236 



THIRD ANNUAL SESSIONS 



remind me. A certain preacher was sometimes in the habit of exagger- 

 ating — of course, he was an exception. One of his deacons took it very- 

 much to heart and volunteered to help break the habit. 'Now,' says he, 

 'I will sit on the front seat, and when I think that your story sounds un- 

 reasonable, I'll wink at you and you can change it quickly, and the peo- 

 ple will thrnk it was just a slip of the tongue.' The next time the 

 preacher, in the course of his sermon, told of 'a fox with a tail forty 

 feet long.' The deacon nearly bobbed his head off winking. The preach- 

 er hesitated and repeated, 'a fox with a tail twenty-five feet long.' The 

 deacon winked again. The preacher hated to have a good story spoiled, 

 but started again. 'A fox with a tail fifteen feet long.' The deacon 

 winked again. 'You can wink until doomsday,' said the preacher, 'but 

 I won't take another foot off that fox's tail.' So with me, I won't take 

 off my stated yield. 



Live Stock Fattening, 



"We fattened two hundred hogs, sold corn, a part of which went to 

 men with land under the ditch, and we fed some cattle. We have twenty 

 head of cattle there now in the stalks, and also some hogs. Uncle 

 Charlie wanted to pick up the scatterings which were worth at least 

 $300.. He became quite indignant when we refused. He said that he 

 was hailed out. My father reminded him that the same hail struck us, 

 to which he replied: "You are always lucky.' 



Causes of Failure. 



"From my first observation, with due apologies to the dry farmers 

 present, the average dry farmer is not of much force. His 'wishbone is 

 where his backbone ought to be.' We can put most of them under the 

 class of "in God we trust' farmers. They do not give the seed a fair 

 show, and yet expect a harvest. They are, many of them, lazy, and, as 

 we say, have become 'saged.' Men whom we have had working for us 

 in the canning factory and considered good men, when they took up 

 homesteads did not make good; they became discouraged and did not 

 make use of what sense they had. They would not cultivate, but seemed 

 to expect nature to raise the crop. 



Subsoil Packs. 



"When our crop was up but a few inches, we dug down and found 

 that the roots had gone down as far as we had ploughed. If I were to 

 do it again, I would sub-soil the ground and thus increase my yield five 

 to ten bushels per acre. 



"Now, as to my intentions for next year, I forgot to mention that my 

 sister broke up the bargain of a double house. She was married about 

 four months ago and I built another house while she keeps the double 

 house and is living there now. 



Light Seeding. 



"We have in 290 acres of winter wheat — Turkey Red — seeded about 



