Farmers Family Journal from Topeka, Kansas • 8

May, 1905 Page 8 THE FARMERS FAMILY JOURNAL Oklahoma, according to population, has a larger proportion of rural mail routes in operation than any other Western state or territory. Not yet admitted as a state, it has more population, more intelligence and more wealth than any other territory ever had while awainting admission to the Union. WWMIil Published first of each month by The Kelley Publishing Company, 116 W. 6th St, TOPEKA, KANSAS Entered as second-class matter Sept. 28, 1904, at the postofflce at To-peka, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

tract and some by the help of the farmers. The following spring one farmer was sent to Duluth to buy ties, and another to St Paul to buy rails. The track was laid by section men. On this twenty-five miles of railroad there are four stopping places and each one is a grain market Three of them are thriving little three-year-old towns, containing churches, schools, stores, banks, elevators, lumber and wood yards. The railroad bought the land for the tbwnsites and with the money derived from the sale of lots, purchased an old engine and a few cars.

Some of the larger farmers nearest the railroad have a side track put in, and when they want to ship a carload of grain or buy a carload of wood, the car is put on the siding for them. A telephone runs the length of the road. In 1903, with a poor crop, the road paid expenses. Last year, with a heavy crop, it did much more, besides decreasing expenses and work for the farmers. It is now planned to extend it eighteen miles farther.

A stationery dealer says: "You have noticed your lead pencil is no good after you use off about two Inches of it. Then the lead begins to break every time you try to sharpen it. The secret is, the dealer bends or springs all the new pencils before he places them on sale, thereby creacking all the leads so you can not use them but a short time till you have to throw them away and buy others." ,1 SUBSCRIPTION Twenty-five cents a year; five years, one dollar. acquired by these grafters and the men who employ them. Is the government going to let the looters retain the spoil? This, after all, is the most serious side of the question.

The opportunity for looting the public by frauds upon the government in connection with land has been narrowed greatly. Most of the public domain of value has been acquired. But this land, held in tracts of thousands of square miles, is badly needed by the growing population of the country. If it were a few thousand acres, it might not be missed. But we are told -that Henry Miller owns 12,777 square miles of land in Oregon, Nevada and California.

This is a tract approximately twice the size of Maryland. It is as large as the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut New Hampshire and Delaware; greater than Switzerland, Denmark, or Greece. This tract, capable in time of supporting millions of population, is the private property of one man. It is not tin isolated case. There are half a dozen of these Westerners with princely holdings acquired from the government in devious and questionable ways.

Yet, now that title has passed, now that patents have issued, there is some doubt whether any portion of this vast domain can be reclaimed by the government It is a mortifying confession of impotence. We could reclaim a lost earring if we could prove that it had been wrongfully acquired, but when it comes to a tract of land as big as a state the law fails us. It is gratifying, however, to know that we are tardily disposed to husband what is left of the public domain, and possibly we may yet find a way to give the public at large the benefit of the mighty landed estate of which it has been robbed. A new verification of Solomon's oft quoted assertion that "There is nothing new under the sun," is found in the statement of a recent agricultural expert, to the effect that the seedless apple, which everyone has been thinking was a brand new achievement, is really over 2,000 -years old. The earliest written account of this apple in America was nearly 300 years ago, or to be exact, 1628.

Raleigh Post. GEORGE WESLEY'S PROVERBS. Idleness is dangerous. Everyone has a hobby. Work, but don't overwork.

Folly is simply pleasure that hurts. You can't live in castles in the air. Fate Is that which 'gets the best of us. Shiftless farmers raise good mortgages. A fault acknowledged is a fault repaired.

Stay by the farm and it will stay by you. Kindness and wealth is a fine combination. When dealing with friends, use business methods. Keeping up with the times making the most out of your farm. To look on-the bright side is good; to look on both sides is better.

The under dog has the sympathy of a crowd, but the upper dog has the glory; and he always gets away, with the bone. JUST FOR FUN. A little girl wrote the following essay on boys, says an exchange: "Boys are men that have not got as big as their papas, and girls are women that will be ladies by and by. When God looked at Adam He said to Himself, 'Well, I think. I can do better If I try and He made Eve.

Boys are a trouble. They wear out everything but soap. If I had my way the world would be girls and the rest dolls. My papa is so nice that I think he must have been a little girl when he was a little boy. Man was made and on the seventh day he rested.

Woman was made and he has never rested since." It is often remarked that an unaccustomed traveler will get on pretty well if he will keep his eyes and ears open. A native of Ireland landed at Greenock and wanted to take the train to Glasgow. Never having been in a railroad station, he did not know how to get his ticket; but he saw a lady going In, and determined to follow her lead. The lady went to the ticket box and putting down her money, said, "Mary-hill, single." Pat promptly planked down his money and said, "Patrick Murphy, married." Young American. A naughty youngster recently evaded punishment at the hands of his mother by crawling under the barn, where she could not reach him.

His father arrived home soon thereafter and when informed of the state of affairs, crawled on his hands and knees In search of his son and heir. The lad had fallen asleep in a far corner and when awakened by his father exclaimed, "Is she after you too, dad?" EDITORIAL. This issue of the Farmers Family Journal appears under new management. B. V.

Kelley, proprietor of the Topeka Typesetting linotypers, purchased the Journal from the Gillies Publishing and will hereafter have charge of the paper. Under the circumstances it has been impossible for us to devote as much time to this issue as we would liked to have done. However, we hope to improve with each succeeding number, and for June we have two finely illustrated articles; one especially appropriate at this time on what Uncle Sam is doing, in the great irrigation improvements in the Southwest. People are reading and thinking as they never did before. Mansions in the skies cannot be built out of bricks stolen from the poor.

Whenever the politician gets a foothold in any farmers' organization it is all day with it. Boys should be taught that their first aim in life is to get a home of their own in the country. Every man out of work who wants employment can learu hj.v to till the soil and get his living straight from the ground. A pound of butter can be produced cheaper than any other meat; is freer from disease and more healthful than any other kind. It takes love and love, and love again to make a happy home.

When love is in the home it desn't matter whether you are rich or poor, or live in a palace or hovel. Love is lord over all. The farmer of today is onto his job and what he does not know he Is trying to find out. He is learning to take care of himself and his interests, and will create no surprise when he gets after the beef trust. It is a part of his business.

He is coming into his own and is learning that a legislator is one of his hired men and that the law was made to use. Bulletin 113 of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station among other things shows that the earliness and productiveness! of tomatoes is in direct ratio with the earliness of setting in the field; that trimming the plants after a part of the fruit has set increased the yield more than one-third; and that transplanting the young plants at least twice before removal to the field is advisable. Studies of the cabbage showed that frequent transplanting before removal to the field increased the average size of heads; that handling the young plants in pots gave better results than handling them In boxes; that depth of setting had very little influence on the size of the heads; and that trimming the plants at time of setting is not specially THE "POISON SQUAD." To detect the presence of poison in food is one thing, to determine its effects quite another; and as the microscope had nothing but eyes, and the blow-pipe and retort of the analyst no stomach, and the brute no power of speech, man was called into service. Hence the "poison squad." The "poison squad" is made up of twelve young men, volunteers, who take their meals regularly at a table provided by the Bureau of Chemistry. All food consumed is carefully weighed and analyzed, and thus the entire income and outgo of the body is determined.

The weight temperature and pulsation of the members are noted, and they are kept under a doctor's observation for the purpose of reporting medical data. Thus the influence of preservatives on man's digestion is determined. Let it be understood at the outset that no criticism of this method has appeared that the bureau did not fdrsee and seriously consider before the work was begun. The whole subject of the "poison squad" has been so' distorted in humorous newspaper articles that the public has been deprived of the true import of and the immensity of the scale on which this experiment has been conducted and the gravity of questions involved. AN OVERDOSE.

An Alabama truck grower relates in the Southern Ruralist, at some length, the kinds of crops he plants, how he plants and why he plants. He believes in diversification in the broadest acceptation of the term. He rears horses, mules, cows, sheep, hogs and poultry. He grows! Irish potatoes, the early and late corns, oats three kinds, rye, cotton, four varieties of sorghum cane, one-half dozen early and three of late peas, chufas, sugarcane, German millet, pearl or cat-tail millet, watermelons, pumpkins, four varieties of peanuts, ruta bagas, rough turnips, carrots, etc." It is said that what one man does, can be done by others, but there is probably about one man in a million that can successfully grow such a multiplicity of crops and so many varieties of certain kinds at a profit for each. GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE.

Set apart an acre of land for each boy that will labor on the farm this year. Let him put this acre in cante-loupes and watermelons. Give him Saturdays to cultivate and keep the plants in good condition. He will make $50 from the sale of these delicious edibles, which he will value more highly than if his father paid him $50. Such treatment will cause them to love home better and keep them away from degrading city life.

Captain Sergeant, note down Private Grasgrum three days on bread and water for slovenly turn-out on parade. Sergeant Beg pardon, captain, that won't make the slightest difference to him; he's a vegetarian. Captain Then give him three days on meat and soup. Pick-Me-Up. Lawyer (cross-examining witness) Doctor, you say the defendant in this case has the "automobile eye." What is the automobile eye? Witness It is a condition of the visual organs that prevents a man from seeing a pedestrian in the road until after he has run over him.

HOW FARMERS BUILT A RAIL-ROAD. A few years ago the farmers in the northern part of Ramsey county, N. were so far from a (railroad that they had to haul their grain from 15 to 25 miles to market This meant a lot of hard work, often lasting most of the winter, and much extra expense, as those living farthest away were obliged to take two days for a trip. Keeping horses and men in town over night took off the profit At last a few of the largest farmers got together and planned to build a railroad themselves, as they could not Induce the Great Northern to put In a branch. They asked all the farmers whom they thought it would benefit to subscribe.

Some gave only a few dollars, some gave several hundred, tnd thus became stockholders. They got a surveyor to survey the road and then began the work of building- the road bed. ANNUAL HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN MEETING. The twentieth annual meeting of the Holstein-Friesian 'Association of America will be held at the Yates Hotel, Syracuse, N. on Wednesday and Thursday, June 7 and 8, 1905, for the election of oncers and the transaction of any other business which ry 11 r'" 1 it.

"I should like to know when you are going to to pay that bill. I can't come here every day in the week." "What day would suit you best?" "Saturday." "Very well, then, you can call every Petit COLOSSAL LAND GRABS. In reading of the land frauds in Oregon, California and other Western states we involuntarily ask ourselves, "What is the government going to do.