Thursday,
November 18, 1915
An English soldier says that trench warfare has become a constant drain. Last winter it was considered a great privilege to stand in water up to the knees and the art of draining trenches had not been discovered. He says that there are still some Germans somewhere around of the Prussic sort and very acid. He says that there was an old company commander in the trench who had been constantly called upon to make reports to the brigade about the drainage, fuel on periscopes, patent wire cutters, and anti-frost bite slush. He was further asked to report on the “attitude of the enemy.” His answer was: “Enemy’s attitude is hostile.” The report came back: “Please amplify your report on the enemy’s attitude.” So he extended his remarks: “Enemy’s attitude distinctly hostile.” This closed the correspondence.
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Carl G. Beard, of Millpoint, on November 1st, shipped two cars of fat cattle to Jersey City market. In transit the train was wrecked at Charlottesville, and one carload was killed or burned up. One car load reached its destination and was sold. Mr. Beard’s loss is over two thousand dollars, but a claim has been filed with the railway company and he expects to be reimbursed. J. S. McNeel also had a car of fat cattle in the same train. This car was damaged and a steer was killed. The other cattle were transferred and forwarded and reached their destination on Monday, but too late for the market, after days on the road.
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Porter VanReenan, 11 year old son of William VanReenan, who was shot in the face last week is making a good recovery. A shot gun cartridge had been carelessly left in a wastebasket and thrown in the stove when Porter made the fire at West Union schoolhouse. The shell exploded and the shot struck his face.
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The People’s Store and Supply Co., Ira D. Brill and S. J. Rexrode, proprietors, opened for business Monday morning in their fine new store house at the west end of the bridge.
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Calvary Jordan was badly cut by a man named Perry at Buckeye last Friday. Jordan was brought to the hospital and Perry is held in jail to await the action of the grand jury. Both were employed on the mill of the Bartholomew Lumber Co. at Buckeye, and came here from Kentucky.
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In a list of 200,000 words used in private correspondence, the following classes of words are dominant in the letters of women: Articles of food and terms relating to the consumption and preparations thereof; articles of wearing apparel, textiles and terms closely related thereto; parts of the body, care of the same, personal appearance, animals, esthetics, color, diseases and their treatment; parts of the house, furniture, measures, correspondence, domestic activities and relationships.
Words dominant in letters of men were terms of aggression contest and domination, physical and mental; institutional life and social organization.
Then there is a long list of words that could not be classified under either head.
WORLD WILL
NOT STARVE
In the eighteenth century Malthus foreboded that the world would starve to death for want, because means of subsistence would soon be over-matched by population. Malthus did not reckon with scientific agriculture with the unreported capacity of an acre of land to produce twice and thrice the ordinary. Notwithstanding the world’s war, it looks as if next fall, wheat would be 33 percent cheaper than it is today. By the use of electric tools on farms as well as in shops production is cheaper, while in use of phosphates production is multiplied. Last year this country produced five times more farm crops than in 1879. We have several mills, lions of idle acres capable of cultivation, or less than 20 percent of acre capacity is now under cultivation.
WARNING AGAINST ALFALFA
If you don’t want lots of trouble, don’t sow alfalfa. Along the middle of June, when the corn needs cultivation most, we had to stop and cut the darned alfalfa. It was in bloom three feet high. We had to haul in 20 loads of hay off of it.
In July the folks in town invited us to spend a week attending the Chautauqua. Suppose they were glad when they got my post card announcing that we would not come because we had to cut that blamed alfalfa patch again.
Worse still, I was fool enough to go to work and sow five more bushels of alfalfa seed. The only rest I’ll get hereafter from hauling alfalfa will be on rainy days.
It got to raining again in September, and about the first thing I knew that darn alfalfa was three feet high and all in bloom; it had to have another haircut.
Then Barnum & Bailey’s circus came to town, and darn by buttons if I didn’t have to miss that circus for the first time in 40 years. I got mad and turned the pigs, cows and calves into it, and still the blamed stuff kept on growing to beat the cars. They could not keep it down; they got fat on it.
But still this alfalfa hay that we sweat so, cuttin’ and stackin,’ makes mighty fine stuffin’ for cows on cold Groundhog days. Everything on the place eats it, except the hired girl, and she ain’t been here long. – Valley Virginian
DEATH
Peter Dilley died very suddenly Saturday evening, November 13, 1914, of heart disease at the home of his brother, Kenny Dilley, on Elk. He was milking a cow, was seen to fall and died in a few minutes. His age was 65 years, and he is survived by his wife and their three children. He was a good man and well-like by all who knew him. He was buried in the family burying ground at Dilley’s Mill.
