Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1915 — Page 2

GERMAN ARMIES FARMING INVADED LANDS OF FRENCH

More Than 75,000 Acres Under Cultivation in District Around Sedan. DOUBLE YIELDS PRODUCED Efficiency of Methods Shown—Dairy Operated by Troops—ls Peace Comes, Civilians Will Get the Crops.

By F. H. GAILOR.

In the New York World. Bergen-Op-Zoom.—ln answer to a question I had asked -one of the officers at Sedan about the German government taking all the supplies of flour into its own hands, I was told that the Germans had no fear of running short of food, and that they thought the idea of the allies being able to starve them out was absurd. "For instance." one of the officers said to me, “to show you how we Germans look ahead, we have below here more than 75,000 acres of land under cultivation in wheat and potatoes. We hope that the civilians will gather this crop and that the war will be over by the time of the harvest, but If it is not the army will reap the benefit.” Two or three days later I was taken over the "army farm" by the little fat major who has organised and directed the work. He was the bandmaster rather than the military type of German and had been the manager of a large estate in Pomerania Talk of the trenches left him cold, but at a mention of the farm or its affairs he became another person. His small black eyes twinkled, his fifty years seemed to become twenty-five, and he went into ecstasies over the improvements Germany, and especially Pomerania, had introduced in harvesting machinery, fertilisation or potatoes. As we rode along in a military automobile from Sedan to Rethel, he kept telling me of the primitive agricultural methods he had found when the German army first entered that country. Planter la Rewarded. “They don’t know how it is to use what they have got.” he kept saying as he pointed to a manure pile in front of a cottage door or a clump of trees standing in the middle of a field. “They lose one-half > of the fertilising power by not having pits, and they do not knew forestry at all. You should see Pomerania.” In the buttonhole of his tunic he wore the black ribbon w'ith two white stripes which represents the Iron Cross, and I asked him if he had ever been in the trenches. “No,” was the answer, “but I planted these fields and so increased the prospects for food. It was taken as a mark of distinguished service to the fatherland and my general recommended me for the honor. The order is for distinguished service of any kind. Germany rewards its workers as well as its fighters, and the fighters depend on the workers for their living, as they must have food. I know farming, so I am used for that Germany never wastes its opportunities.” When we had passed Rethel and gone south about six miles, we turned east along the southern boundary of the 75,000-acre farm that the soldiers of the Third German army are working. We passed many fields where the soldiers and civilians were working side by side, some whqre a soldier was driving an army horse and often an army cart and a civilian was walking alongside, spreading the manure with a pitchfork. I asked some of these civilians if the Germans were forcing them to work. They all said no, but that unless they used the army

GOES TO URUGUAY

Mrs. Robert Emmett Jeffrey is the “mile of the newly appointed minister • -<fc4Cfif*|Jiay. Mrs. Jeffrey was Miss Kite Hooss o£ Heber Springs, Arlc, befote her marriage to the minister.

SMASHED BY THE AUSTRIAN SHELLS

View of the army museum in Belgrade, Serbia, after its destruction by Austrian shells.

horses for their carts and plowing they had no means of preparing the ground for planting. - I was told that the soldiers were all doing this during their five days’ rest from the trenches. “They like it because it gives them something to think about besides the war and the fighting.” Competition In Cultivation. Many of the men of the army had been farmers in North Germany, and one of the officers said: “They can fight, but they would rather farm.” I was shown pieces of land that had been cultivated In competition between different regiments. One battalion of a regiment is resting while the other 1b in the trenches, so that about half are working all the time. These fields had the regimental flags flying and their owners had fled from that part of .the country so that no civilians had had anything to do with preparing the land. At the time when I was taken over the work plowing was still going on, but all the ground was to be planted by the middle of March. The crops were potatoes and wheat. The first potatoes will be ready in" June and the first wheat later on in the autumn. I asked the major if he expected to be in that country when the crops came in. “Oh, no,” he said, “we don’t expect to have an army here then. We hope that the war will be over and the civilians can have the full benefit of our work.” The land that the army is cultivating is some of the best land in northern France, well watered and well drained. The average yield In wheat an acre has been in former years about twenty-five bushels an acre, but the Germans told me that with their “system” and care they expect to increase this to about thirtyfive bushels an acre, counting in the bits of land that are now being cultivated for the first time. They have about 50,000 acres under cultivation in wheat, so the harvest should give them about 1,750,000 bushels. Of course, the civilians will have a share of this, but even so there will be an immense profit for German efficiency and forethought At Attlgny we took horses and rode out across the fields to a hill on which the soldiers were using one of the French threshing machines for grain that had been found in the fields when the army arrived. It was one of the old type of machines with a horsetreadmill to supply the power. Soldiers were doing the work and the first thing that I noticed about these soldiers was that they had on blue uniforms instead of the usual gray. I asked why, and one of the officers said that it was a sentiment with the soldiers. They were proud of the impression the gray-green uniform had made on the world and would not use it for anything but war. These blue uniforms were the undress of the army used at home when not in active service. No Civilians in Sight. The threshing machine was working steadily, but there were no civilians in sight. I asked if the army was going to have all this grain, and was told that the soldiers got a third and the other two-thirds was to be turned in to the mayor to be used for the civilian /population. This same rule is carried out all over that part of the country where wheat has been found in the fields. From that threshing machine we went io another, which the, major proudly told me was “made in Germany.” It was placed in a nearby village under a shed, and a crowd of peasants had gathered around to watch it work. Some of them told me it was the first that had been seen in that part of the country. It was run by a little steam donkey engine, and would be the usual sight in any wheat country in the United States, but its capacity was five times that of the horse machine we had examined first, and its ,output something like ten times as great. There was a baling' machine attached to make np bundles of straw for the men and horses in the trenches. From there We went along through the village to an inclosure where many farming machines had been collected from the fluids. For the most part (hey were plows and harrows that had been brought in from miles around, and the name* of the makers

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

were Belgian, French and many of them American. The officers told me that they had been left in the fields by the French soldiers at ascertained distances apart so that the artillery or aeroplanes making them out from above as they were lying in the fields and seeing soldiers near them could get the range for the guns. The Germans said that they soon “got wise” to this system, and thereafter the soldiers shunned the plows as if they were signs of the plague. Many Motor Plows. On the way back to Sedan they showed us some of the 15 motor plows which the Third army has in operation, and told me that more were being sent on from Germapy every day. They still did not have sufficient machines for the number of men that they were able to spare for the work. I was told that the army farther west had 35 of these plows at work during the month of February, so I judged that extensive agricultural work was going on there as well. The plows are of German manufacture. They were using six plow points on the machines that I examined, and I was told that the engines were of 25 horse power. They could prepare about ten acres of land a day with one of these plows, and all the soldiers who were used for this work had had experience before they joined the army, so that they were proficient and able to work rapidly. When we reached Sedan It was afternoon milking time, and I went over the army dairies with the major who was in charge. I could not help wishing that this farming and this dairying, so perfectly organized and carried out by the soldiers, was the real object for which the German army was trained and disciplined. The dairy ,at Sedan was the former stable of a French regiment of cuirassiers, but the Germans had put in concrete floors and partitions where none had existed in the old days.

The large shedlike structure which had been the regimental riding school had been turned into the army butcher shop, and 250 animals were butchered there every day for the use of the men in and around Sedan. The butchering for the men in the trenches goes on nearer the lines, where the transportation is easier and the meat fresher when it arrives to be prepared for the men under fire. Run Model Dairy. In the dairy there wjere some three hundred cows —Swiss, Holsteins and even Jerseys—that had been taken from the country around Sedan. The major showed me these cows that were giving milk for the sick and wounded in Sedan and then took me to a peasant’s stable and showed me his cattle. Even the major’s enthusiasm could not exaggerate the superiority of the army cows and their surroundings as far as cleanliness and general hygiene were concerned. “Some of our cows were just like these two months he said, “and you see what our methods have done here. We have doubled the quantity of milk that the native cows give and we will also double the amount of wheat that their land will raise, if our army has to stay here long enough for us to gather in the crops.” From conversations I had with the officers, I gathered that this work in northern France is only an example of what is going on all over the territory occupied by the German army. The army in Flanders is cultivating on an even more extensive scale than that in France. In Belgium the soldiers quartered in the small towns are overseeing the work of the peasants and themselves cultivating the land that has been deserted. I do not think I became pro-German on that trip over the army farm, but I was convinced that with the policy of starvation alone, the allies would take a long time to win this war. That these men actively engaged In the fighting and so near the center of operations, are taking such thought for the future, argues that those left at home in Germany with nothing to do but think of supporting their armies are’ being even more careful to make every acre count in the final decision.

"High Target" With Old Musket.

Sayville, N. Y. —Using the musket hi* grandfather used in the Civil war, Herbert Feldmeier made a “high target” at the prise shoot here.

HIS SPOILED STORY

By H. L. STURTEVANT.

When Walter Tolland was promoted from an ordinary cub reporter to be dramatic critic for the Argus, he naturally felt that his future was assured. To be appointed dramatic critic of a first-class metropolitan newspaper implied a remarkable discernment of his abilities on the part of the managing editor. So he promptly bought Bray’s "How to Be a Dramatic Critic,” and Dugmore’a "The Stage and the Reporter,” pored over them for a few days, and .started out to make a reputation. What the managing editor had actually said to the city editor was: “I’m tired of these quarrels with the theater people. Put some young cub on the job and tell him to give everyone a show in turn.” Tolland went to “The Girl From a Little Town,” and saw at once that, according to the books, Miss Edith Lawrence didn't know the first principles of acting. The show was not much good, anyhow, and he went home and wrote two columns of withering criticism, which the city editor scanned hastily and cut down to a stick and a half. That stick and a half was enough to blast the reputation of the best actress that ever trod Broadway boards. It took Miss Lawrence and tore her to pieces, made pulp of what was left, and scattered that to the four winds of heaven. Everybody who read it grinned. They knew that Tolland would tone down after a while. It was tough on Miss Lawrence, but it couldn’t be helped, and anyway, it was funny. That afternoon Tolland received a special * delivery letter that smelled strongly of musk. It was from Miss

"I’ve Taken Half a Pound of Strychnine."

Edith Lawrence. /It merely asked him whether he would favor her with a visit at her apartment that afternoon at five. Tolland accepted the invitation with a sense of dogged duty. He felt that perhaps he had gone a little too far, but still he had the reputation of his newspaper to maintain. And, to be frank, he wanted to explain to her that he had been actuated by no personal malice. The case was simply this, Miss Lawrence didn’t come up to the standards of Bray and Dugmore. There was a long wait in the handsomely furnished parlor of Miss Lawrence’s flat in the apartment house, but presently Miss Lawrence came in. No, staggered in. She was wearing a blue wrapper with pink flowers on it, in brocaded silk, and her hair was hanging down her back, She staggered across the room and staggered into a chair and collapsed there. ‘T thought you would like to see the result of your work, Mr. Tolland,” she said. “I am very sorry,” murmured the young man, who has not expected anything so painful as this. “But you see, Miss Lawrence, you really did not act in accordance with the true principles of dramatic art. Now, if you had —” “Yes, yes,” she interrupted, in a hollow voice, “but it doesn’t make any difference now, because I shall never act again.” “But, my dear Miss Lawrence,” protested Tolland, “you mustn’t let yourself be so easily discouraged. Now if you will throw more personality into—” “I shan’t have any personality after another half hour,” answered Miss Lawrence. "I’ve taken half a pound Of strychnine.” “What!” yelled the young man, leaping to his feet and staring into the young woman’s face. “I mean half an ounce,” she murmured. “You have killed me, Mr., Tolland. And I hope you will be more charitable in future. I —” Here she collapsed with a heartrending groan. "Quick! A doctor!” she gasped. "O, let me live. Telephone, Mr. Tolland, I must live now. I didn’t know death was so terrible.” ' An instant later Tolland was calling up a couple of physicians he knew, then jtnother, and then another. Aft-

er that he called an ambulance. , It was only then that It occurred to him that it would be advisable for him to make himself as scarce as possible. He hurried out of the apartment house and into the street. Then it occurred to him further that the office would be the best place for him, if he was to avoid suspicion. Accordingly, he made his way thither. But it was desperately lonely in the office, and the warm greeting of the city editor, who had a slack half hour, was too much for him. In a few moments Tolland was confessing everything at the desk, and asking whether he ought to give himself up for murder. "Thunder, no!” answered the city editor. “Don’t you see yoMr duty clear before your eyes, young man?" “No,” gulped Tolland miserably. “Ton go back to tout desk and ‘write out a full account of the suicide for the next edition,” answered the city editor. "But, say! You don’t have to put yourself into it, you know.” And Tolland mußt have had in him the makings of a reporter, because, mechanically taking up his pen, he found himself presently launching into a human interest story describing the suicide of the famous actress. It was only when he had finished that he realized the depths of degradation to which he had fallen. He took the manuscript oyer to the desk. “I’ve done it —but it mustn’t be published, Mr. Renn,” he said. “I’d lose my position. "I —” gulp, gulp, “I’m going to the police to give myself up.” Mr. Renn, without Answering, read the article. As he read it he slapped his leg and chuckled. When he came to the last words Miss Lawrence had uttered, in which she begged to be saved, he laid the manuscript down and burst into a loud guffaw. And Tolland stared at the monster speechlessly. Could it be a human being who saw in such a terrible death of a young and gifted woman nothing but a news story?

Suddenly Renn handed back the story. “It’s all right; we won’t print it, Tolland,” he said. “But it’s for your sake, understand. Anyhow, it’s too late. Here come the editions of the other papers. Let’s see what they have to say about It.” _ They scanned the headlines on the first page of each of the evening newspapers, on the second, the third, and so right through to the end. But there was not a word about Miss Lawrence’s suicide. “Humph! I guessed they wouldn’t fall for it,” said Renn. “It takes a very young and immature reporter to fall for a thing like that.” “Do you mean that she was only pretending to have taken strychnine, to get even with me?” gasped Tolland. • “To get even with you? No, my young friend. She wanted to get the story into the newspapers. She saw how verdant you were—or else somebody tipped her oft about you, probably her agent. Lord, Tolland, that was an advertising stunt. Don’t you understand? If that had got into the Argus it would have been equal to fifty such slatings as you gave her. Go to the show again tonight, Tolland, and you’ll see her there as large as life.” Which Tolland did. (Copyright, 1916, by W. G. Chapman.)

LAND OF QUAINT CUSTOMS

Many Things In the Cumberland Mountains That Seem Peculiar to Visitors. The great days in the mountains generally depend upon the state of the creek-beds, which are almost the only roads. In the spring these highways are flooded and the mountaineertravels very little. It is in the autumn that sociability is possible. There are “corn-shuckings,” “baptizings” (often performed in muddy branch or creek), and the great camp meeting of the mountains, the Baptist association. It is here in the Cumberlands that all ramifications of the Baptist belief flourish —Hardshell, Missionary, Ironclad and others. Every one within miles attends. They ford the rivers on horseback, drive along the precarious highways in jolt-wagons; horses, mules, oxen, are all pressed intolservice for this great occasion. Last are the horse traders, a motley, disreputable crowd, often the worse for too much “moonshine.” Armed to the teeth, they present the appearance of desperadoes, and it is safe to assert that the religious aspect of the camp meeting has little charm for them. But perhaps the strangest of all customs is that of holding the preaching services long months after the burial of the dead. Two years have sometimes elapsed before the memorial service; in one instance the bereaved “widow man” sat beside his second choice, who wept profusely over the fate of her predecessor. There are several reasons for the postponement of the sermon —one, that the preacher is often miles away and not available until the season of good roads. —Christian Endeavor World.

Accounting for Apparition.

O. W. Herfert, driver of the San Bernardino, Cal., mountain automobile stage line, declares that night after night he has seen a specter coach of the “ *49 days,” which sometimes tears with fearful speed down the steep grades and then suddenly disappears as it came. The first time he saw it, he says, he heard many shots. Oldtimers -intimate that the apparition may have been the result of certairf preparations which the driver made to withstand the cold, which is often severe in the moan tains.

NOT QUITE A FAILURE

MAN'S LIFE’ NOT A 8 PLANNED, BUT DUTY WELL DONE. Quality of Belf-Bacrif»ce Counted For Much When Ambition Was Put Away at the Call, of Filial Affection. “I always like to see ambition in a boy,’’ said the doctor. "The best men are those who as boyß had little opportunity, but who made the most of what they had. As a rule the boys who have worked their way through college are about the best fellows I know.” “I agree with you,” answered the . schoolmaster. “But I sometimes think that there are boys who never go to college who have done even better. Did I ever tell you about John Smith? “It was years ago, and I was principal of the school in a little country town. It was the only high school in the county, and the boys and girls from all round attended. Many of them could not get away from the farms until late in the season and so dropped in at any time during the term. Well, along about Thanksgiving John Smith arrived. He told me he lived six miles back in the country, and had walked in. He was a big, well-set-up boy, with a bright, intelligent face, and I soon found that he had come to study. One day I was struck with the amount of mud on his shoes. ‘You must have a muddy walk to school,’ I remarked. “ ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, ‘the roads are pretty bad.’ And then I found out that he walked the six miles in every morning and out again at night! If a boy took that trouble to get an education, I was Interested, and I had a quiet talk with him. He had a widowed mother and a little sister, and they owned a small farm. For the past two years John had done all the work himself, and he still had to do it. That was the reason he had to live at home instead of boarding in town. He told me that he wanted to go to college and become a doctor. His father had been an unsuccessful lawyer, who had given up his practice and bought the farm. John told me his plans. He was sure he could get another boy in the neighborhood to look after his place while he was at college, and his mother was as anxious for him to go as he was. “Naturally I gave him all the help I could, and although he had to leave early in the spring, I lent him books and gave him a little personal aid in his work from time to time. “Well, three years more passed in the same way. John kept well up with his studies by hard work, and at last he was ready' to enter college. He was accepted for entrance on the school certificate, and it was a pleasure to see the glad look on his face when I showed him the registrar’s letter saying that he was admitted. He had saved a little money from various odd jobs that he had done, and he told me that he was all ready financially for the first year, and that he had no doubt that he could manage the others.

“I left the school that year, but just before it was time for college to open, I wrote John a letter of counsel and encouragement. I got this brief note in reply: ’I am sorry to say that I am not going to college.’ "I made it a point to go down to see what had prevented him from carrying out his ambition. I found him hoeing corn. He was very glad to see me, and told me what the trouble was. His mother had had a stroke of paralysis. Without a murmur he had given up his cherished plan. When I asked him whether he could not get someone to take care of her, while he went on with his course, he told me that that was Impossible, since his mother depended so entirely upon him. I shall never forget the tragedy and love together In the boy’s face as he talked to me of his vanished hopes and watched his helpless mother.” “I suppose he got to college somehow,” 'remarked the doctor, “and Is now a famouß surgeon.” ’ “No,” replied the schoolmaster, “that was ten years ago, but I heard from him only yesterday. His mother is still alive and still helpless. He is still running the farm, making a small living and caring for her. The little sister he has just sent to the normal school, but he will be a small farmer to the end of his days. And I believe he was just the man to have made a splendid doctor. Yet I hardly think his life has been a failure.” “I should think not,” said the doctor. —Youth’s Companion.

Real Daughter of the Regiment.

“Our regiment has adopted a two-year-old Turkish girl baby,” writes a Cossack who is serving with the Russian advance into the Turkish sus. He explains: "During our forward movement last week one of our men found in a farm house this baby, which had been abandoned by her fleeing parents. The starving little creature was cleaned, clothed and fed, and then taken to the staff quarters. In the Greek church of the village of Bar dus the foundling was christened according to the rites of the Orthodox church, the commander of the regiment acting as godfather and Princess Gelovanna, a Red Cross nurse and wife of a member of the dorna, as godmother. The child was named Alexandra Donakaia, after the name of the regiment. The officers and men of the regiment subscribed monthly amounts sufficient to pay for rearing and edu eating their regimental daughter.”