Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1848-02-10
agricultural.
APRoPos OF FARMERS.

acres OF land, OIL OF WHICH he suPPo''s
his family-he continues TO get forty
bushels of wheat from an acre of land,
and fifty to seventy bushels of Indian
corn. besides corn-iodder in abund-
ance and instead of impoverishing
his land by these heavy crops, such is
his economy in saving, making, and APP
plying his manures, that his farm grows
richer. This farmer applies his knowl-
edge of figures to his own caling.-lie
says he cannot afford to grow half crop,
as the deterioration in fences, and the
interest of money on the land is the
same, crop or half crop. 1t is need
less to say that this man takes two agrl-
cultural papers.
I know another farmer who has sew
enty-eight acres of land, find calcare
Gus clay loan, ameliorated by quartz and
limestone pebbles, with sprinkling Of
small boulders. He barely subsists his
family in a very primitive way, on the
avails of his seventy-eight acres. His
corn-feld is plowed, or rather half plow-
ed, late in the spring, the weeds run u
race with the late planted corn, until
late in June, when the hoe and the pillow
give the stunted plant the end of the
race. Now comes a drought; the al
ready enfeebled plants have no organic
power to make the extra heat available {;
hence they are pinched by the very in
huence which gives fruiton to we'll
tended and early planted field. But the
drought has at least served this man with
an excuse for his short crop of In
dian corn; thus saving his pride at
the expense Of his pocket. His wheat
fallow is little better managed than
his corn-feld, but his crop is always foul,
sometimes short, and the grains arc gen.
orally shrunken. TO bring the year a =.
bout without running into debt, this man
pinches his family in the ordinary com
forts of civilization go to his house in
winters day, ten TO one he is asleep
on his bed, or sitting costly by the fire.
Ask him to subscribe for an agricultural
paper, and he is no longer cosy all the
Goth and Vandal in him is aroused. 81
want no book to teach me how to farm.
Look at my neighbor Progress, he is a
book farmer. What use are his Dur
hams, and Berkshires, and all his big
crops; he spends it all it only makes
his family proud +; how mad it makes me
TO see his children sent by here every
day to the village school," | do not re-
tort upon this man the fact that his dis
trict school cannot be respectfully sus-
tanned, because the district contains too
many such men as himself. | let him
alone in his glory. | assail no man,
who, like the hedge hog, is armed at all
points.
| know another farmer, mild, quiet
German, who seems instinctively to
have that German love of the beautiful
and true, which is only an acquired
taste with us restless Americans. While
we strain after the ultimate good, they
quietly improve that which is within
their reach. This mans farm gives an
earnest of the industry and good sense
of its proprietor. Not a thistle nor a
brer, no alder fences all is neat, clean
and arabic. The house rather plain if
it displays no taste, neither is it like too
many of our fine farm houses,-a carl
cature on all orders, and good taste to
boot. The barn is large, well ventilat-
ed, with painted blinds the fences per
manent and strong: what is lacking
about these premises in ornament, is
amply made up in neatness, and the APP
pearance of positive comfort The man
modestly says " lob can night guih Eng
Hsh lesen." Still he takes the papers,
and the well thumbed leaves of his last
years Cul,ivator, show that its contents
have been Understandings read by him.
know another farmer, gentleman,
a scholar, and christian, SO far as the
fashionable modification of christianity
will admit. He complains that he can
not farm by book, because his hired men
object to the drudgery of the prescribed
preparations. He speaks twice to his
horses, where he condescends TO speak
once to his men. Yet, strange 10 say
he boasts of the cleverness of his horses
while he complains Of the intraciability
Of his men d!
knew yet another farmer, book
farmer, if you please, beginner, but an
enthusiast in his calling. He soon found
that he could do nothing by way of i'm.
provement, without awakening in the
the mind of his head man, or factotum
an enthusiasm akin to his own. This
man at first demurred to hauling swamp
muck into the barn yard, lest it shoulc
spoil the manure. Now he has becom,
an ardent student in vegetable economy
and in the philosophy of vegetable
growth and nutrition, as it is taught il
the agricultural papers of the day. Her,
is at least one laboring man, exalted
from the character of a mercenary drudg
TO be respectable co-worker with thu
chemist in his labratory, and on grand
er scale.-S. w., in the albany Gull