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About The Athena press. (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942 | View Entire Issue (April 22, 1910)
LESSON FROM A MULE Dakota Farmer from "Down East' Learned How to Raise Wheat at Critical Time, CROPS WERE ALL BURNED UP. Discovered the Efficacy of the Boiler and Revolutionized Agricul tural Methods, Twenty-five years ago, during the "dark days" of the west, when every crop failed and thousands of settlers were returning "back east," a discour aged farmer in South Dakota, looking over his ruined field for the last time before trekking back to Vermont, no ticed that in the tracks-made by his old lame mule, where the soil was packed by the weight of the animal, the wheat had grown strong and tall. As a result of this observation South Dakota now harvests one of the larg est wheat crops of any state- in the union, and is filled with prosperous farmers, while the erstwhile discour aged farmer himself, H. W. Campbell, is owner of five big wheat farms ag gregating 3,000 acres, which produce an average of sixty bushels an acre, sayg a Lincoln (Neb.) correspondent of the New York Herald. He is known as the "Bonanza Farmer" of the west. And all because a lame mule tramped across his wheat field one day. The good stalks of grain growing i in the mule tracks and surrounded by puny "stems set Campbell to thinking. gert crop that country ever saw. His theory had ta prated, and the next year every farmer in that country packed his what ground down at the bottom of the farrow. That was th ftsrL To-day Mr. Campbell oos and operates 1,000 acres in North Dakota, 640 acres in Midland County, Texas; S20 acres near Plain view, Texas; $20 at Holdredge, Neb.; 610 acres at Medicine Hat, Alberta, and a section in South Dakota- "And It all came about because my old mule walked across my wheat field twenty-five years ago," he says. Oldest EnR-Ilah Surname. The name of Smith is, ac'cording to Professor Mahaffy, the oldest English surname. In a list of names he dis covered when investigating the Petrie papyri, there is one, he tells us, "which appears regularly in the same form, and of which we can give no further explanation. It is the name Smith unmistakably written.; We have never found anything like it be fore, and it is surely worth telling the many distinguished bearers of - the name that there was a man known is Smith in the twentieth year of the third Ptolemy, 227 B. C, and that no was occupied in brewing beer or sell ing It." It Had Crown Crooked. Everybody who had known old Hen ry admired him for the charity of his tongue when he spoke of his neigh bors. It was his most marked char acteristic except the independence which he manifested in his political affiliations. It made a young man who was visiting in the neighborhood curi ous, and one day he managed to lead up to the subject and ask the old man what had taught him to keep such a good watch on his tongue. "It was my father," replied the old man, quietly. "A splendid man, as I remember him. He always disliked GOVERNOR, OF UNITED SOUTH AFRICA. -rv- frj tJin A : , 4 t-Xt, i y. : A I' ;4'1 t nfAl- 1 iiSiiiwfiili : HERBERT JOHN GLADSTONE AND HIS WIFE. Mr. Gladstone, who has been British Secretary of State for Home Af fairs since 1905, has accepted the post of first Governor General of United ,South Africa.. He is the youngest son of the late W, E. Gladstone, and was born in January, 185. Mrs. Gladstone is the youngest daughter of the late Sir Richard Paget. From it he evolved a new system of farming. His neighbors laughed at him and remained poor, while Camp bell grew wealthy. When he wanted new tools with which to farm accord ing to his new ideas, the farm imple ment manufacturers made light of his Ideas. Campbell made his own tools, and to-day they are being manufac tured in Odessa, ' Arad, Hungard, Hyderabad and half a dozen cities in the United States. He wanted to tell the western farm ers what he had discovered, -so ha turned editor and has had the satis faction of seeing his articles repro duced in a dozen different languages. One of these, an article on soli value, was translated into Russian by Tschai kowsky, the Russian political writer, while he was a prisoner in the fortress of Peter and Paul at St. Petersburg. , E. II. Harrknan, as he once passed through the great whoat country ot,the west, held out his hand to Mr. Camp bell, who was in the railroad man's private car, and said: "If the Union Pacific gave you $1, 000,000 every year it could not pay you for its Increased freight from your work." Mr. Campb9ll now lives in Lincoln, Neb., where he maintains a force of clerks to keep the accounts of his big farms and his other Interests. , And Just twenty-five years ago this summer he had nothing but an ox and an old lame .mule. When he walked out to look once more at his burned field, he noticed small bunches of good wheat. His cu riosity was aroused. He examined carefully and found that these bunchc3 were growing in the tracks of the old mule. "What did itr and finally the an swer came to hkn. "It was the packing of the earth by the weight of the mule?" The next year, when Mr. Campoell sowed his wheat, he rolled It with a home-made roller for days and days. Ills neighbors laughed at him. When the wheat sprouted every ker nel came up, and so did that planted by his neighbors, who again laughed at the "fool Vermont machinist who thinks he knows how to farm." Then came the long hot days, and the neighbors' wheat dried up and burned. But Mr. Campbell's didn't. His fields were green, and in the time of harvest U was found that be bad raised the big- to hear folks gossiping 'unkindly about each other. I've seen him, when they began It, get on his feet, Just like a cow grazing and gradually working toward a hole in the fence, and be fore any one knew it he'd be out of the room, so's he couldn't hear 'era. "He talked to me about It. 'Henry,' he'd say, 'when you're of age, never say anything about a man if you can't say good of him, and always vote the straight party ticket.'" "But you don't vote that way." "Well, sir," said Henry, "you se, my father said the straight party tick et; and when I came along to vote, the pesky thing had got so crooked that I don't believe he'd have recog nized it." A Untie Landlubber. It ia said that every man's defini tion of the term "gentleman" makes it inclusive of himself. Likewise it la true that each man is prone to believe that his manners are the best in the world. A writer in the Washington Star, speaking of this point, relates the following story. On a man-of-war there was once a reception, and it happened that a distinguished states man forgot, or did not know, the usu al formal salute on coming aboard. "Who's that lubber what don't tip his skypiece to the skipper?" said a sailor. . "Choke your luff," returned another sailor. "That's Senator Blank, the fa mous tariff leader." "Well," growled the first sailor, "why ain't he got manners enough ic salute the quarter-deck?" "Miinners!"' a third sailor chipped in. "What does ho know about man ners? I don't suppose he was ever out of sight of land in his life." DECREASE IN BIRD LIFE. Whole Species Extinguished br Pot Hunters In One Generation.' In times of record the chief birds absolutely to drop from human sight ire the dodo (1681), great auk (1844), Nestor Prodiictus parrot' (1851), and Pallas' cormorant (recently).- These can only be reconstructed from skins and bones and old descriptions, v ; New Yorkers remember when the Labrador duck was common In the market. Sailors easily shot (" and brought It to port by thousands. Now only three , are preserved In all the world. Walter Rothschild of England has two of them one obtained from Gordon Plummer of Brookline, Mass., who bought it in Fulton Market, New York, in 1860; the other from Willlaai Dutcher of New York, by whom it was received from the widow of a man named Thompson, who shot it in the St. Lawrence River in 1852. Nine years afterward one was killed on Grand Manan, and four years later the last to be known was shot by .J. G. Bell, who sold ita skin to the Smith sonian Institution at Washington. Yoii see how carefully the roll is called and identifications are made when the battle Is over. The battle is about over for the beautiful passengor pigeon. In 1848 it came down the Hudson River in such numbers" that the then owner, of "Claremont," near the place where Grant's Tomu now is, shot from his roof 100 in a morning. Twenty-eight years later a "pigeon nesting" near Petoskey, Mich., oc cupied an area twenty-eight miles long, averaging four miles wide, That season (according to freighting rec ords) a billion passenger pigeons were destroyed in Michigan, when roosting, by guns, bludgeons and pots of 'sul phur.. Railroads had been laid and markets-were ready. The birds sold in New York for a cent apiece. Nobody has noted a passenger pigeon, and proved It, since 1900. The only attested ' living specimens for years past were in captivity. A few were in the Cincinnati Zoo, a' few in Milwaukee; others had been bred from a single pair owned by Prof. C. O wnitman of Chicago University. Six years ago Prof. Whitman's refused fur ther to Interbreed. All that were known were presently dead, except one male in Cincinnati and one femalo In the Whitman aviary. The lone fe male was sent u the disconsolate male. Of the tremendous flocks which once flew over the United States, only these two birds are left. Everybody's Magazine. VELVET EI FAVOR FOR FORMAL GOWKS. I H s Sir mi I ' The Hi Atlantic Linera. In a big Atlantic liner there are more than 1,000 tons of piping of various sorts. The boiler tubes, if placed end to end would stretch about ten miles. The condensers pump up more than 50,000 tons of water a day, and the furnaces consume about 8,000, 000 cubic feet of air an hour. About 50,000 separate pieces of steel are used in the main structure. Two might be able to live as cheap ly as one if there were no bargain sales. Most of our budding geniusea get nipped in the hud That Geninn Whistler. , Of Whistler Lady St. Heller in "Memories of Fifty Years" writes thus: "He was a genius and had ejl the defects and oimlltlna nt nnn t him everythinglwas a Joke, the sub ject of a bonmot. The lightest and daintiest of persiflage was : what he excelled in, and one never had a dull moment in his company. He was al ways late for dinner, arranging the Immortal lock of gray hair in its proper place as he came into the room, with apologies and excuses, none of them true of which he was perfectly conscious and also of the fact that his host and hostess knew that they were not. Wherever he was there would be a circle listening to him, and his ringing laugh would be heard all over the room as he sent his shafts right and left into the Joints of the armor of those who were attacking him. It was a great surprise and al most a shock when he appeared as a benedict." , "To Express Our Appreciation.' John Smith, says a writer in the Monson Register, had worked for tb Valve Corporation for forty-two years, and decided to quit. The company, In consideration of his long and faithful service, arranged to give him a mone tary recognition. The superintendent of the works, a German, was asked to present It. He was advised to use a little sentiment In making the presentation speech, and this la the way he did It: "John, you haff work for the com pany over forty years?" "Yes." "You are going to quit?" "Yes." "Veil! They are so glad of it that they asked me to hand you this nun dred dollars." Near-Illlllards, 1.'. Two traveling salesmen, detained in a little village hotel, were introduced to a crazy little billiard table and a set of balls which were of a uniform dirty gray color. "But how do you tell the red from the white?" asked one of the guests. "Oh." said the landlord, "you soon get to know them by their shape." Success Magazine. Too Good to Be Missed. Comedian I can't go on for a mln ute, sir. I feel funny. Manager Funny! Great Scott, man! Go on at once and make the most of it while it lasts. Stray Stories. L Wk the Hlneasn Gather. The capture of bluefish from New Jersey to Monomoy during a season is 1,000.000. averaging six' pounds. Bluefishing on the New England coast lasts 120 days. ' Velvet in black and other deep rich tones is very much In favor for formal gowns, and especially for walking suits. It is also used for long, handsome top coats, oft en with a soft white fur. The sketch shows three velvet models, each one serving In a different garment. The first figure shows a long coat of smoke gray velvet over a princess gown of gray satin cloth. It is quaintly cut and partly covered with arabesques of tarnished silver braid. The one in the center is a black afternoon gow worn for teas, weddings and musicales. It Is a belted princess, with bands of fur at the edge of the long skirt and the short sleeves. The belt Is of black satin, with an immense rosette in front; and one long tasseled end. The hat is of velvet with white feathers: ; The third fig ure shows a street suit of dark blue velvet with stitched seams and military frogs in front, v ; r ; Women ot the Future. There is not a country in the land but bristles with Jane Austen women, eays a writer. With a good many ex ceptions, one would not be sorry to see them go. They are kindly, , but small deadly small. The woman of the future is not of this type. She is far too busy to be womanish, but she will never grow out of being feminine. She is shedding her smallness. Like the genie in the Arabian Nights, now the cork has been removed, she Is darkening the whole sky like a pillar of smoke; .but presently the smoke will settle into "a figure of gigantic size." . She will be the Meredith woman, softened by real ity, as Galatea softened into life. She will not glide about with up lifted finger like Agnes, nor drive tired men to distraction with her prattle, like Dora, nor weep eternally when George is unkind, like Amelia. No, when she feels hysterical she will go and sit on a Himalaya till she is cool er, and when her husband annoys her out of her usual placidity, sticking a few pigs in Texas or India will soon put her straight. And with it all she will wear her frills as well as ever. period of from twenty-four to forty;. eight hours. A spoonful of tea or cof fee may be taken at meals and a small glass of water at bedtime, if thirst is very great. But it is much better to do without all liquids entirely, if pos sible. It is not necessary, says the physician, to remain indoors while the cure is being tried; in fact, he recom mends that . the patient get out of doors and breathe the fresh air. . He calims that the "dry cure" Is infallible. $ds ana 'fancies i rjvwwsi CIjk Comfortable Sweater. This sweater is rather heavier or tloser knit than the regulation gar ments of this sort. It is all white, in a small block design, and trimmed with large white pearl buttons and large flat collar, In ribbed stitch match ing the belt and cuffs and piece down front. The jaunty cap is also knit and makes a chic finish to a very pretty skating or sledding costume. How patient a girl is with the tem per of Any Young Man, and how In patient she Is with the 111 temper ot her father! After you hear a few Mysteries ex plained, It is hard to understand why there is so much curiosity. Some men act important only when they r talking over the telephone The Home Storeroom. The cellar or other similar room In which vegetables and fruits, either green or canned, are stored for winter should have the windows open on mild days for ventilation and for lowering the temperature of the room for .chill ing the store. The cooler they are held without freezing, the better they will keep. Batteria which cause fer mentation and decay cannot grow and multiply in low temperature. Dry cold will always hold them in check. Drr Cnre tor Colds. A French physician has been writ ing in one of the Paris papers about a cure for colds which he says is very old, but which a long time ago fell into disuse and was practically for gotten. It is a very simple remedy, the only requirement being that the catlent refrain from all llnnUs for a Silk blouses are severe. The sleeves are flat, with little or no fullness. Flat Jet ornaments, as well as those of metal, are frequently used as trim ming. The vogue (for gilt is now at its height, and silver trimming is also in demand. ' . ' -' Tasseled ornaments and. fringe vie with each other- for chief favor in trimming. - Some of the new bracelets encircle the wrist and end in a tiny Jeweled bowknot. Coats are a bit closer than the halt fitting ones of the past season, . and skirts are usually plaited. - ; ' Bows on shoes are more in:, evidence than ever before. In fact, there are bows and bows and bows this sea son. ;:, Braiding upon coats ha3 lost none of Its vogue, and all manner of original results are gained by Its Combination with silk cordings, rattail buttons and made ornaments. .. ; A quaint pelerine and muff was of white fox, with one large pink velvet rose on each piece and silk cords and tassels. - .; " . . A novel trimming is made of two bands of black velvet ribbon fagotad together, with a gold braid under the' open stltchery. Copper is one of the most popular tones of the season, but it is of a red dish shade, not the brown or yellow one of former years. : Favorite shopping bags of the day are as big as ever, but they are flat, and are carried under the arm with the straps over the wrist. " . Transparent scarf coats of tulle or chiffon will be general favorites in al liance with evening or ultra-elaborate afternoon toilettes. , , Tiny flowerlets are scattered over the evening gown of satin and placed with the view of giving the gown a good hem finish. The .flowers are nar- tlally covered with thin tissue drapery. The Ilnppr Habit. Mothers who are constantly caution ing the little ones not to do this or nor to do that, telling them not to laugh or , make a noise,, until they lose their naturalness .and become lit tle old men and women, do not realize the harm they are doing. There is an Irrepressible longing for amusement, for rollicking fun. In young people, and if these longings were more fully met is the home It would not be so difficult to 'keep the, boy and girl under' the parental roof. '; A happy, Joyous home Is a power-'; ful magnet to child and man. . The ': sacred memory of It has kept 'many a person from losing his self-respect ; and from the commission of crime. Fun is the cheapest and best medi-' cine in the world for your children as well" as for yourself. Give It to them in good, large doses. It .'wirlr not only save you doctors' bills, but 1 it will also help to make your chil- . ' dren happier, and will improve their chances in life. The very fact that the instinct to play the love of fun is so imperious in the child shows f a great necessity in its nature which ' if suppressed will leave a famine in . : its life. A sunny, Joyous, happy child hood Is to the individual what a rich soil and genial sun are to the young plant. If the early conditions are not ' favorable, the plant becomes starved. ; " This is true with the human plant. A starved, suppressed, stunted child-: hood makes a dwarfed man. A Joyous, happy, fun-loving environment devel ops powers, resources and possibilities . which would remain dormant In a cold, repressing environment. Hat for a Tonng Girl. ( While this Is a Parisian model, It could nevertheless be copied by one of the many private and inexpensive mil liners for a very reasonable amount of money. If the exact shape is un obtainable, a near duplicate should be covered with black velvet and trimmed generously with white marabout. The result is, indeed, pleasing. ,; Health and lteauty. Beef tea is one of the best stimu lants and the" poorest of foods. ; Acids taken before meal3 and alka lis taken after meals lessen acidity. ' You should not take tea or coffee with any meal containing fresh meat. Malt preparations are the best rem edies for dyspepsia caused , by foods containing starch, f In combing the hair use a comb with blunt, widely separated teeth. Never use one with sharp teeth. Much vinegar causes gastric ca tarrh, whereof ' comes indigestion, which in turn gives rise to tedmesa of nose. , Lettuce and onions promote sleep. Resting with the head to the north ia essential for the repost of some peo ple." ,.,., The most useful of all drugs for rickets is iron, not lime.. Lime Is use ful, but iron compels the system tt assimilate it V