USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
I might go on naming others right here in the valley of Turkey Creek, Lake County, Indiana. But I think these are enough. But if Bro. Monrad, or any other man, thinks that Mr. Husselman is one of the few successful dairymen in Indiana, we will name him two or three hundred more, on short notice. To be sure our state association was poorly attended, but there were reasons for this. Ft. Wayne is too large a town, and the meet- ing was very poorly advertised; it took a good man to find out when and where the meeting was held. A year ago. Gov. Hoard was at the meeting at Centerville, and I don't think he will tell you we are past resurrection.
-114-
It seems to me the idea Bro. Monrad has, is that the dairy business must mean a co-operative creamery, but it appears to me, as well as it does to Bro. Husselman, that the private dairy is of as much consequence, as far as it goes, as the creamery. My brother three miles north of Crown Point, has a small dairy, makes good butter, keeps a good lot of hens, raises some garden truck, potatoes, etc., etc .; makes weekly trips to Crown Point, and sells all he raises to private customers. He makes his money as easy as the big dairymen, milking a lot of cows, and taking his milk to a co-operative creamery. Mr. Bates is another one of the same kind. S. Curry has a fine herd of Jerseys, tread power to separate his milk and churn his butter. His wife and daughter attend to the butter making, sit down and read while the horse is churning, and he says he likes it better than hauling his milk two or three miles to a creamery. He gets 25 cents a pound the year round.
We have the land, water and climate for a good dairy coun- try; with the land within the reach of all as to price. Come out among us, if you are looking for a good dairy country, and we will receive you with open arms. And you will find we are not a bad lot of fellows either.
Sam. B. Woods. Lake County, Indiana
Goshen, Indiana March 3, 1896
Friend Sam :
I thank you for the good time I had reading your letter in last Hoard's Dairyman. Monrad doesn't like us one bit because we are not all creamery. I want you to come to the Indiana State Fair this fall. Will you? Remember me to your father. I think he is one of the best men I know of and I think he is a mighty good friend of yours truly.
Charles B. Harris.
(He was on the State Fair Board)
FIRST AGITATION FOR HARD ROADS
Editor Star:
When anyone has been interested in any project and got left, he generally feels like telling how it happened. At any rate those are my feelings on the subject of the improvement of the road running north of Crown Point. Merrilville got it by mis- representing our road and they brought a stool pigeon from the raging Calumet to prove anything they had fixed up to say to the committee from the south road, which, of course, would decide
-115-
the location of the road. As it was divided here north, when it came to a vote, Merrilville had five and we had three votes. I was considerably surprised at the result. After the meeting I talked to one of the committee from the south trying to show him that the Redesdale route was the most direct and straight route leading from Crown Point north, to Tolleston or the new stock yards, and by turning west when you are over to the Ridge Road, or after crossing the river, you are on the most direct route to Hammond, East Chicago, South Chicago, Whiting, and all the other outlying towns; and that Hobart, in a muddy time, by coming due west, would strike the sand about one mile from Hobart, and then have a good sand road to the Redesdale road, then go directly south to Crown Point and be nothing out of their way. Just as good and better for Hobart's people than the Merrilville route. Another thing, all people living west of the Merrilville road have to go out of their way just twice the idstance that they live west of that road, when going to Crown Point; where if it was run due north, no one, not even Merrilville, would have to go one inch out of their way.
"Well," he says, "of course it looks that way, but you can't build a road over there. These fellows from Merrilville say you can't get across the Calumet, there is a big marsh there,-a lake. You can't make a road through that." Now when the committee on the Merrilville road told that, they knew they were telling what was not true, or they did not know what they were talking about. They knew or ought to know, that the whole route from here to Tolleston has been petitioned for. Three disinterested freeholders examined the road and pronounced it a public utility and was ordered opened. The only reason it was not opened, the Club served an injunction on them. Mr. Schuneman, as trustee, beat them in the Circuit Court, and it was carried up to the Supreme Court. Mr. Hecker came into office and let it drop for the reason best known to himself and the Club men. Now if they think they can build a road on that sort of material, let them go ahead and build it.
Sam B. Woods.
ADDRESS OF SAM B. WOODS, OF LOTTAVILLE, INDIANA, IN 1896
Major Alvard, Chief of the Dairy Division of the Depart- ment of Agriculture, holds the dairy products of the United States about one-fifth of the total farm products, which are placed at $2,500,000,000. This would give the dairy credit for the neat sum of $500,000,000 a year. More than all the money of all kinds
-116-
in all the banks of the United States. More than all the gold and silver produced in the world in a year.
The milk for one year from the American cow will buy all the iron and steel, copper, lead, zinc, as well as gold and silver products; in fact more than all the metallic products of a year.
So that if we had free coinage in iron, steel, copper, lead and zine, as well as gold and silver, this free coinage would not buy the cow's butter. And yet, my good friends, did you ever hear of our stump speakers and politicians, advocating protection and prosperity for our cows? I suppose Mr. Crumpacker, our Con- gressman, will warm up terribly in the interests of Pennsylvania pig iron and coal, Michigan lumber and wool. But will he re- member the good qualities of the good cows of Indiana, who, with the help of the good farmers, farmers wives and children, are bringing more prosperity to the State of Indiana, and also the United States, than any other product.
It doesn't go on strikes.
There is no national agitation between labor and capital.
We never lose confidence and shut up shop for six months out of the year. But we keep the store bills paid, our national credit good, and our lands in a high state of fertility. So you see, the question of milk is a big thing. I am not one of those to advocate everybody going at the milk business. For I tell you just as sure as you are a foot high, if you are not acquainted with the busi- iess and you go at it, you will get experience. For us fellows who are already at it have had the experience and a mighty site of hard work, in doors and out. If you have a barrel of money to run a dairy for fun, that is all right. But if you run a dairy for a living, and to make money, you will think you have earned every cent of it; and some of them, I am sure, earn more than they get, for the average of the cows of Indiana, and also of the cows of the United States, is 125 pounds of butter per year, which is not one-half of what a good cow, properly fed and cared for, will produce. There are a great many cows in Indiana and the United States that produce 300 pounds of butter or over a year, so what must some of them do to bring the average down to 125 pounds a year ?
Now what makes the difference between the cow that gives 2,000 pounds of milk and the ones that gives 6,000 pounds ?
There may be no difference in the cows, but a wonderful dif- ference in the man that cares for the cows; and again, there may be no difference in the men who care for the cows but a wonderful difference in the cows. There is just as much difference in cows as there is in men, and there is just as much difference in men as there is in anything else.
-117-
Now a happy combination is a good cow with a good man, and the surest way for a good man to get a good cow is to get the best cow he can, and the best animal to head his herd that money can buy, and raise his heifer calves.
It matters not so much what breed he decides on, so it has the dairy type, and the dairy conformation.
You never saw a man trot a race on a track hitched to a heavy wagon, nor did you ever see a man haul a cord of wood on a light buggy. Nor did you ever see a man expect to get a trotting horse by breeding to a ponderous Clyde. This breeding business, just like most everything else, takes good judgment, knowledge and common sense. When you have your heifer calf, there is a right and a wrong way to raise her.
If you were raising beef animals, as well as dairy heifers, you would not want them to run and feed together. For your beef animals would want to be fed for growth of fat, but your heifers, for milk, would need a highly nitrogenous or muscle- making food, to promote growth and development, but not fat. If the heifer, at any time lays on fat to any great degree, she is liable to develop a tendency to lay on fat where it should be the object for a milch cow to throw all her surplus energy after sup- porting herself to the making of milk. My best cows will come fresh as fat as I dare have them, and we will give them all the best feed we can get them to eat. Then they will gradually fall off in flesh until I would be most ashamed for any one to see them. Their whole nature is to convert the food they get into milk. If these heifers you have raised, have been properly cared for, they have made a good growth. When between sixteen and twenty months old, they should be bred, so as to come fresh at two or two and a half years old.
Be sure to have this heifer fed the right kind and plenty of food, so as to have her strong and develop a large udder, for that is one of the sure signs of a good milch cow.
Feed her strong, there is no danger of milk fever in a heifer, and do not breed her again under six months, giving her a chance to put some growth on her body and develop her milking qualities before she is again taxed with carrying her young. Do not dry her off before four to six weeks of her coming fresh again, so as to form the long milking habit.
"The heifer is the father of the cow," and just as much can be done toward developing a well bred heifer to a good milch cow as there is in developing a trotting colt into a fast trotter. And let me say right here, it takes just as much man science, sense, brains and ambition, to train a heifer, as it does a trotting colt. I consider it a great deal more useful purpose, although our fairs.
-118-
and agricultural societies seem to place a great deal more import- ance on the trotting colt than they do the heifer.
I have said the cow should be fed the proper kind of food. Now, when a woman makes bread, she puts in a certain amount of water, salt, yeast and flour. When this is properly handled and baked it makes good bread, for that is what bread is made out of.
One hundred pounds of good milk contains 87 pounds of water, four pounds of fat, five pounds of milk sugar, 3.3 of casein and albumen, and 0.7 of mineral matter or salts. Now a cow can't make milk and put that material into it without she has it any more than a woman can make bread without the neces- sary articles to make it of; neither can a mason make plaster without lime, sand, water and hair.
I have heard dairymen say: "No, I won't buy any bran; corn is cheap. I will feed them more corn." Now, it would be just as sensible to say : "Water is cheap. I will use more water in my bread." Or for the mason to say, "Sand is cheaper than lime. I will use all sand for my plaster."
Now we must give our cows what is called a balanced ration. This is a ration that will supply the right kind of material to make the milk of. You must have a certain amount of carbohy- drates, protein and fat. I think about forty pounds of ensilage, ten. pounds of corn stover, five pounds of bran, five pounds of gluten meal, and one pound of oil meal. For good sized cows supply a balanced ration; but a cow's appetite is about like any- body elses. She likes a change; so I would have some ground oats, malt, sprouts, small potatoes, beets, turnips, clover, and timothy hay. The more variety, the better but we must keep it pretty well balanced.
If you have no silo, put your corn in big shocks, before it gets too ripe. When it is thoroughly cured, haul and put it in the barn shed or stack. Or, as some do, leave it in the field and haul it as used. Also have some sweet corn and sorghum. Oat hay, (that is, oats cut in the dough and put in the barn) and, if possible, have clover hay. But sell all your timothy; you can always get more for it than it is worth to feed, either to cows or any other stock.
Feed your cows all the cornstalks with the corn on, sweet corn, hay, (oat hay, preferably) and sorghum, that they will eat up clean and no waste, except the butts of the stalks, and about the same amount of grain ration as the ensilage, only feed more oil meal so as to keep the bowels loose, about as they are on sum- mer grass. We raised sorghum last year for the first time, on some sand land, and were greatly pleased. In feeding cows, this
-119-
way, the next thing in order is to have a good yard off the barn with some good pigs or shoats in it to work over the manure thrown from the barn, and get everything out the cows did not digest. There is no waste. It will not pay to get machinery to husk, shell, grind, and cut up the corn and corn stalks; nor will it pay to haul your corn and oats off to have them ground and pay for the grinding after husking and threshing. Grow big crops; get it up in good shape and get it in to the cows just as cheap and with as little work as possible. You will have work enough without making any extra.
Build a fine, big, red barn if you have money enough. But if you don't, go out into the woods, cut down some good, straight poles, set them in the ground, buy some rough boards and build- ing paper and make a good warm stable that will never freeze with the cows in it, in the coldest weather. It does not make so much difference what a stable is built of, just so it is warm, with plenty of sunlight and ventilation, is convenient to feed and ar- ranged to keep the cows clean and healthy. Make the winter conditions just as near like June as possible. And as for water, have plenty of the pure, clean, warm article. You know milk is about 87 per cent water, and sometimes more. If the water gets cold, warm it.
As to summer, we have mostly depended on pasture. But if you depend altogether on pasture you will be left. The drouth will come, pastures and cows will dry up, and the profits are not forthcoming. But the way to get over this, is to sow rye in the fall; clover, oats and Canada peas in the spring, and sweet corn and common corn later on; and don't be afraid to give it to them. If you do the cows will lose confidence and the milk go into hiding. Yes, there must be confidence in the cow business. You must have faith and believe that every cow on the place will pay for good feed and treatment by a return in milk. But if she betrays you and puts the feed on her back instead of in the pail, you can get even with her by cutting her into quarters and selling her to the good Crown Point people for 5 and 6 cents a pound. With a good man and woman, good barn and lands, good water and care, you should expect a good clean lot of milk and a good profit. But with the reverse, the results would be the reverse. Milk is a perfect food. If our children would eat more bread and milk, it would be better for them. If the women and girls would drink more milk, they would be better looking; and if some of our men would drink more milk and less whiskey it would be better for them, their families and the whole country, and it would help the price of milk.
-120-
The Editor of the Lake County Star was opposed to a tax on oleomargarine and thought it should be sold on the market without a tax. The dairymen of the country did not want it to be sold as butter and was in favor of a tax and compelled to be sold for what it was as it was hurting the price of butter. If people wanted to buy oleo, they should pay for oleo and not butter.
POLITICS INSTEAD OF OLEOMARGARINE
Editor Star :
It seems to me you have gotten tangled up in the harness since election and floundering around and got on the off side with William Jennings Bryan, and you are now wearing your headlight on behind. Before election it was the full dinner pail with great times, working men with big bank accounts and going to work in carriages. Now our laws are in bad shape and what we have are not enforced. The poor working people have to eat bull butter or axle grease on their biscuits. Yes, really, your articles sound more like one of Bryan's speeches to the striking coal miners of Pennsylvania. Congressman Crumpacker, however is with you; his heart is too bleeding for the people to buy and pay for butter and get oleomargarine. Crumpacker, Overstreet and Steele were the three who voted against the bill, the remaining eleven congressmen voting for it. If the laws are good but are not enforced, who is to blame? "Our party" has been in power long enough so everything ought to be running pretty nearly right. That is what we have a law-making power for-if the laws do not accomplish what they are made for, to fix some up so they will. You say "the purchaser must be the judge of whatever he buys." Yourself and the state of Indiana are about the only one who think so, for most of the enlightened states have pure food laws that compel the manufacturers to brand their product just what it is, and Indiana is the dumping ground for all frauds.
Don't you know if a man sells you a ton of hay or a cord of wood, and it is short in weight or measure, you can "make it hot for him?" Yes, you can. As to your bull-beef reasoning, that is out of balance, for I know of a case in Crown Point where one of our beef peddlers sold Wm. Krimbill a quarter of a nice two- year old heifer and it was so coarse and tough he could not eat it; so he called the fellow in and complained and told him he thought it was bull-beef. The fellow said, "What are you kicking about, I have been selling you bull-beef for ten years." Mr. K. said that was enough and he made him give his money back. So you see it can be done. Your mule and horse comparison won't work; it is about as much to the point as though you would sell a woman molasses and getting soft soap.
-121-
Chicago has a law that compels milk to test three per cent butter fat, which is sold in the city and the law is pretty well en- forced where some of the dealers who have a good trade sell a fine article of milk-four per cent or better. The editor has been rid- ing backwards and sees things in a bad light. Yes, the cows in this U. S. do produce $500,000,000 worth of dairy products in a year, and the food product from the cow is the most healthful, nutritious, honest, God-given product that is put upon the mar- ket. It is the mainspring of prosperity, the hope of the coming generations, and he who dares to trample on the rights of the cow should be cast into outer darkness on next election day.
S. B. Woods.
THE EDITOR'S COMMENT
Now, that Sam has gone off his base, and talks all politics instead of oleomargarine in his argument, we shall let him rest. He has been under a heavy strain and gone wide of his mark.
Mr. Eder was the clerk of the Lake County Court. He took this office on his back and went over in the mill section district and naturalized 300 foreigners. The chairman of the Republican Party County Committee was to pay for it, so the gang could vote these foreigners for their selfish purpose.
I understand he got drunk and spent the money. Through the County Attorney, Frank Meeker, and the County Commis- sioners, Eder was re-imbursed out of public funds.
I brought suit to make them pay it back and we got it. It is on record as an outstanding case of its kind.
Here is a sample of the dead beat and bum's argument- when they have no argument of facts, they resort to personal abuse and lies.
George Eder was a good man but politics got him into bad company.
NOTES FROM EDER
Hammond, Indiana January 25, 1904
Editor Star:
The lawyer from Lottaville has again proved himself the individual I characterized him to be two weeks ago. This spon- taneous fog-horn, because of some hallucination lurking in his cranium, throws insults at every human being in the Calumet region. I ought not deem it necessary to answer him but do so to save the public from future ignominious articles from his pen.
The public, no doubt, knows the man and if there is the least bit of moral about him, he will forever turn his face toward
-122-
the earth. He admits my claim might have been just, but cannot understand why I have waited years to collect the same. The reason is this: There was no surplus in the Clerk's fund, from which to draw for the last five years.
If Woods had investigated this matter, thoroughly, he would have saved himself the disgrace of his misadventure. I was in no need of men, as Woods says. I was no candidate for office and as the Star puts the question, "What's it all about?" I have been trying to solve that ever since Woods saw fit to attack me and the Commissioners and Council.
In conclusion will say if Woods does not proceed by law to recover this money from me, I will brand him a coward.
Speaking of cattle, the writer never heard anything more natural from a herd of short horns, than the bellowing of Woods.
The man hopes for a good many things. Let us all hope that the next move he makes will be a manly one and not a dastardly act.
George M. Eder.
I was born and raised seven miles due south of Lake Michigan where Gary now stands. We always looked upon that section as a place to pick huckle berries and go fishing and swimming in the lake, until a few years ago. We were all very much interested when the news reached us that the United States Steel Corpora- tion had bought a vast section of land and was going to build a steel mill as fine and big as any and also a town to go with it. Gary was peculiar. It did not grow as most towns did to get size. It was built from a plan that was all made before they com- menced to build.
Inside of two years, Gary was quite a town. A good hotel was built, a Commercial Club was formed, and the papers were talking about the first commercial club banquet to be held. Cap- tain Norton was president. I told my wife that I was going to get in on that banquet. She said that I would never be able to do that. She thought they would not allow any one from off grass to mix in with the steel barons. I said I was going to try.
So I wrote Captain Norton that I was a farmer living south of Gary since 1856; I had picked huckle berries, got sandburrs and cactus in my toes, fished in Lake Michigan where Gary now was, and would like to help them celebrate at the first Commercial Club banquet. Back came a ticket for the banquet,-$5.00 a plate.
At that time I was handling cow feed by the car load and one came to Lottaville on the day of the evening of the banquet at Gary. It had to be unloaded and was a big hard day's work. I did not stop for dinner, but a lunch came down with the wagon
-123-
nauling. By extra effort I got unloaded in time to go to the banquet. I drove a single horse to the buggy and arrived at the banquet.
It was a feast of everything good to eat and drink. I was tired and hungry and ate and drank everything that came my way. It relieved me both of the hunger and the tired feeling and we had a bully good time.
When the program was over and the jollification was ended, I started to get my horse which I had left in the town livery barn. A police officer who was on the ground said, "You had better wait until morning."
From the Pennsylvania tracks south, Broadway was a nar- row sand road with grubs on each side. The officer thought it was not a safe trip at night. So I engaged a bed and stayed until morning. With the price of the ticket for the banquet, $2.00 for the bed and $2.00 to put the horse in the livery stable, made $9.00 for the banquet, which was pretty rich for my blood but was worth the money. I made the acquaintance of a lot of good fel- lows of the new town, especially Capt. H. S. Norton, who was generally head of things, going on in Gary. He always gave me great consideration, which I appreciated.
Soon after the banquet they had the grand opening of the Gary harbor. Was invited to take part in that. Went to South Chicago and took the E. H. Gary boat which was loaded with a crowd of invited guests and an abundance of good things to eat and drink. She took a sweeping course out in the lake but came up to the harbor with flying colors, blowing of whistles and boom- ing of cannons.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.