Thursday, July 29, 1898
Amos Barlow has some prehistoric corn growing that is now ten feet in height and seems to have just gotten a fair start. The writer was shown a stalk and he could just make his thumb and forefinger meet around it. Mr. Barlow thinks it would be excellent for ensilage, the blades so large and the stalk so succulent.
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One of the interesting features that engages the visitor’s attention about most of our Pocahontas homes are the exceptionally fine gardens, profusely supplied with the staple vegetables. Our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Patterson, of Glade Hill, have a garden as good as the best, which is in its second year. Spring before last, he grubbed a piece of the thickest brush that had once been densely covered with white pine. A dozen or more large stumps were taken out and the brush rooted out, making a pile of roots and rubbish as large as a small haystack. In brief, the ground was so prepared that a large plow could be used. The first crop was good, but the second or present crop is as good as the best of the old gardens. A ripe tomato was found July 22, and in a week there will be plenty. The potatoes are of phenomenal size.
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Dennis Dever has a nice residence in course of erection near the site of the old Lightner mansion on Knapps Creek. The location is an ideal one and commands a charming outlook.
Dead-Beats
Some editor, no doubt who lived in a community where the loud mouthed office-seekers of his party sponged their reading, was inspired to utter these words:
When you ask a man to subscribe for your paper, and he says: “Oh, I never read very much, besides the times are so tight.” Apologize to him for the mistake, and leave him. Life is too short to try to teach a mule to sing Soprano. All gentlemen nowadays read newspapers and plenty of them.
Show us a man that lives in town or country and never spends a red cent for the newspapers there, and we will show you a man whose ignorance is only exceeded by his self-complacent narrow mindedness. A local paper is an institution that works day in and day out for the good of the community, and every man in it is in honor bound to assist in its support. The trouble is that some peculiar individuals fancy they are making the editor a present when they take his paper.
We have the profoundest sympathy for the man who never subscribes for his home paper.
The New Schedule
The contract for carrying the mail from Lewisburg to Travelers Repose has been let to F. E. Smith, of the District of Columbia, for $1,869.20. From Lewisburg to Marlinton, $1,034.60; from Marlinton to Traveler’s Repose, $834.60.
The distance from Marlinton to Lewisburg is 42 miles; to Travelers Repose 36 miles. The mail carrier waits for the carrier from Ronceverte, and leaves Lewisburg not later than 11 a.m. and has 10 hours to reach Marlinton, thus arriving here at 9 p.m. As this is nearly bed time, the carrier must be very prompt or he will give occasion for complaint, and to drive from Lewisburg to Marlinton in 10 hours in the winter is almost an impossibility.
The contractor is a stranger and will no doubt depend upon letting the mail to sub-contractors, and this means poor pay and poor service from some poor devil who will take the contract. Mr. Smith will no doubt be on hand some time soon looking for suckers.
The horses will be terribly abused to make the drive every day.
The schedule goes into effect September 10.
MILL POINT
Hip, hurrah! Lively time these days.
Austin Hambrick will move this week and take charge of Isaac McNeel.
Threshing grain seems to be the order of the day. J. H. Bird has been making things hum with his new machine; and is doing the best work that has been done for several years.
William Colley, who was shot not long since, seems to be getting along all right, as we hear that he ran everybody off the place the other day declaring he would kill them.
Who can explain the following bit of antiquity:
Mr. James Smith will pay D. L. Ruckman the sum of one dollar and seventy-nine cents which I will take in when we settle.
WILLIAM C. PRICE.
This 4 January, 1844.
The above was found on a slip of old paper floating down the Greenbrier, by Marshall Isabell, who was fishing at the mouth of Stamping Creek.
MUX
VALLEY HEAD
Hot weather. The rain damaged the wheat a little by causing it to rust.
We were sorry to learn that French Beal is dangerously ill with the fever. Dr. Cameron is attending him.
L. D. Sharp, of Linwood, stayed in Valley Head last night, returning from Beverly. He had the misfortune to lose his pocketbook and $20 on his way down.
Loyd Swecker has a patent bee hive that has made $12 worth of honey this season, and the season is not over yet. Bees have done better this summer than they have for the past twenty years.
Our quiet town was aroused from its dormant condition last night between 3 and 4 o’clock by a little shooting fray. Eleven shots were fired in quick succession, and the gentleman who makes a practice of getting up sooner than the rest of the town in order to milk some man’s cow, disappeared in great haste. A hint to the wise is sufficient. The next time I will shoot much faster and take better aim.
The West Virginia Central Railroad is nearly completed to the bridge across Valley River. It will take but a short while to complete it to Huttonsville. We like to see the good work go on, if we don’t have to do it.
BAD BOY