Break, break, break,
Some other man’s face with glee,
Or shatter his collar-bone if you will,
But, pray, don’t run over me!
O, woe is the farmer’s boy
As he shouts with his sister at play.
But the chauffeur darts from a cloud of dust,
And carries a leg away.
O, woe is the man who drives
Where the automobile sweeps;
His horse butts into the wayside wall
And smashes the cart for keeps.
And the big machine goes on,
A-kiting over the hill,
But, O, for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still.
Break, break, break,
Whate’er in your path you see,
But an arm and an ear and a horse that is dead
Will never come back to me.
--From a Horseman.
* * * * *
This is the page where all of those who wish to, or who have a message
to tell, may come in and talk with Trotwood. Do not be backward--you
are welcome. But be sure that what you write shall be of general
interest to our readers. Remember that they are paying for the Monthly
to be interested and instructed. So come in, but come in with something
to say, something that will help others.
* * * * *
For, indeed, Trotwood is optimistic. He believes in men and women; he
has faith in humanity. He would have men look up, not down; forward,
not backward. He is too busy doing to garner doubt and discouragement,
those twins which come chiefly from idleness and unclear thinking.
* * * * *
Therefore, think clearly and live purely. For one depends upon the
other. Believe in the men and women around you and they will soon begin
to believe in themselves. Get into the habit of thinking and speaking
kindly, for character as well as life is made up of habits. Believe in
humanity. Try to be patient with fools. It is the most difficult of all
things to do. Believe in humanity. Sometimes you will get a jolt, but
when you come to weigh your own life, you will find that, taking it all
in all, the world has been kinder to you than you have deserved.
* * * * *
We may be pardoned for being often personal in this, the first issue
of Trotwood’s Monthly, but we beg you to bear in mind that this issue
was created hurriedly, and while we are not ashamed of it by any means,
we did not have the chance to give it the scope it will soon attain.
This is not a sectional monthly. Its aim is to cover the whole country
North and South. We are selling farm literature--not farm products--and
we will see that all sections, Michigan as well as Alabama, Maine as
well as Texas, is represented. If you are not in it it will be your own
fault.
* * * * *
A bright literary woman--one who has written novels that have sold--in
a personal letter, says: “The publication of a book figures to me as
a marriage, in which the author is the woman, the publisher the man,
and it is not well to let one’s heart ache too much over mistreated
offspring in the way of books. Be glad that it is for a year. Just a
year, that the contract is not for life, and that in it divorce is no
disgrace, and with the optimistic belief that there is always to be
better luck next time.”
Was ever anything better said?
* * * * *
The most encouraging news comes from the bedside of that veteran
breeder, Capt. M. C. Campbell, of Cleburne Farm. Capt. Campbell has
been very ill for over a month, and once it looked as if the owner of
Brown Hal and the breeder of more great Jerseys and pacing horses than
any living man, would not recover. But the life he has led has been
clean and pure, and his strength was great. Like the great Tennessee
pacers he has bred he proved game, and his friends, and they are
counted all who know him, are happy to think he is now on the road
to recovery. No man in the State has made a higher mark for honesty,
manhood and all that makes a man than Capt. M. C. Campbell, and may he
live long and prosper.
In a personal letter from his son, Mr. Allen Campbell, who is also
manager of Cleburne Farm, he writes that they have some of the greatest
colts and Jerseys ever seen at that famous nursery. Several of their
colts are showing extreme speed, among them being the young son of
Brown Hal, dam by Bay Tom, that Cleburne Farm has reserved to take
Brown Hal’s place. He is showing 2:10 speed as a three-year-old. Two
colts by Direct 2:05-1/2, one out of the dam of Twinkle 2:06-1/2, are
showing up very fast. Trainer John Walker has a dozen head of Mr.
Geers’ stable training them at Cleburne’s famous mile track.
* * * * *
Speaking of John R. Gentry’s influence at Ewell Farm Mr. Geo. Campbell
Brown writes:
“It is the aim of Ewell Farm to breed beauty and let speed stand as a
secondary consideration, and for this reason it continues the use of
McEwen, one of the grandest individuals in the country, as shown by his
long list of showing prizes and of John R. Gentry, a horse of perfect
conformation and unbeaten in the show ring.
“The Hal strain at Ewell Farm is being perpetuated by Hal Brown,
certainly one of the most successful young sires of that breed.
“The brood mares at Ewell Farm are in proportion to the numbers owned
there, the greatest collection of producers in the United States. No
less than four have produced four each to beat 2:30, and ten are
producers of 2:10 or better horses, while one has thrown a world’s
champion.
“The blood of Sweepstakes, dam of Star Pointer, is better represented
at Ewell Farm than at any other farm in the country. Two of her
granddaughters, Mabel Best and Windsweep, daughters of Villette, sister
to Star Pointer, being owned there, and both have foals by John R.
Gentry.
“Of the dozen yearlings at Ewell Farm by John R. Gentry, only one
has been trained, and he a trotter can now show a 2:52 gait. He will
certainly make a great trotter.
“A three-year-old trotter by this great sire has beaten 2:20, and a
three-year-old pacer, Gentry’s Star, can pace a mile in 2:10. The
unparalleled beauty and speed of the youngsters by John R. Gentry
foreshadows his future fame as a sire, and it is a safe prediction that
he will more than equal his sire, Ashland Wilkes, that has for several
years been the leading sire of new 2:30 performers. Analysis of records
in John R. Gentry’s pedigree show him to be the fastest and best son of
Ashland Wilkes. This horse is in turn the best representative of Red
Wilkes, the greatest speed sire of all the sons of George Wilkes, whose
strain has been preeminent in the trotting world for twenty-five years.”
* * * * *
Trotwood can vouch for every word of the following letter. He visited
the great Dakota prairies last fall. Such vastness, such fertility,
such lands!
Fargo, N. D., August 15.
Editor Trotwood’s Monthly:
When I was a resident of your country I thought then that there was
only one God’s country, and that was the Central Basin of Tennessee. My
reason for arriving at such a conclusion was the land in the Central
Basin, but more particularly in and around Maury County, had maintained
its fertility and wonderful productive power for a hundred years with
only the ordinary American style of farming. That is, taking all out
of the land and putting nothing back again. But since that time a
discovery has been made which accounts for the land in your section
of country maintaining its wonderful endurance for raising such an
excellent quality of wheat over a period of seventy years, without
rotation of crops, and that is the almost inexhaustible deposit of
phosphate rock that underlies so much of your lands. But I have found
another God’s country. While it cannot boast of being underlaid with
phosphate rock like your lands in and around Maury County, but when
this country was opened up for settlement in the ’70’s it was as
rich in all the constituent elements of fertility as the lands in
the Central Basin of Tennessee. This Red River Valley is a wonderful
country, and Fargo, N. D., is the center of this granary of the great
Northwest. Although Fargo is not a very large city, the population is
about twelve or thirteen thousand inhabitants, it is a live town, and
full of enterprising business men.
This town is the third largest farm implement distributing point in the
world. That’s saying a good deal. Moscow, Russia, comes first; Kansas
City second, and Fargo third. According to the Bureau of Statistics,
United States Department of Agriculture, for 1904, the State of North
Dakota produced some fifty-four million bushels of wheat and the set
counties in the Red River Valley raised of the above amount nearly
twelve million bushels. This is not counting the Minnesota side of
the Red River Valley. The farmers in the Red River Valley seem to be
pretty well fixed. The great Dalrymple farm is in this county of Cass.
These gentlemen farm about 30,000 acres of wheat land. The soil in
this valley is a rich, black, glacial drift, and though it is not corn
country, not being warm enough, yet all other farm products do fine
(there is an immense crop this year), as wheat, oats, barley, rye,
buckwheat, flaxseed, hay and the most excellent Irish potatoes are
raised here, and 200 bushels per acre is a fair crop. But the farmers
in the Red River Valley have been raising wheat almost exclusively for
the past twenty-five years, and wheat of fine quality. But if they want
to maintain the reputation of this land as a wheat-growing country, the
farmers will have to put on their considering caps and ask you Maury
Countians to send them up some acid phosphate to put and keep their
land in balance, so that they can go on and again raise No. 1 hard
wheat.