raised large families without clubs or fashion burdens. Today, many farm mothers rely on ready made cloths, sewing machines, steel ranges, but have smaller families and more medical oversight.
Potato production in Germany is expanding beyond starch and flour uses. New developments, especially potato alcohol, from Welsbach burners and gasoline engines, promise cheap lighting and motor power, potentially making Germany less dependent on coal and petroleum.
The bumblebee is the sole bee species with a long enough tongue to reach clover blooms and fertilize them, enabling clover seed production in places like California and New Zealand. However, first or June clover crops rarely bear seed because winter deaths reduce bee numbers until new swarms emerge to cover fields.
A spring trudged through late frosts and snowstorm remnants then warms. Birds headline the shift with redbreasted grosbeak brown thrush and martin singing from elm and woodhouse. By evening the tree toad chirr signals summer near with roses, skeeters, and picnics on the horizon.
The text extols farmers who work soil daily and learn from nature, contrasting them with those who see only dollars. It argues Nature is a patient teacher, using object lessons like crop failures as punishment and abundant harvests as graduation certificates, rewarding the curious student.
The cost to raise a thirty month old steer weighing 1300 pounds is about 56 dollars, with land at 75 dollars per acre, care 0.35 dollars, hay 6 dollars, and hired help plus board 26 dollars. At four dollars per hundredweight the outcome is a loss if scrub, but at six dollars per hundredweight with a high grade Short horn Doddie or Whiteface there is potential profit. Much of beef profitability hinges on breed and market price, and many men doubt it until they try it.
On a wet day at Catfish Crossing a public gathering at Grimsol’s grocery turns into a rambunctious recital. A stranger with a blue umbrella claims long yarns about feeding horses and eggbed beds, while Uncle David Breckendarter’s chickens and a hired man’s mischief unfold in a comic frontier scene with wood eggs and sawdust bedding.
The passage recalls Uncle David chastising for feeding hens with pine sawdust and treating eggs as wood, as other characters scold a skeptical Pennsylvanian crowd. A benevolent stranger listens, then departs while Squire Ty Indary recalls a boastful deer and turkey tale, ending with a Philadelphia edger attribution.
An 1842 reminiscence recounts a U S ship Preble visit to Port Mahon. A midshipman wore a barrel-hoop boat costume and steered himself with rollers. He refused to reveal his identity as wine and soben gadus flowed. Guests attempted to feed him through peepholes, hindering his vision while he struggled to maneuver like a ship without a rudder.
A fragmentary poem excerpt from Henry Longan Stewart appears, describing night winds, fog, cattle, and a haunted landscape. It meditates on memories, ghosts, and the act of herd life under a mournful oversee. The piece evokes cattle, fields, and the heavens as a mournful, dreamlike scene.
The excerpt notes Job among others as an example of humor in biblical characters with a joking tone. It comments on how some figures are treated comically in a scribbled exchange. It highlights the contrast between serious scripture and lighthearted portrayal.
In a humorous exchange a father explains to his son that an assignee is someone who holds the deal and gives himself four aces, turning a simple card trick into a moral lesson about cunning. The light domestic scene centers on a playful misunderstanding.
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