Various

“ So be careful in this, the beautiful springtime of your lives, to so cultivate and make ready the garden of your minds that the coming manhood and womanhood may not only find you with well developed arms and limbs and muscles, ready to face the world and to help lift some of its burdens, but also with a mind that has kept even pace with the body—because of constant growth. ”

“ Then to balance things have one or two spicy news papers, which picture in horrid colors the blackest side of human life. This is necessary to guard the young against the riff-raff of humanity, such as tramps, sharpers, sewing machine and book agents, the lightning rod man, and a dozen other sharp swindlers that prey on the farmer and his family for an existence. The Sanitary Journal treats of health, purity, and cleanliness, and ought to be read and studied by all. Ah, I had almost forgotten The Prairie Farmer Map which hangs by the door. ”

“ Isn't it about time the Department of Agriculture at Washington sat a little down on this man who writes too much with his pen? Not that I would silence any man who sticks to facts, no matter whose soap-bubble he pricks; but a simple alarmist who rushes into print mainly for the pleasure it gives him to see his name in print, and to know that he is talked about, deserves to be squelched. ”

“ Notwithstanding the splendid achievements of the dairy industry it is safe to say that it may not be profitable in any and every locality. Given the soil, the climate, the water, the people intelligent and disposed toward the exacting duties of this business, there are still many questions to be considered and many mistakes to be avoided.
It has been a pet idea in this country that competition is the corrective of all industrial evils. ”

“ When a creamery therefore claims large and peculiar advantages, and offers a price for milk or cream markedly above the ordinary price paid for it by other creameries, you may be sure there is something illegitimate about it. It may be done to drum up business, to beat a rival, or it may be a downright swindle, it surely will not be lasting, and the operator intends at some time to recoup for himself. ”

“ We wonder how many of The Prairie Farmer boys and girls have seen the lion, "king of beasts," as he is called. Perhaps not all of you as yet, though many of you doubtless will as the years roll on—and, by the way, you will find that the older you grow the more quickly will they speed away. ”

“ It thus becomes the especial concern of the American agriculturist and statesman to find the best market for meat products. The profits in grain-raising for exportation, which impoverishes the soil, are exceptional, while our animal industries enrich it, augmenting the rural population in the line of true economy, the promotion of good morals, and the independence and elevation of the citizen. ”

“ It is remarked that when young hogs are fed mainly on corn they stop growing at an early age and begin to grow fat; but that green food makes them thriftier and larger than dry grain. In fact, it is better to prevent all domestic animals from becoming very fat until they have attained a fair natural size, particularly breeding animals.
A member of the Elmira Farmers' Club recently expressed the opinion that bad results would always be found with wheat sown on land into which the green growth of any crop had just been turned, although it was believed that buckwheat was the worst green manure. ”

“ To engage in silk culture, a person must be possessed of some special knowledge. It is no harder than poultry or bee-keeping, but a person to succeed at these must have some expert knowledge, and as sericulture was a new thing, beginners must have books containing what they needed. But these authors made the business much more difficult and expensive than it should be. First of all, they laid it down as one of the Medes and Persian laws of sericulture, that the worms must have mulberry leaves to subsist upon. ”

“ Earle always sells his fruit through a commission house. Without the commission men market-fruit growers could not do business. He found no difficulty in getting honorable men to do business with. When he got a good man he stuck to him. The commission man is just as important a factor in the fruit business as the grower or consumer. He believes in a liberal percentage for commissions. Dealers can not do an honest business for nothing. He is willing to pay ten per cent to the man who sells his fruit to the best possible advantage, and who makes prompt and honest returns. ”

“ If the turn of the market should be the other way, among the numerous patrons there is sure to be more or less dissatisfaction and a more or less breaking up of the condition of friendly reciprocity which should exist between creamery and patron. Patrons may damage their own interest by exacting too much from the creamery as well as by accepting too little, and a greedy grasping after an unreasonable share of the profit on the part of the creamery owner is sure to bring retaliation, disturb cordiality of feeling, and bring loss to all concerned. ”

“ Wise legislation, I believe, will be in the direction of Government inspection and the sure and prompt punishment of fraud. The interest of the creamery patron is more deeply involved in this matter than that of any other class, just as in other branches of production the perils and losses by fraud, deterioration, and adulteration ultimately fall back upon the producer of the raw product. The apathy now existing among the producers of milk and cream is ominous of evil, and discouraging to those who are working in the interest of unadulterated goods. ”

“ Investments pay no high per cents. Speculations may pay much or lose all. Hence it is unsafe; and the farmer who makes his gains only by a yearly turn of his crops, should not try speculation, but may judiciously invest his surplus year by year in things of real value, as land or chattels. Invest the last dollar, but speculate only with loose change. No man can safely invest in a business with which he is not familiar.
A lawful wire fence in Georgia is described by legislative enactment as composed of not less than six horizontal strands of barbed wire tightly stretched from post to post. ”

“ They will gradually be, as every farmer should be, educated up to the times. There are few farmers who can afford to let their sons study in an agricultural university, but every one can surely afford to subscribe for an agricultural paper, it being one of the most profitable investments for himself and family.
The ground is covered with snow to a small extent, and the roads are in a fine condition. The crops are all good here except corn, which is very poor indeed, even the crop in most cases is small. Farmers are not at all satisfied, and times are not at all encouraging. ”

“ As the whole corn grown in 1883 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, added to half that grown in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, would make 400,000,000 bushels only—a fourth of the whole crop—so that the possible depreciation of 40 per cent in all of it would be equivalent to a 10 per cent reduction in the value of the entire crop. The Illinois Department agents make the quality 31 per cent less than the average in this State. An effort will be made later, after the worst of the crop has been fed, to ascertain the feeding value of the year's product. ”

“ There are few farmers' families that are so situated that they can not care for a few colonies of bees. They not only need the sweets they gather, but these industrious insects help to fertilize the bloom of their orchards and meadows. Nature has appointed this insect, and it alone, to do this work for her.
Honey can be used in many ways as a substitute for sugar—in canning fruit, making cookies, and for other culinary purposes. ”

“ But, you say, these large yields are the results of extraordinary care. True, they are; and that proves my theory—that extraordinary care will produce extraordinary results. What one man can do once, he can do again and all the time; and we all can do the same. Extraordinary care may be defined as the care necessary to produce good results, and if that care were always applied it would cease to be extraordinary.
I myself saw in my neighbor's field a crop of strawberries, on two rows, which at the safest and closest calculation I could make, yielded at the rate of over 300 bushels per acre. ”

“ He has not only founded a mammoth industry, but he has revolutionized an economic system of the world. By his ingenuity and perseverance the fencing system of a pastoral continent has been reduced to a minimum of expense and simplicity. Not that he individually has accomplished all this, but as the patentee of the first really successful barb-wire fence, he laid the solid foundation for it all. ”

“ What the farmers should do is this—they should produce their poultry of the finest quality, poultry of the stamp of the old Dorking—plump birds, thick-skinned birds, small-boned birds, and birds with little offal—fat them well, truss them well, and send them to market. The white-legged beauties would take the highest price, and, if well seen to, would very soon drive the foreign fowls from our markets, and English gold would gladden the home of the English henwife. ”

“ They are treasures in every home. They are to the mind what light and heat are to plants. They
Store the Mind with Useful Knowledge;
the mind directs the hands. An intelligent man has an advantage over one who is ignorant, whether he is a farmer, or mechanic, or merchant, and is surer of success in his occupation. ”

“ It is true that there is nothing gained to consumers by "suppressing truth on the one hand or exaggerating losses on the other" but there is something lost to consumers by overestimating yields at about the time the harvest is ready and when speculators can use Government estimates to force down prices.
The statistical machinery of the Department of Agriculture is far from perfect, but it is the best the Government has supplied it with, and it is not wise or fair to criticise its estimates too severely, based, as they often must be, upon inadequate returns. ”

“ Immense quantities of sugar extracted from the beet-root are manufactured on the continent and imported into these countries, and there is no reason whatever why Ireland should not have her finger in the sugar pie.
In a paper before the Oxford (Ohio) Farmers' Club, on the subject "The Morality of the System of Grain Gambling," Mr. Wetmore said: There is a difference between speculation and investment. Putting money into an established industry is an investment. Putting it into a doubtful or untried business, with the hope of gaining much or risk of losing all, is speculation. ”

“ Too rapid growth is not wanted. Trees in Illinois grow as much in one year as they do in two years in the State of New York, where they raise more fruit than we do. The most rapid growing trees are the tenderest. He does not force the growth of his orchard trees. He is satisfied nurserymen have manured their young stock too much. The question of high or low land was not settled. It was hard for members to give up the old theory that high lands are best for orchards in Illinois ”

“ The lion is always of one color, that is, without spots or stripes, generally tawny, though the mane is dark sometimes nearly black. The lion gets its full growth when seven or eight years old, and lives usually about twenty-five years, though some have been known to live much longer in menageries.
These animals see much better in the night than in the day, so they generally hide away during the day and search for food in the gray dawn of the morning. They feed chiefly on antelopes, zebras, giraffes, and wild cattle. It is said that the lion rarely attacks man, only in cases of extreme hunger ”

“ Nearly all of the corn is gathered; only about one-third of the crop is sound enough to keep until next summer. Farmers are feeding their soft corn to hogs and cattle. In that way the soft corn will pay pretty well after all, for fat stock brings a good price. Stock cattle are wintering well, for feed in the fields is good, and most farmers have got plenty of good hay. The weather was so nice the first part of this month that the farmers did a large amount of plowing. Potatoes are plenty and cheap; worth from 30 to 40 cents. Apples are scarce, and good ones bring a big price. ”

“ And here, as in most things great and small in this world, woman furnished the motor power. The strong arm of the good helpmeet, Mrs. Glidden, turned the grindstone that twisted the first wire that made the first Glidden barb fence that kept stock at bay in Illinois or the world. ”

“ Others again make the soil so rich in the first instance that much less of what may be called artificial manures are required during growth. But without some skill in this matter it is not safe, for if much of the material is not thoroughly decayed (which, however, has then lost most of its volatile ingredients) it is, in the common vernacular of the gardener, too rank to give good growth and results, whether it be in fruits, flowers, or foliage. For example, in Henderson's horticulture he recommends, as the best soil for potting, loam and hops. ”

“ This implies a power to destroy a contagious disease which if allowed to spread would arrest all commerce in bovines between the States. A State may and ought to waive the question of damage if it is fixed by a neutral Commissioner, and the General Government and not the State meets the losses to which unfortunate cattle owners maybe subject. This will be the touchstone—trust by the State and statesmanlike generosity by the Nation—that means courage for the now fearful ranchman of the unfenced domain, and the furnishing of a "clean bill of health" for our products seeking a foreign market. ”

“ England has been tardy in the publication of her losses by lung-fever, yet it is a fact which forbids secrecy that calamity has reached the enterprising breeders, and colossal fortunes have been swept away by the cattle-plague. In our own country it has been no more the policy of secretive owners to publish facts than that of city authorities to proclaim the prevalence of small-pox in the town. ”

“ We notice upon the street a great many elegantly dressed ladies with but a single band of wide velvet ribbon fastened somewhat carelessly around the bonnet and tied in a bow under the chin. Unique it may be, but undoubtedly the taste of the wearer, would be the verdict of the passer by. In fact, one can scarcely be out of the fashion in the choice of a bonnet or hat, but care should be taken that it be just the thing for the wearer, and that it be properly put on. ”