Thursday,
November 23, 1922
Married at the Methodist parsonage November 17, 1922, Tobias O. Moss and Miss Lora Jackson, both of Buckeye, by Rev. Fred B. Wyand.
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Born to Mr. and Mrs. Loy Hively November 18, 1922, a son.
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Editor Times;
I was born in Pocahontas County December 18, 1846.
I made a business call in the county last May and found the people over here have still kept up their name as the most clever people in West Virginia. The county is beautiful and the people are thrifty and happy and have good homes, as a rule, good schools and good churches and plenty of fine bred cattle. This is a grazing section, not corn country, in general.
Since being here last May at Marlinton and Durbin where I was attending the sales of the J. T. McGraw lands, I have been over at Des Moines, Iowa, and through that country where land is worth from one hundred to four hundred dollars per acre. The young man who will purchase some of the cutover lands in this county and turn them into grazing farms will find himself ahead in a few years. I have a large number of relations in this county: Tallmans, Burners, Gums, Mrs. Anne Curry and family, Jane Logan, Mrs. Rebecca Galford and family and possibly others, is my reason for my appreciation of all the people over here.
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Lewisburg – Harry Bowes, aged 24, and Herbert Bowes, Jr., aged 10 years, are dead, and their sister, Margaret Bowes, aged six years, was severely burned, when the home of their father, Herbert Bowes, Sr., prominent farmer of Keister, six miles from here, was destroyed by fire.
The blaze that destroyed the home and which allowed the surviving members of the family only scant time to flee with their lives, followed an explosion in an air tight heater while the older brother was kindling the morning fire. The younger boy was asleep in this room and the flames leaped high and, spreading rapidly, made it impossible to effect his rescue.
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While teaching his Sunday School class in the Methodist church at Lewisburg, Samuel C. Beard leaned back against the railing which gave way under his weight, and he was pitched to the floor 10 feet below. The extent of Mr. Beard’s injuries could not be determined by physicians until after an examination was made to ascertain whether he had been injured internally. He fell upon chairs placed in the rear of the church, striking heavily upon his shoulders and neck.
THE HONEY BEE
The foundation of all civilization is agriculture. History discloses the fact that ancient civilization climaxed in Egypt, Babylon and the adjoining lands of China and nowhere else. History also discloses the universal truth that classic civilization came to its climax in the Tuscan culture, the Greek learning and the Roman efficiency. It is a wonder that these truths have never before been commented on. But it is of the utmost importance to those who have the affairs of the world in their hands to know about these things and give ear to their great importance.
But as agriculture is the foundation of all civilization so is soil fertility the basis of successful agriculture. If the fertility of the soil is not maintained, the crops fail and the people perish…
The grains are the principal plants which are grown for food. All of them are soil fertility reducing plants. Everyone knows that each crop of grain grown on and taken from the land removes a large percent of its plant food… The principal element of plant food is nitrogen which is most econo- mically obtained from the air by the clovers and other legumes whose root nodules foster the nitrogenous bacteria. The legumes cannot perpetuate themselves by maturing seeds without the aid of insects to complete the pollination of the blossoms…
The honeybee is the most important of all the insects and is practically the only insect which is numerous enough to perform the important work of pollinating the legume blossoms without which pollination, no seeds could be matured, the le-gume plants therefore would become extinct, thus bringing about a depletion of the soil plant food, finally resulting in famines and the destruction of civilization.
The point to which attention is especially drawn is the fact that civilization, either ancient or modern, has never developed beyond a rudimentary stage whenever there has been a lack of bees to pollinate the legumes and thereby maintain the fertility of the soil. On the other hand, wherever bees have been present, civilization has developed and flourished. Too much importance, then, cannot be attached to the bees, the farmer’s dependable assistants, the up-builder of their soil fertility, the promoter and preservers of civilizations.
T. K. Massi
Hatcher, W. Va.