But, speaking it, I win new strength of heart
And make the burden I am bearing light.
(2530)
PROFIT FROM PESTS
Some points in muskrat-farming are related by a Vermont man in the New England Homestead as his own experience. Some years ago he dammed a small brook on his farm for the purpose of making a trout-pond. The muskrats, however, speedily took possession of it and made it their home, from which they organized forays into the farmer’s corn-field. This suggested a way of getting even. The next year he enlarged his dam, making a shallow pond covering four acres of marsh-land of no use for crops. The rats appreciated the enlarged accommodations and also the marginal corn crop which he planted for their sustenance, and did not suspect the wire traps set for them when the water should be drawn off.
After a couple of seasons he considered the quarry sufficiently mature to test results. The water was drawn off and the game was caught in the netting. A hundred of the largest and darkest of the captives were returned to the pond for breeding purposes, while more than four hundred were put under tribute of their pelts. The result was more than enough to pay for the construction and labor, and he expects a much larger return of better fur next year. Hundreds of New England farms have brook-fed marshes that could be utilized to equal advantage.
The fur market is a rising one; more in proportion, perhaps, for cheap furs than for the more expensive. The trolley and automobile have increased the demand enormously. The people who buy rich furs are constantly becoming more numerous, and they have their imitators among the many who can afford only the lower grades.—Boston Transcript.
(2531)
Prognosis, Cure in—See [Wounds, Curious].
PROGNOSTICATION OF WEATHER