insisted that the exchange editor should send to his desk daily a dozen or more small country sheets from the most out of the way places—­papers that recorded the painting of John Doe’s front fence or that Seth Smith laid an egg on the editor’s table with a breezy “come again, Seth, the Lord loveth a cheerful liar.”  When Field had accumulated enough of these items to suit his humor, he would paraphrase them, and, substituting the names of local or national celebrities, as the incongruity tickled his fancy, he would print them in his column under the heading of local, social, literary, or industrial notes, as the case might be.  He seldom changed the form of these borrowed paragraphs materially, for he held most shrewdly that no humorist could improve upon the unconscious humor of the truly rural scribe.  Field never outgrew the enjoyment and employment of this distinctively American appreciation of humor.  As late as October 29th, 1895, “The Love Affairs” had to wait while he regaled the readers of the Chicago Record with his own brand of “Crop Reports from East Minonk,” of which the following will serve as specimens: 

All are working to get in the corn crop as if they never expected to raise another crop.  The schools are almost deserted, and even the schoolm’ams may yet be drafted in as huskers.  As the season advances the farmers begin to realize the immensity of the crop, and the dangers and difficulties of handling it.  Owing to its cumbersomeness the old-fashioned way of handling it becomes obsolete, and new methods will have to be adopted and hydraulic machinery procured.  Many new uses can be made of the corn-stalks, such as flag-poles for school-houses, telegraph poles and sewer-pipes.  By hollowing out a corn-stalk it will make the very best of windmill towers, as the plunger-rod can be placed inside, thus protecting it from the weather, and if desired, an excellent fountain can be obtained by perforating the joints with an awl.

A freight train on the Santa Fe railroad was delayed four hours last Saturday by a corn-stalk in Jake Schlosser’s field, which had been undermined by hogs, falling across the track.  It was removed with a crane and considerable difficulty by the wrecking crew.

  The town of Hegler, on the Kankakee, Minonk and Western railroad, is
  invisible in a forest of corn.  A search party under the direction of
  the road commissioners are looking for it.

These solemnly exaggerated crop notes were strung out to the extent of over half a column.  Some will question the wit of such fantastic extravagance, but Field had early learned the truth of Puck’s exclamation:  “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” He knew that there was absolutely no bounds to the gullibility of mankind, and he felt it a part of his mission to cater to it to the top of its bent.  One of his most successful impositions was international in its scope.  On September 13th, 1886, the following paragraph, based on the current European news of the day, appeared in his column: