The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 20, 1907
Town Topics
Today is in every way an ideal Spring day. The opening of Spring to a country boy means many things. It means that he will soon be fishing under the banks of the Des Moines for suckers. It means that he will sprout potatoes on the barn floor, or get the little onions ready for planting on the back lot.
The prospect of a productive season is a change even from the slush and ice of a long and dreary winter. The farmer goes out to see whether the bees are getting ready to swarm; the town man prepares to plant some flower seeds on the front lawn. The housewife, the whole land over, looks up the mops and brooms and gets in readiness for the Spring housecleaning.
Everything takes a new start, as it were, in life; we begin anew and feel brighter and better natured and feel glad that we are living.
And now that Spring seems to have run up the curtain in readiness to open the show there are many things which while we enjoy nature and its changing forms, the town dweller should attend to. Nature will do her part to beautify Fort Dodge, but it will not remove the accumulations of ashes and refuse in the cellars of our citizens. It will not repair bad pavements, muddy street, stopped up gutters or sinking crossing stones.
Nature will cause flowers to grow in the country wood, but not on the citizens lawn unless seed be planted. Nature will make the shade trees burst into leaf but it will not remove unsightly wires, broken limbs or dead trees from the streets.
The sun will shine brightly on pretty dwellings and business places, but it will not apply the paint or the whitewash brush to the back fence or the front shutters where the wintry storms have caused a former application to wear off.
Nature will make the parks look green and beautiful, but the corner lots will still have an unsightly appearance unless man assists in “clearing up.”
Nature will asist (sic) in Spring housecleaning, but as this has been a very strenuous winter, there is much for the average citizen to do to make Fort Dodge look more beautiful than ever before.