Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1879 — Winter Employment. [ARTICLE]

Winter Employment.

It is not reasonable to expect that farming can prosper where there is not labor for the hands on the farm but six to eight months in the year. There must be something for the idle hands to do. In other years, and in other States, fanners employed their winters in preparing fire wood for the year, getting out fencing, splitting rails and posts, cutting saw-logs and marketing for lumber. These employment are not here. Coal takes the place of wood. Wire the place of rails, and saw-logs have not yet grown on the prairie. How then can a farmer profitably put in his time ? It must be in raising and feeding stock, milking cows, etc. Warm quarters must be prepared for all domestic animals, hogs, sheep, cattle and horses. More thorough care can profitably be expended on all Jiese classes. There is an abundance of straw and slough hay, with which the cheapest and most comfortable quarters can be made for all animals. Convenient filaces for feeding can be made by the abor on the farm, and all these cost nothing. Then by diligent labor the coarser food, such as straw, stalks, etc., can be manipulated into rich food. Make a new departure in caring for stock. Stay by them. Feed regular—curry often —keep clean and warm. Then feeil.up to the fullest healthy extent all stock intended for milk or meat. There is neither sense nor profit in allowing cows to go dry all winter, nor in allowing calves, stock cattle, or hogs to stand still in growth luring the months of leisure from the out-door work on the farm. The business boom will make no farmer rich except by close application to business. All the branches of trade have zealous and watchful competition. No slipshod style of agriculture will win in the future as in the past. Labor and brains arc united in competing in all the avenues of trade, and none more so than in this profitable branch of industry. If ten steers are carefully fed and cared for so they will increase 400 pounds eaeh during the winter instead of 100 each the difference will pay for two good hands all winter. If twentyfive good calves be placed in the care of a kind and attentive hand, who will water regularly with water at the right temperature, curry regularly anil handle kinuly, bestowing favors on the weakest which are usually pushed from their food, and the additional growth and good heart with which they will come out in the spring will well pay the wages. But he must be with them every working hour of the month, watching their health, stimulating their appetites. In this way there is work for all idle hands, and work which will pay. And farmers will find in the sharp competition no other style of farming will pay. —lowa State Register.