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Excerpt, Evening Independent, Massillon, Ohio, March 28, 1910, page 8


    In making choice of land in a new section it is well not only to keep in mind the fertility of the soil and its ability to produce bumper crops, but the distance of the land from market. There have been cases where such handicap has well nigh offset the two advantages named.

    When the fruit ranchmen in several sections of the West where spring frosts are likely to occur were first confronted with this menace to their industry they seemed to consider themselves victims of natural forces and well nigh helpless. But within the past few years necessity has proved the mother of invention, and they have devised methods whereby they have been able to protect their trees at blossom time against damage by frost. Among these devices oil pots--simple lamps adapted to the burning of crude oil--and little stoves for the burning of soft coal have proved effective methods of keeping the temperature above the freezing point. In some other sections where wood is plentiful as good or even better results have been secured by building from twelve to fifteen small wood fires per acre. In one case in which these wood fires were used by a friend in a western valley last spring he protected his ten-acre orchard for seven nights at a cost of $5 per acre during the frosty period. He had previously tried oil pots and coal and yet found wood fires more effective in giving the desired result. While little has been done along this line in central and eastern orchards, there are many springs when the prospective crops could be protected by just such means.
    Experiments which have been conducted by a number of state experiment stations in the matter of smudging fruit trees to prevent frost damage would seem to indicate that it is not the heat generated by the smudge or fire that keeps the fruit from freezing, but that the smoke generated forms a blanket which keeps cold air from penetrating the smoke zone and holds down the heat radiating from the earth. The smudge, according to this view, is a means of heat conservation rather than heat production. It also further serves the purpose of obscuring the light of the sun in the early morning hours, thus preventing a rapid thawing of blossoms that may have been frostbitten.
    The other day we saw a pear orchard which its owner had started to head close to four feet high, the trees having the appearance of slender whipstocks with tufts of feathers at the tip. In a section where the prevailing summer winds are from one quarter this will mean that all of the tree will have to be staked up to be kept in an upright position, and this at best will be a baggled-up job. Later on as they come into bearing it is questionable if there will be sufficient strength of trunk to bear the fruit without breaking down. In this instance the situation is aggravated because all the lower buds on the trees have been snipped off, so that the growing of a lower-headed tree is well nigh impossible.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, June 22, 1910, page 3


    There is no sort of public work in which folks are interested generally where the principle of cooperation could be followed to better advantage than in the care of the public highways. In some sections this fact seems to be recognized, in some others not. Especially is there need of this cooperation in those sections where earth roads are the rule and where the character of the soil is such that there is need of working it at a critical time following heavy rains or wet seasons. Particularly is this true of stiff clay or adobe soils, which can be advantageously worked and leveled only when they possess the proper amount of moisture and the right consistency. Under such conditions it is impossible for one road superintendent and his helpers to give all the road of their territory treatment at the proper time. As a result many such highways dry up rough and hard and remain in this condition for months. Could a system have been followed which would have enlisted the aid of property owners or renters along the highways, and the roads have been dragged at the proper time, a good highway would have been secured. The benefit of this cooperative system is recognized in some states, the road tax being remitted in case property owners give a stipulated amount of aid in keeping in condition the roads abutting their own premises. This plan gives excellent results and should be adopted in other places where the roads at certain seasons of the year are little short of unspeakable, yet for the attempt to keep which in repair large sums are expended annually, but to little purpose.
    The painting of the trunks of the orchard trees with a good lime wash in which several pounds of salt and a few ounces of carbolic acid have been mixed will not only improve the condition of the bark and kill insect pests, but by reflecting the rays of the sun will tend to prevent sun scald. Carefully slaked stone lime should be used for the purpose, this being diluted to the consistency of paint after the slaking process is completed.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, June 29, 1910, page 6

    Great benefit is expected to come to the fruit growers of the Pacific Coast from the plants which have been installed at several points in California and will shortly be erected at other points for the precooling of fruit destined for transcontinental shipment. In the past, even with the most careful refrigeration en route, both transportation companies and growers have sustained serious loss as a result of fruit spoiling in transit. In these new precooling plants, which are really mammoth refrigerating plants, whole trainloads of fruit can be reduced to a temperature close to the freezing point in the course of two or three hours, artificial means being used to draw the warm air from and inject the cold air into the cars. Carloads of fruit made ready for shipment in this way are given the usual icing in transit, with the result that the fruit arrives at its destination in as nearly perfect condition as possible, the loss resulting from the fruit being in heated condition at the time of shipment, as has been the case heretofore, being virtually nothing. The installation of these plants at important shipping points not only in the West, but in other parts of the country, will mean increased revenue for the growers of fruit and a greatly improved quality for the consumer.
Excerpt, Gettysburg Times, Pennsylvania, June 25, 1910, page 3


    The other morning the writer found the remains of two pretty bee martins (kingbirds) in the corner of his orchard and learned on inquiry that some small boys had been in the locality with slingshots the day before and had found the birds easy victims because of their loyalty to a nestful of fledglings placed on the archway to a gate near the sidewalk. It is possible that this offense was the result of thoughtlessness and not because the boys in question were bad at heart, but the result was the same for the birds. If a highwayman had come along when one of these boys was a helpless babe in the cradle and had wantonly killed both father and mother, resulting in the starvation of the child, we would have an exact counterpart of what happened to the birds. Putting it in terms which every boy who has a spark of manliness and fairness in his makeup can understand, the boys who killed these birds did not give them a square deal. Particularly was this the case because they were killed at nesting time, when not only their own lives, but the lives of their young were at stake. Fire away, boys, at red squirrels, English sparrows, blackbirds, blue jays and crows, but grant all useful birds freedom from attack, but especially during the nesting season.
    While temperature readings run much higher in the semiarid and arid South and West than in the great humid section east of the Mississippi River, it is a fact of common note that the dryness of the atmosphere reduces the discomfort of this heat to the minimum. This accounts for the fact that, while prostrations are frequent in the eastern half of the country at 90, they are practically unheard of in the West at 110 degrees F.
    One of the several advantages in living in a section where water power is abundant is the cheapness of electricity for lighting purposes. Instead of turning out the lights when going from one room to another to squeeze the meter at pay time, folks run their lights all night and their porch lights a good share of the forenoon.
    A lot of folk fall down badly in their well-meaning attempts at economy by reducing both the quantity and variety of the bill of fare beyond a point which is justifiable and reasonable. It doesn't pay to underfeed horses which have to work, nor does it pay human beings to take less food than is needed to maintain the body in a healthy condition and furnish the excess vitality consumed in labor. A lot of folk who subsist largely on potatoes, wheat bread and tea should balance their ration with bacon and eggs, beefsteak, cornbread and baked beans when they would get rid of that "tired feeling" which they suppose is due to a disordered liver or some other like cause.
Excerpt, Portsmouth Herald, New Hampshire, June 29, 1910, page 6


    It bids fair to be a serious problem what the women will do with their spare time when they all have vacuum cleaners, fireless cookers and electricity for washing and ironing. Doubtless they will be out in the back yard trying the old man's airship.
Excerpt, Springville Journal, Springville, New York, July 21, 1910, page 6


    There is little doubt that the conservative purchase of favorably situated fruit lands in many sections of the West is a perfectly safe proposition, but such purchase ought to be made with a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the future contingencies, especially in some of the heavily timbered sections. The point we would make in this is nicely illustrated in the case of an eastern schoolma'am whose purchase was detailed to us the other day. This girl, who has saved a nice little nest egg, has thought to insure her material well-being for coming years by purchasing a ten-acre tract of raw land in a heavily timbered section, not seeming to have taken into account the fact that the cost of clearing the land alone before the little trees are set will range from $125 to $175 per acre, the word of zealous real estate agents to the contrary notwithstanding. At best there must be a wait of five or six years before the trees begin to bear, and then not enough to pay for their actual care. Of course, potatoes, strawberries and other small fruit crops may be grown between the tree rows during the first few years, but this means a degree of hard and painstaking work that one who has not had experience in horticulture has little conception of. On the other hand, if the tract in question was bought as an investment only, to be sold to someone else to develop, the question is entirely different so far as the schoolma'am is concerned. When she starts to develop her tract she will doubtless consider it wise to sell.
Adams County News, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, August 6, 1910, page 7


    Luscious as the peach may be and delicious the pear, after all a fine, crisp apple will be eaten with greater relish day in and out than any other fruit known. It is this that makes it the king of all fruits.
    There are days when the Pacific Slope rancher may perspire as freely as the eastern farmer, but he can count on cool nights for refreshing slumber and is not harassed with the prospect of June freshets, tornadoes and cyclones.
    The orchard should not be turned into a hog lot, but it is not a bad idea to turn the drove of hogs into the orchard for three or four hours every few days from now on until harvest time to clean up the defective and wormy fruit. They will not only relish the fruit, but will play smash with a good many worms. More than this, it removes from under the trees a mess which is likely to be sort of nasty at picking time.
    While scenery is not usually figured as a tangible asset when one purchases [a] farm or ranch, it is nevertheless a source of much satisfaction and inspiration when one is working a field to lift his head and see the varied greenery and translucent blue haze of mountain vale, ridge or slope, the same, yet ever-changing with the change in density of air, in angle of sunlight and with shadow cast by passing cloud. Such tree-clad slopes are never dull or prosy, but a constant object of admiration on the part of former plain country dwellers.
Excerpt, Evening Independent, Massillon, Ohio, August 9, 1910, page 4


    Many of the saddest and most hear-rending of life's tragedies might be averted were parents to recognize the responsibility which is surely on their shoulders of informing their children in the early years--far better too early than too late--of the chief facts in connection with their physical origin and the dangers incident to ignorance of the vital facts. Find out about these things boys and girls will--if not from pure and reliable then from vulgar and untrustworthy sources. Perhaps the victim is a fair young girl, whose confidence has been betrayed and whose bright and happy life is blasted at its threshold, or maybe it is a stalwart son, who finds out too late through agonizing experience that he is a virtual imbecile or is tainted for life with some loathsome disease which may mean early death, but in any event must always debar him from those joys which center in a happy home of his own and a life of wholesomeness and usefulness. The teaching of these truths in the home and in the school is of far more account than mathematics, history or language, yet they are almost universally and most stupidly ignored. As a people we are devoting too much time and energy to material things--the shop, the office, the farm; too much time to horses and cattle, to sheep and swine, their breeding and their rations--and far too little thought to the boys and girls and their problems, on whom more than all other things or interests the future welfare of the country depends. The boys and girls are worthwhile. It is time they were given a square deal.
    In portions of California and Oregon plant disease experts of the Department of Agriculture have for the past two or three years been directing a campaign for the stamping out of the pear blight, which in sections of the former state has ruined tens of thousands of bearing trees. A careful study of the pest coupled with numerous experiments has shown the only effective method of combating the blight to be the cutting out of affected shoots and limbs below the point of infection, the pruning instrument, saw or shears, being sterilized after each cutting by dipping in kerosene. Another means serving to lessen the severity of an attack of blight has been found to lie in the removal of all fruit spurs from the trunk and larger lower limbs, as the spores of the blight are transmitted to such spurs by bees at blossom time. Pear orchards in sections where the blight is prevalent should be inspected frequently and no time lost in cutting out affected limbs should the pest put in an appearance. A delay of a day has often mean the loss of many trees, as the blight works with great rapidity, often passing from twig to trunk in the course of a few hours.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, August 17, 1910, page 3


    The unusually dry weather which has prevailed through most of the timbered sections of the great Northwest during the past four months has made possible an epidemic of forest fires which have not been exceeded in either extent or losses sustained for a generation. Some of the fires have been set by sparks from passing trains, some by careless campers and hunters, while there is a pretty definite conviction that some of the worst have been of incendiary origin, set by Indians out of spite against the whites or by white owners of timber homesteads, cooped in by the holdings of grasping timber companies, who have preferred to lose their own property outright in a forest conflagration rather than dispose of it for a song to lumber companies on the humiliating terms which the latter are usually disposed to dictate. Again, other fires have been started by just such idiots as the one who on the evening of the Fourth of July threw firecrackers out of the car window along the railroad right-of-way near Grants Pass, in Southern Oregon, and maybe thought he was rendering his country patriotic service by so doing. While the forest fires have been the worst in years, it is also true that never has the service rendered through the careful organization of the forest rangers and the ready aid of thousands of private citizens been more effective than in the past few weeks. In some sections, however, the forest fires were so large and gained such headway as to be entirely beyond the power of those who were available to fight them. In two or three instances appeals have been made to President Taft by state officials and citizen's committees for the aid of the Army in fighting the fires, and he has acceded to the request, promising to furnish the desired aid whenever calls are received. There is no type of conservation which is more practical than this of saving and protecting our timber wealth from this fearful loss resulting from careless fires, and to give aid in reducing this loss to the lowest possible limit is the plain duty of every good citizen.
    In the vast majority of cases the deliberately unruly pupil comes from a home where the parents are neither respected nor exercise any wholesome authority. And quite often it is the parents of just such pupils who back them up rather than the teacher when they make trouble at school.
    Last spring there were two or three pear trees in the writer's orchard which looked decidedly sick. A nurseryman who saw them thought the trouble might be blight. A fruit inspector at first diagnosed the case as crown gall. But a digging up of one of the trees showed a perfectly clean and healthy condition of the root wood and bark, but that the lower roots were virtually standing in water, which came within a foot and a half of the surface at that point. None of the tree fruits flourishes with wet feet. A tiling of the low spots is the only remedy.
Excerpt, Evening Independent, Massillon, Ohio, September 28, 1910, page 3


    An interesting fact has been noted by many an orchardist the past few months, and that is the purple color which was early taken on by so many varieties of apples which are a pure green or yellow at harvest. The writer has noted the same tendency on his own ranch in the case of the Newtown Pippin, Yellow Transparent and White Winter Pearmain. The coloring referred to seems to have been caused by cool nights, followed by warm days, and those who have made a careful study of the coloring referred to assert that the purple color not only enables the small apples to withstand more degrees of cold than fruit not colored, but that it more readily absorbs the heat of the sun, resulting in better growth and larger size.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, September 28, 1910, page 6


    Not infrequently the man who complains that those who live near him are not neighborly will be found, if his case is looked into closely, to be himself lacking in some of the essential qualities which characterize a good neighbor.
    It is interesting to note that, while many a tabby cat may keep pretty well away from the house in her state of single blessedness, she seems to understand human nature enough to know that when her little ones are presentable she will be accorded a friendly reception.
    Under date of June 22 last the Department of Agriculture published farmers' bulletin No. 401 on the protection of orchards in the Pacific Northwest from spring frosts, by fires and smudges. The subject matter was prepared by professor P. J. O'Gara, assistant pathologist, at present stationed in the Rogue River Valley. It will be a valuable bulletin for every ranchman located in districts subject to spring frosts.
    A lot of folk in town and country are pretty regular takers of booze tonics and invigorators and are breeding bleary eyes and red noses when what they need is not slop of this kind, but more corn-fed beef, more pure milk and fresh eggs, more sunshine during the day and fresh air at night. This last prescription doesn't cost anything, but it will take the kinks out of a disordered stomach or liver quicker than any dope on the market.
    Western Oregon wheat lands that used to produce sixty bushels per acre have been robbed of their fertility by continual cropping to this cereal until the average yield is now barely twelve bushels per acre. This means that the man who has been in the grain-raising business is up against a very real proposition. It was with a view to helping him solve the problem that he has on his hand that the irrigation office of the Department of Agriculture at Washington undertook an investigation a short time ago with a view to ascertaining the feasibility of irrigation as a means of aiding intensive agriculture in the Willamette, Umpqua, Rogue and tributary valleys. The findings of the investigators--and their report is very encouraging--are embodied in bulletin No. 226 of the office of experiment stations. The bulletin shows that with an abundant water supply and favorable land conformation the problem gives promise of being readily and satisfactorily solved. The bulletin referred to may be had by writing the Department of Agriculture, Washington.
    It is doubtless due to the vigorous way in which the westerner does most everything that he lays hand to that he frequently uses a good deal more giant powder or dynamite in blowing stumps from the ground than is really needed. In fact, the smaller charge often gives more satisfactory results. A rancher who was relating his experience along this line the other day stated that for a time he had very unsatisfactory results, but when finally he reduced his charges of dynamite to about one-third of what he had been using the explosive did business and lots of it. He learned from his own experience that it is necessary to adjust the charge to the work which it must do, too large an amount of explosive being just as ineffectual as too little.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, October 19, 1910, page 3


    We have made the observation before, but it is nevertheless worth repeating, that on every farm where there are a hay fork and a manure spreader in the barn there should be linoleum on the floor in the kitchen and a drainage system for the kitchen sink which will do away with the necessity of emptying pails.
    There is many a boy who for one reason or another is not making satisfactory progress in school, but nevertheless is compelled to attend by his parents, who would be vastly better off, as would also the other pupils of the school, if he were taken out and put at some job which would keep his hands busy, occupy his mind and furnish an outlet for a whole lot of pent-up physical energy. As a general rule, there is no time that a boy can put in that will give larger or more satisfactory returns than that spent in school. Occasionally, however, the time thus spent is worse than wasted, breeding idleness, inattention and disrespect for constituted authority.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, October 26, 1910, page 6


    The chap, in whatever portion of the country he may operate, who contends that by boring a hole in diseased fruit trees and inserting some of the dope he has to sell at a long price a cure can be effected is an arrant grafter and fraud and should be drummed out of the neighborhood. Take no stock in any of this tribe.
    There is a sort of terrible irony to be found in the fact that some of the severest losses in both life and property in the forest fires which raged for weeks in several of the western states occurred in those states whose representatives in Congress voted to reduce or at least opposed an increase in the appropriation which was asked by the Forest Service for patrols and equipment to be used in the prevention and extinguishing of forest fires. It is safe to say that the idiocy of this niggardly course is now apparent to the most thick-pated in Congress and that when an appropriation is called for in the future it will be granted ungrudgingly.
    Owing to improvement work which had to be done last spring on the writer's ranch, the work of setting out young pear trees was delayed until early in May, which in the section in which the writer lives is considered two months late. However, we took pains in setting them, kept them thoroughly cultivated through an unusually dry season without watering, and this fall finds them holding their own admirably. We would not advise as late planting as this, but mention this instance to show what is possible if trees are healthy and are properly set and cultivated.
    Along with looking after the pigs, calves, sheep and other farm animals it would be a pretty good idea to call now and then at the country schoolhouse and see what progress the youngsters are making. You can't count on their being profitable from the standpoint of pork, veal or mutton, but with the right kind of care and attention they will develop into something a good deal more important than these--wholesome and wide-awake men and women, the citizens of tomorrow. And, by the way, it's a good idea to visit the school often enough so as to have the teacher grow used to visitors and not be scared to pieces when a patron of the district shows head inside the door. Incidentally if the visit is prolonged some first-hand data may be collected relative to the boys and girls who make trouble in school and with whom their parents usually side and aggravate matters. It is well "to visit the flocks and the servants who labor and also to visit the school."
Excerpt, Herald Recorder, Potsdam, New York, November 4, 1910, page 5


    After years of transcontinental fruit shipment in the old way--putting aboard cars at natural temperatures and allowing as great a reduction in temperature as could be had with the ordinary icing system--a comprehensive system has finally been devised for the wholesale precooling of fruits before shipment, exemplified in the $1,000,000 plant which was given its first test on Oct. 9 of last year and the results of which were highly satisfactory in every way. In the initial tryout ten cars of ripe grapes from Lodi, Cal., were reduced from a temperature of 70 to 38 degrees in two hours. The cars were then sent out by fast express, with no ripening or decay in the course of their long journey, and ten days later were offered for sale in New York and Philadelphia in practically the same perfect condition as when picked from the vines. Used at full capacity, the Roseville plant will handle twenty cars at a time, and it will cool this number of cars of fruit in three hours. The plant is combined with an ice plant which has two 300-ton refrigerating machines with an ice making capacity of 150 tons each. The cooling process is a simple one. When the twenty loaded cars of fruit have been run into the long cooling shed the car doors are unlocked and swung open and false doors equipped with canvas connections leading to a huge coil of ammonia pipes are then adjusted. The warm air in the car is first drawn off by means of an intermittent valve through two canvas connections above the ice bunkers at the ends of the cars. The two fans which drive the air through the ducts and cars are each ten feet in diameter and deliver 50,000 cubic feet of air per minute. The coil box through which the air passes and is cooled is eighty feet long, thirty-two feet wide and contains 80,000 feet of two-inch pipe, with more than 12,000 ammonia joints. The box is made of hollow blocks reinforced with steel and is made airtight with a coating of asphalt. The duct which delivers the air to the cars is made of galvanized iron, is sixty inches in diameter and 400 feet long. When the temperature of the cars has been reduced to about 38 degrees F., which is considered the ideal temperature, the cars are iced and ready for shipment. The precooling of Pacific Coast fruits in this manner will practically revolutionize the business, not only improving immensely the quality of fruit shipped, but greatly increasing its consumption. A similar plant has been built at Colton, Cal. for the precooling of citrus fruits, and there is little question that in a short time like plants will be erected for the cooling of less perishable fruits--peaches, pears and apples--in well-known fruit sections in states to the north and east.
    That the country as a whole needs an awakening to the necessity of giving more heed to and applying just common everyday horse-sense methods to a conserving of the public health is nicely shown in an instance which came to our attention the other day. A miserable-looking individual with the usual greasy card put in an appearance, but instead of recording the fact that the bearer had lost his voice, arm or toe it stated that he was in a bad way from tuberculosis and was trying to get enough money by selling shoestrings to take him to the northern woods, where the bracing air and the smell of the conifers would restore his health. Like many another, we paid 10 cents for penny shoestrings and later put them in the stove and then for a brief interval contemplated the menace to public health of having a consumptive of this type frequenting streets, hotels, passenger cars and other public places and no doubt scattering germs of his dread disease as he went about.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, November 23, 1910, page 3


    There is no particular connection between the manure spreader and the telephone, yet both have had a whole lot to do with making farm work more endurable and life on the farm more cheery and enjoyable.
    There is little excuse that can be made for the type of shiftlessness and poor management so often noticed in the use of a good part of the worth of the winter fire drying out green wood that ought to have been cured and seasoned in the summer sun.
    In the enthusiasm of the very wholesome and commendable "back to the land" movement which is just now receiving a good deal of attention it may be in point to suggest that a large measure of success will hardly be achieved in a tillage of the soil or in horticultural lines by those who through lack of brains, initiative or energy have made a dismal failure of every other business enterprise in which they have embarked. The returns from agricultural and allied pursuits are generous, but only in proportion to intelligent, persistent and well-directed effort. The realm of agriculture is no place for weaklings or incompetents.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, December 28, 1910, page 3


    More boys go to the bad every year because they are not made to feel that they amount to something than from any other cause. The ball is started to rolling when they are little fellows and treated as if they were all-round nuisances, and it's kept up until the job is finished. Those who have a hand in this process of degeneration apparently forget that the boys (and girls) are the best asset the country has, not excepting all the blue ribbon winners at the big stock shows. Give the boys something to do and try to cultivate in them a feeling that they amount to something in the busy workaday life and many of them will be saved from failure and utter misery.
    Kids that are allowed the run of all outdoors will get their hands and faces dirty, but for their own sakes and the reputation of the place they call home they ought to be cleaned up at least once a day and be given an all-over warm water bath once or twice a week--twice won't hurt 'em any. We saw some forlorn little heathens the other day that but for the fact that they stood on their hind legs might have been little pigs right out of the pen or kittens from an ash barrel. When the good Lord ordained lye and grease he made soap possible and probably intended when six or eight bars can be had for a quarter that parents should use enough of it to keep their kiddies clean.
    Where it is possible to do so it is a good idea to place the semi-tropical plants such as the palm, sword fern, sprengeri and cactus as high on the plant stand as possible, this because of the fact that there is a difference of several degrees in a stove-heated room between the air three feet and seven feet from the floor. One of the most beautiful and long-fronded sword ferns we ever saw was given a high niche, and we do not doubt that the warmer upper air had something to do with its thriftiness.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, January 11, 1911, page 3


    We went by a home the other night where the windows were all down tight--no provision made for a breath of fresh air--and where, to cap the climax, a kerosene lamp turned low was doing much to befoul what little air the house contained. Fresh air is a good deal cheaper than dirt, more health-promoting than pills and tonic, and yet some folks are as afraid of it as death and a good deal more so than taxes.
    The average lively boy has all the native impulse and outward incentive that he needs along the line of sowing wild oats without being sort of encouraged or at best excused by an indulgent but shortsighted parent. This wild oats business is one unique line of recent production where the corp is always sixtyfold, lessened neither by drought, frosty nights nor hail at harvest time. The thoughtful parents will do the most in their power to reduce the sowing to a minimum.
    Notwithstanding the fact that it is entirely feasible, we nevertheless have neither seen nor heard of any serious effort being made to utilize the grass and weeds that annually go to waste on tens of thousands of acres of country highways by herding over them neighborhood flocks of sheep, which could be looked after by some of the grandfathers of the community whose days of active farm work are past. Not only would the grazing of the highways in the manner suggested turn into dollars a lot of roughage that annually goes to waste, but it would greatly improve the appearance of the highways and prevent their being weed seed manufactories for the fouling of the adjoining fields. Of course the carrying of such a cooperative plan into effect presupposes that the folks in the community are on good terms, which is one of the essentials to good farming.
Excerpt, Herald Recorder, Potsdam, New York, January 20, 1911, page 4


    The young fruit tree should be pruned during the winter or early spring months if the object is the encouragement of wood growth and the building of a proper frame. If the trees are old enough to bear and one wishes to induce such a result, the pruning should be deferred until mid-summer, preferably during the month of July.
    Some "shortcuts" are commendable, then again, others are not. We ran across an instance of the latter kind the other day. It had to do with a young fellow who seemed to be discouraging in himself the inclination to honest toil.He thought he would try his hand at a shortcut, so intercepted a nine-dollar money order, forged it, and at the present writing is in a nearby jail awaiting action by the grand jury. His youthfulness may lead the authorities to consent to a compromise; otherwise he is likely to do two or three years in the pen. It's a mighty rocky road this young fellow is setting out on. The "shortcut" he counted on bids fair to be much longer and much more difficult than he thought.
Excerpt, Portsmouth Herald, New Hampshire, January 23, 1911, page 6


    Rarely if ever do you see a father, whether tiller of the soil, merchant or day laborer, who has taken time from his pressing duties to take an interest in his boy and share in his sports, who is later called upon to "give the boy his time"--that is, virtually renounce the responsibilities of a father toward him. Seldom even in such cases is the fault entirely with the parent, but naturally as the older he is fairly chargeable with the larger measure of responsibility, and time was probably when he failed in his duty to the boy along the lines suggested.
    The proper place for little girls up to eighteen years of age who want to develop into pure, winsome and estimable women is at home with their folks when night comes and not on the streets, unless some specific errand calls them thither. Many a tragedy too pitiful for print, with heartbreak and heartache, would be spared if mothers would take this simple precaution with their daughters and were daughters on their part sensible enough to appreciate the wisdom of it. And the place for boys who want to grow into clean, manly men is also at home when night comes, and for the same reasons.
    The writer inspected the contents of a box of Pacific Coast fruit the other day that was sure an eye-opener in view of the packing standards that are supposed to be in vogue with the most progressive western apple growers' associations. The fruit in question was odd-sized, bruised, wormy and much of it positively runty, fit only for hog feed. Of course it is the unusual scarcity of apples that made possible the transportation of this kind of fruit 2,000 miles, and yet we seriously question if the profit accruing to the boxer and shipper of this "truck" will not be more than offset by the ill repute which will be attached to Pacific Coast fruits as a class as a result.
Excerpt, Daily News, Des Moines, Iowa, January 15, 1911, page 2


    If northwestern fruit growers had not decided on the move before, the beggarly price which they have been able to realize on their best fruit the past season, when trash not fit for hog feed has been shipped from 2,000 to 3,000 miles and sold at retail at $2 per box, will furnish the last argument needed to unite them into an effective organization whose prime object will be the systematic and cooperative marketing of their fruit, which will cut out two or three classes of jobbers that have been gouging them with the one hand and robbing the consumer with the other. The jobbers got soaked in the apple deal they tried to pull off four or five years ago, and they have been taking heavy toll of the producers ever since. The latter are getting wise.
    An investigation into the probable cause of rust spots appearing on apples shipped from some Pacific Coast points made by Professor P. J. O'Gara, fruit disease expert, leads him to the conclusion that the spots in question are due to impurities contained in the arsenate of lead used in spraying the trees and not to any fungus or scale pest.
    Until recently plaster was seldom used in the interior finishing of Pacific Slope houses, owing to the fact that it so frequently became loose and fell off during the rainy weather. Instead, the rooms were finished with matched sheathing, heavy building paper or cloth and the paper put on over this. Since the introduction of wood-fiber plaster, it is being quite generally used in the section mentioned.
    In a recent statement published by Chief Forester Graves the estimate is made that 84 percent of the loss from forest fires during the year 1909 was directly traceable to carelessness on the part of settlers in burning their timber clearings and similar carelessness on the part of the railroads through failure to use effective spark arresters. Here is a type of conservation of natural resources that can be put into practice without the necessity of legislative deliberation or executive decree to make it effective.
Excerpt, Evening Independent, Massillon, Ohio, February 1, 1911, page 8


    While there is little question that rapid settlement of the Pacific Northwest has tended to break up the large range areas for sheep and cattle and for the time being to reduce the output of these animals, it is the view of those who have been watching the introduction of more diversified forms of farming that in the more favorable sections at least more stock will be raised under the new era of ownership of smaller areas than was produced under the old.
Excerpt, Lebanon Courier and Semi-Weekly Report, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, February 3, 1911, page 7


    While San Jose scale is more frequently observed on the limbs and trunks of trees which it infests, it often appears on mature fruit. In the case of apples like the yellow Newtown its presence is indicated by small deep red spots slightly raised in the center where the scale is established and shading to a thinner color in much the same way as would a boil or sore on one's hand. Often these scale spots may not appear at the time the fruit is packed, but develop by the time it reaches its destination or is taken from storage.
Excerpt, The Bremen Enquirer, Bremen, Indiana, February 23, 1911, page 3


    The writer has been having a grippy cold of late, which leads him to express the hope that dumb animals are not afflicted in the same way. We are mighty sorry for them if they are.
    It is the experience of a good many that colds are more often contracted through the wearing of too-thick underclothing and cooling suddenly while in a perspiration than from wearing undergarments that are too thin.
    While a horse will not long remember a blow on the rump, it takes a long time for him to forget a blow on the head. An intelligent, high-lifed animal which the writer bought last spring had been handled in the latter fashion evidently, and it was only after months of gentle handling that he would not lift his head with a start when we went into his stall. The fellow who hit this horse with a club or whip, or whatnot, did in a couple of seconds what it took more than twice as many months to do. In fact, the harm he did will probably never be fully done away.
    As a general thing the farmers who are induced to go into the business of growing sugar beets fall short from six to ten tons per acre of getting the yield which the promoters of the sugar factory led them to expect. The land is either too thin, too dry, too wet or too low and never just right.
    We ran across a fellow the other day who had become involved in several troubles with his neighbors and would have moved out of the neighborhood had not the fellow he hated the worst been the one who was most anxious to buy this place. This was too much for his Yankee makeup, and he still sticks it out.
    While the curfew law has much to commend it from the standpoint of practical results, it is a woefully inadequate community substitute for individual parental interest, solicitude and responsibility. Parents who care a continental for their children--boys or girls--will keep them from gadding the streets at night, and they will not need a town bell or gong to remind them of their duty. Parents who haven't cared a continental would better turn over a new leaf and try to give their homes sufficient interest so that their children will prefer to stay at home rather than spend their time elsewhere.
    The postal authorities have lately been rounding up a lot of swindlers who have been using the mails in the disposal of bogus oil, mining and other stocks from which outlandish returns have been promised. In their next roundup it will be well if they landed another numerous company--the tribe of real estate fakers who through misrepresentation are raking in hundreds and thousands of dollars from unsuspecting people for land which never was worth anything and never will be as long as the sun shines. In one case of this kind which came under our notice recently land was palmed off on buyers as ideal for fruit culture when the meteorological records kept at the nearest station showed that the section has frosts every night in the year. Besides, the glowing fruit yield records were stolen bodily from a booklet got out by a town in a beautiful valley on the other side of the mountains, where climatic conditions were entirely different. We are not up on the fine points of what constitutes fraudulent use of the mails, but we have an idea it consists in sending false claims and misrepresentations through the mails for the purpose of separating folks from their hard-earned money. If this diagnosis is correct the fellows who are promoting these bogus land enterprises would seem to be treading on pretty thin ice.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, March 8, 1911, page 2


    Considering the fact that there is probably no menace to apple and pear orchards that is so serious as pear blight, it will be well to be on the lookout for it as soon as the sap begins to flow, as the blight in question is a bacterial disease of the sap. It is especially important to see that all holdover cases--that is, cases in which the germs have kept alive during the winter season--are cut out before the sap begins to run so as to prevent their becoming sources of a spread of the disease by bees and other insects to the blossoms and tender twigs of other trees of the same family. The presence of dangerous cases of blight is indicated by a dark-colored and sweetish-tasting ooze or sap which exudes from the cambium layer through the bark. The bees visit these places, very naturally, get their feet smeared with myriads of the bacteria and as a result are likely to infect a majority of the blossoms which they visit in the course of a day. In view of the fact that bees often cover a territory included in a radius of two miles, the possibility of a spread of the blight will thus be seen to be very great and emphasizes the necessity of destroying completely and thoroughly every holdover case. The wild hawthorn and crab, belonging as they do to the pome family, may be sources of early infection, and if such trees are in the neighborhood they should be inspected. Later on if trees in the orchard are found to be infected through the blossom in the manner indicated the only preventive measure known is cutting out with a knife well below the point of infection all diseased branches and limbs. After each cutting both the wound and knife should be sterilized with a one one-thousandth solution of corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride), which is a deadly poison, and at the close of the day the parts cut away should be burned. By careful cutting a tree can often be saved, even though the blight has got into the trunk or has reached down into the roots. The fighting of the blight will be greatly simplified and the damage from it lessened if all water sprouts are kept cut away well up into the head of the tree, as it is through those that infection is most often as well as most quickly carried to the main limbs and trunk.
Excerpt, The Greensboro Patriot, Greensboro, North Carolina, April 20, 1911, page 8


    Doubtless quite a number of our readers will be setting an orchard for the first time this spring, and a few suggestions may be helpful. With a view to saving ground the novice often makes the mistake of setting the trees too close together. We have known of cases where they were set twice as thick in the row as intended ultimately, but the trouble with this is that a fellow seldom has the courage to cut out every other tree after it has grown several years and begun to bear. It is better to put the trees the right distance apart at first, putting the ground between to some annual crop, which can be cultivated. Twenty feet apart is about right for peaches, twenty-five for pears and from twenty-eight to forty for apples, depending upon the variety. For family use a selection of varieties, a couple of trees each, may be made so as to give fruit through as long a period as possible. For commercial purposes it is well to set but one or two standard varieties if the acreage is limited and not more than two or three if it is considerable. The trees should be a year old, with well-developed fibrous roots, which should be pruned back carefully to a length of about eight or nine inches. The writer has found the easiest way to plant to first set three rows of eight stakes across the field, one at each edge and one through the middle, putting them tree distance apart, next setting similar rows across the field at right angles to these. With this preparation one can sight both ways for position in any part of the field and set a stake accurately without aid of string or measuring rod. With this method one should have the setting board--four feet long, five inches wide, peg notches an inch square cut in the center of each and a notch cut in from one side so as to give a space about an inch square at the exact center of the board. After setting the stake where the tree is to be, slip on the board so [the] stake is at center, set stakes in end notches, remove tree stake and board, dig hole, slip tree in, replace setting board and hold tree in place in middle notch while filling in the earth. The trees should be set five or six inches deeper than they stood in the nursery. Within a few days after the trees are set they should be pruned back to a uniform height, from eighteen to thirty inches, depending on whether one wishes a low- or high-headed tree. However, the low-headed, open-topped tree is favored by the majority of the best orchardists.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, May 17, 1911, page 2


    A reader of these notes living in Princeton, Ind., writes making inquiry as to the suitability of a certain western valley lately opened up for fruit growing and asking if this particular valley was included in a reference which recently appeared in these columns, suggesting that it would be well for the post office department to round up the large company of real estate swindlers who are separating unsuspecting people from hundreds of thousands of their hard-earned dollars. Yes, some of these same sharpers are already at work in the valley referred to, and it would be well for intending purchasers to use due caution. As has been stated repeatedly in these notes, there are several things that buyers of fruit land in a new country should do. First, find out from the horticultural experts at the state agricultural college whether a given valley or section in such state is adapted to the raising of the fruits which real estate agents claim it is; secondly, if in a dry country, find out what the rainfall is from the nearest government weather station and whether if needed water for irrigation can be had at that season of the year when most needed--July and August; thirdly, whether the district is subject to frosts during blossom time; fourthly, whether the soil is sufficiently deep and suited to fruit growing, and, lastly, whether the men backing a given orchard promotion proposition are honest men who expect to continue residents of the locality or are downright knaves who will light out for greener pastures when they have extracted from the confiding buyer his hard-earned coin. Many a reader will say to himself, "Oh, this is too much bother, and, besides, if we take the time to look up all of these points the land is likely to advance in value so fast that we will be heavy losers as a result." In reply to such a statement the writer would still urge the prospective buyer to use the greatest caution on all of the points mentioned, for it's a whole lot cheaper to spend a few dollars in carfare, board and livery bills than to tie up a property which may be worth little or nothing and which could not be sold later for love or money. It is easy to fall a victim of the land and dollar lust, to let eagerness run away with judgment and greed outvoice common sense. Because of this we caution our readers who may be thinking of investing in fruit land in a new country to keep their eyes open and play safe.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, May 31, 1911, page 6


    There is often as wide a gap between the pedigree and actual character and performance of a farm animal as there is between the profession of faith and everyday life of many folk whose names are on the kirk roll.
    If the small boy ever learns to swim he must go swimmin' with his father or with other boys in the neighborhood. Many a mother, naturally anxious for her boy, seems to hold the idea that this can be done by absent treatment--sort o' thinkin' water and swimmin' motions.
    The slugs that feed on the leaves of roses, cherry and pear trees may be dispatched by dusting the bushes or trees with fine road dust, applied when the dew is on. If beyond reach the same result can be had by spraying trees with a solution made by mixing one pound of arsenate of lead in twenty gallons of water. The solution should be stirred frequently while it is being applied with the sprayer.
Excerpt, The Beacon, Spirit Lake, Iowa, July 13, 1911, page 5


    It's a pretty sane idea for parents to know where the boys and girls are after 7 o'clock p.m. In one nice little town we know of a bunch of boys, some of them from supposed best families, make a practice of meeting the 8:50 train, and by a prearranged plan the "newsy" furnishes these half-baked kids with cigarette papers in direct violation of the state law. This thing couldn't happen if their parents were wide awake and the boys were at home, where they ought to be.
Excerpt, The Beacon, Spirit Lake, Iowa, August 31 1911, page 2


    In times of severe drought, such as has existed during the past two or three months, one cannot help but be impressed with the pitiful inadequacy of artificial means of watering lawn or garden, especially when effected through the average nozzle. It is such a puny, pygmy performance as to be well nigh ridiculous.
    In most instances of the "bad" boy the trouble likely is not half so much due to any inherent badness as to a lack of sympathy and real interest in parent or guardian and to a failure to properly direct the outgo of his physical and nervous energy. An engine is a mighty dangerous proposition with steam up and a broken rail ahead; so, too, a team of horses in a runaway with a mower. The bad boy is like both when off the track or lacking wise guidance and restraint.
    An amusing if somewhat unique incident was related to the writer the other day by a real estate agent setting forth the reason why another agent with whom he was acquainted failed to land a party of a score or more of friends whom he had escorted many miles to a section most of the merits of which were on the land company's advertising matter. The agent in question looked the proposition over pretty carefully and advised his friends not to buy, telling his real estate friend some time later that he was convinced that any man who would defraud his friends by selling them such land was a reprobate and would go straight to hell. The writer has been at a loss to trace the decadence in the belief in a hellfire with the alarming development of the real estate business, but in the above incident there seems to be a clue. It may be suggested for the protection of the greedy unwary that ministers everywhere devote one sermon a month to the mooted subject. Incidentally it would take the kinks out of many a hearer, put a curb on the real estate swindlers and keep a lot of hard-earned money where it rightly belongs.
Excerpt, Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Iowa, October 11, 1911, page 10


    The practice of issuing bonds by counties and states to provide at once large funds for use in the building of permanent roads is coming more and more into favor among those who have made any serious study of effective methods of highway improvement. There are many sections in which the details of the bonding plan is not understood, and where its advantages over the slipshod, piecemeal, hand-to-mouth methods at present in vogue are not rightly appreciated. To make the chief points of the new plan clear we give herewith some details of the issue of bonds which have just been voted on in Jackson County, in Southern Oregon, roughly the territory comprised by the celebrated Rogue River Valley. For a generation past the usual slovenly and wasteful methods of carrying on road work have been followed. This expenditure has increased until in 1910 it was $960,742, on an assessed property valuation of $5,000,000. Under this system at the present rate of building but three miles of permanent macadamized roads could be built annually, the bulk of the money raised each year being used in the continual repair of dirt roads, which during the rainy season from November to March are beyond the power of words to describe. The plan just voted on authorizes the issuance at once of $1,500,000 in bonds, all of which is availing immediately in the building of permanent good roads. On the basis of macadamized roads already completed this means that, instead of sixty miles of macadamized roads at the end of twenty years, the county will have between 300 and 350 miles, and that just as soon as men and teams can build them. So much as to the mileage of good roads available under the old and the new plans.
    These good roads bonds run for twenty years and bear 4 percent interest, payable semiannually. To pay these bonds when due it will be only necessary to raise $100,000 annually for twenty years. This will constitute a sinking fund, and out of it the interest on the bonds will be met annually. The balance loaned out on 6 percent farm mortgages and interest compounded will amount at the time when the bonds are due to the million and a half required to pay the face of the bonds. A slight additional levy will be made to cover cost of upkeep of the present, but this will be but a fraction of the amount spent each year in the futile effort to keep dirt roads in repair. The bond method gives permanent roads, gives all that are needed and the great advantage of the use of them at once, while it is fair to assume that the rise in the value of property adjacent to such highways would represent a value far exceeding the total issue of bonds required to build them. Many sections have the "good roads" problem on their hands more than others, but where any serious thought is given to the building of permanent roads the bond issue method is far and away the most sensible and economical plan possible. It has already been adopted by New York and Texas as a settled road policy, the counties and townships cooperating with the state in the good road work.
Excerpt, The Bremen Enquirer, Bremen, Indiana, October 26, 1911, page 3


    The Hindu, a type seldom seen in central and eastern states, is much in evidence on the Pacific Slope from Southern California to Puget Sound, there being in the neighborhood of 10,000 of these turbaned Asiatics in the territory mentioned. The majority of them are employed in railroad construction and other contract work, but not a few find employment out on the ranches. While they have no acquaintance with agriculture, they learn quickly and are willing to work for a small wage.
Excerpt, Butler Citizen, Butler, Pennsylvania, December 25, 1911, page 8


    Modern business inflicts much injustice at times upon those less favorably situated on the economic scale and is also responsible for the practice of much dishonesty of one kind and another, but it has also had some most wholesome influences. Among these is a great curtailment of the drinking of intoxicating liquors among practically all railway employees and the workers in many other industries where employers insist on efficiency and sobriety. Many of these same companies have entirely forbidden the use of cigarettes by employees while on duty simply because they take from a man's mental alertness and power of concentration.
Excerpt, The McKean Democrat, Smethport, Pennsylvania, January 25, 1912, page 2


    The mere fact that many men and women who were denied the privilege of an education in their youth have still made a success of life should not be used as an argument by the boy or girl of today for neglecting opportunities for schooling that may be had free of cost. One cannot but wonder in the case of these so-called self-made people who much more they might have achieved along desirable lines had they been able to have such advantages as are open to practically everybody today.
    When you are inclined to poke fun at an Oregonian because of the long rainy season and the droughty summers he gets some comfort out of the fact that he is not afflicted with blizzards, 30-degree-below-zero spells, cyclones and the like, and he has other bird company during the winter months besides crows, sparrows and blue jays.
    One of the delights, as the writer looks at it, in connection with life in the West is the practically universal use of wood instead of coal for cooking and heating purposes. This getting rid of the infernal dirt and soot from the use of bituminous coal is a most refreshing change, while the odor of the burning pine or fir wood is fragrant compared to the sulfurous fumes let loose in the combustion of soft coal.
    To any reader of these notes who would like to have a part in this "back to the land" movement and who now has a lucrative position or other employment we would suggest the putting of this longing to the test on a small scale where possible before giving up the salary job. This may be done in a good many instances by renting a half acre or so and putting it in to onions, cabbages or beets, if one is near a beet factory. Doing a good share of the work in connection with the raising of such a crop would enable one to know whether the desire to be near the soil was in passing fancy or an abiding like for the great outdoors and labor with and on the soil. If one will try out such an experiment as this and still hanker for the agricultural or horticultural life it would seem to be pretty safe to make the trial. At least the one who had the preliminary experience suggested would hardly be taken unawares in the experiences which would come to him.
    The writer is personally acquainted with instances not a few where those investing in a new section of the country have bitten off more than they could chew financially. That is, they have been so anxious to tie up so much land at the start for the purpose of making as much as possible on their investment that they have been desperately pinched and handicapped in all their later operations, including repairs and improvement, equipment and the meeting of simple running expenses. If one expects to sell a property a few weeks or months after the time of buying the statements made would not apply in so large a degree, but where there is likelihood that one may keep possession a year or more it is very necessary that the precaution suggested should be heeded. Doing so will not only make it possible to avoid operating at a great disadvantage, but perchance the ultimate loss of all that one may have invested.
Excerpt, The McKean Democrat, Smethport, Pennsylvania, April 18, 1912, page 6


    Several apple trees on the writer's ranch have been badly pestered with the green aphids for some years past. This spring he plans to spray with a solution of lime sulfur just as the buds of the trees are swelling, and this will wind up a whole lot of the aphids. Those that survive this will receive an early dose of "black leaf."
    There is a whole lot of truck that seems to pass muster for religion that comes way short of commending itself to either humanity or good sense. The kind we have specially in mind is nicely shown in the case of a fellow who prayed long and hard Sunday morning, but before sundown gouged a neighbor out of $25 on a misrepresentation in a horse trade. Another is all too often shown in the status of a woman who pretends to be religious, yet nurses so deep-seated a grudge against her neighbor that she won't treat her with courtesy or ladylikeness in public places. This is bogus currency and when the great day for cashing in comes will be heavily discounted.
    The writer is receiving many inquiries these days from readers living east of the Rocky Mountains who are tired of the frightfully cold winter just past and are looking for a home place where the winter season is milder and where it doesn't take quite all a fellow can earn during the summer season to keep him and his family from freezing to death during the winter. We sympathize with our readers keenly in this matter and are advising them to take a trip to the west country, get acquainted with it firsthand, learn both its drawbacks and advantages and then, after a calm and sober balancing of points good and bad, settle in a section where one will feel most at home. Where one has considerable money to invest, it is well to take plenty of time in making one's investigation of the property to be bought, and, as said in a recent department of these notes, it is always a good idea to limit one's mouthful in an investment way to what one can masticate nicely.
Excerpt, The McKean Democrat, Smethport, Pennsylvania, May 2, 1912, page 2


    A good deal of fun is poked at the pretty, but punky, Ben Davis, the apple that combines the poorest texture and best keeping quality under one skin of any apple on the market. And yet many who have had experience with the Ben Davis say that one year with another it will net as much money per acre as many of the better quality and higher priced apples.
Excerpt, The Delta Times, Ladner, British Columbia, June 22, 1912, page 4


    In the valley in which the writer's ranch is located there is frequently considerable damage to older apple trees from sun scald, the damage resulting from the warm, bright days, followed by frosty nights. This season we have safeguarded against this damage by tying long pine shakes on the southwest side of each trunk. This will shade them and keep the sap from flowing too rapidly. This sun scald damage is likely to occur at any time during the winter, but is often most serious during April and May.
Excerpt, The Holbrook News, Holbrook, Arizona, June 28, 1912, page 6


    It is hard to understand why so many country road supervisors, who spend good time and taxpayers' money in grading and shaping country highways, so often fail to put on the finishing touches necessary to make the roads passable. We refer to the practice so often followed of scraping to the center of the road clods, sod and weeds and leaving them there in a rough and unsightly ridge, when a little work with a disk pulverizer or common drag would do much toward inviting traffic. The writer is well acquainted with the aversion of the average man to hauling any kind of load over soft and newly made roads, but the condition in which lots of roads are left is taken as sufficient ground for steering shy of them even with an empty wagon.
Excerpt, The McKean Democrat, Smethport, Pennsylvania, August 22, 1912, page 2


    There are scads of men who would begrudge a quarter in cash for the support of the church who take it as a matter of course if a contribution three or four times this amount is put into a pot of beans, pies and angel's food for a ladies' aid social. Men are sort o' queer anyway.
    A good old friend of the writer who has passed his eightieth milestone told us the other day that not in a period of fifty-five years, in which he has kept track of farm and garden crops, does he remember such bountiful crops along all lines as in the season just closed.
    While it is a fine thing if the young wife can play a Chopin nocturne or a Beethoven symphony on the new piano, it is lots more conducive to matrimonial felicity if she can bake a nice tin of light biscuits, prepare a toothsome dish of oatmeal or broil a steak so that it is juicy and tender. It's well to possess both these accomplishments, but if either must be lacking it would better be the nocturne and symphony.
Excerpt, The Waterloo Reporter, Iowa, November 30, 1912, page 11


    The crop of apples of the Pacific Northwest, including Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, is put at 18,000 carloads. The refrigerator cars in which this fruit is carried hold 610 boxes, and at an average price of $1.25 per box this means that the crop is worth in the neighborhood of $14,000,000.
    Folks older grown are wont to overlook at times the fact that little people--small boys and girls--have a sense of fair play and justice remarkably well developed, and they also forget that there is no surer or more speedy way to lose their confidence than to offend this same sense.
    French inventors have designed an automobile suitable for children, having engines of less than a horsepower and guaranteed not to go faster than four miles an hour even on a down grade. It would be a mighty good thing if some grown folks in America were compelled to use just such a machine.
Excerpt, The New North, Rhinelander, Wisconsin, June 12, 1913, page 5