Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1862-09-18

through successive winters under
the lee of rail fence, is worth single dol.
lar. Paying 1000 for merino buck may
be very foolish speculstion-it certainly is
if you can get one as good for Sl0--but pay
ing 81 900, if YOU must, TO increase in a few
years the value of wool-clip item or twen-
ty tuns, some ten totwenty cents per pound,
is wise and provident, 1t not every farm
er who can afford to grow either cattle or
sheep for sale but there is no farmer who
cnn afford to rear poor animals when he
might as easily have good ones And this
is one Of the points which experience has
established beyond further cavil,
That shelter is cheaper than fodder--that
no farmer can afford to expose his stock in
cessantly to the caprices and seventies OF
orr harsh climates not universally conce-
ded but il is steadily making way. The
Pennsylvania Dutch barn, with Its basement
and ground floor of brick or mortared stone,
while its upper portion is timber and boards,
securing free circulation of air, is great
Improvement on the ordinary structures of
colder New England. | do not doubt the
current estimate that eighty tuns of hay will
go farther in warm yet airy barn than one
hundred tuns fed from the stack to cramped
and shivering beasts. And how may farm
ers can really afford, in these times, to squan-
der twenty tuns of hay?
But the central truth that a certain large
quantity OF food is required simply to sustain
the vital economy of each animal-that 1t is
only what is IN excess of this which returns
anything to the owner-consequently, that
ten cows beautifully fed at all times and
warmly housed throughout each stormy or
wintry day, will yield larger return to their
owner than would twice the number reared
and fed at the same ccst-this is not so gen.
orally nor so fully realized. | believe, how
ever, that it is about as we'll understood in
Vermont as anywhere else on this continent.
Still, the fact that every animal poorly Kept IS
kept at a loss, and that the food furnished to
twenty cows at loss might be given to eight
or ten at profit, needs to be dinned into the
ears of the ignorant and the shlttless until
they shall be absolutely unable longer to dis
regard it.
2. No man can afford to gro,c poor crops.
can coneede the possible existence OF ex-
ceptions to this sound general rule. Robin
son Crusoe, alone on his island, might better
have grown ten bushels Of gram to the acre
than none at all. A tun of hay to the acre
is poor crop; but better fill barn at this
rate than let your cattle starve. And still
the rule holds good, that he who habitualy
grows large crops per acre becomes rich,
while he who grows scanty crops remains or
becomes poor. never yet saw half-crop
of grain that paid the grower day wages tor
tho time he gave to it. l never knew a
farmer who habitually grew poor crops with
out growing poorer himself. There is no
resisting the general rule, that whatever is
worth doing at all is worth doing well.
Now it is perfectly clear that Vermont is
not so we'll adapted to corn-growlng as Hi
nois, and that he who should undertake to
grow grain here extensively for the the New
York or Boston market, would mistake his
policy and probably lose money. No man is
fit to be a farmer who does not first consider
what crops are suited to his soil and location,
and confne his exertions almost exclusively
to those. But the Vermonter who under
takes to grow corn at all should grow it lux
uriantly, even though he should be obliged to
restrict his planting to half an acre. Should
his crop cost more than it is worth, the in
creased fertility of the soil may make up the
deficiency, while poor corn-crop leaves the
soil poorer, if possible, than before. When
the farmer has made all the manure he can
! and no one should give less than two months
per annum to increase his supply of the basis
| of all good tillage-he should begin by allot-
ting to his garden all that may be required to
place it in the highest condition, and then
apportion the rest to his grain crops, giving
an ample, generous allowance, SO far as he
goes. When he has scrapsd the bottom o.
his heap, then let him stop planting and SOW
ing He cannot 60 rod further without
loss To sell half his farm to buy manue for
the other half is an operation which almost
any farmer in the old States would find a
paying one to cultivate nnmanured ape
infertile land, never did and never will pay
If farmer will keep poor land which he ha
no present means of enrichlng, let him fence
the cattle out of it, to avert the danger o
their starvation, and get it into wood as sooI
as possible. Cultivate the first acre thorough
w before you touch a second; and when you
have reached the last that you can make a
fertile as it ought to be, there stop. Of al
ways of wasting time and muscle, runnin.
over land that will yield but half a crop i
the most inexcusable, because the testlmon,
to its perverseness is SO abundant and s.
glaring.
8. No man can qDora to bring up h
children in ignorance Of the principles an
facts ,chich undertie successful farming.
do not know that this truth is yet accepte,
by the great body of poor farmers if not,
must try to make it so. hear complaint
that our cleverer farmers sons dislike thei
fathers vocation, and | am not surprised tina
it is so. The father has unconsciously taugh
them to dispise it, as the least intellectual an,
most stolid of all possible pursuits. He neve
brought home book that treats attract lively
wisely, enthusiastically, of Agriculture. HI
has as general rule never considered al
Agricultural journal worth taking. He hal
not deemed it important that they should b.
instructed in the natural sciences which un
derlie and elucidate bis own vocation. HI
never made the latest improvements and dis
coveries in aid of Agriculture the subject O
of inquiry, of study, and of fre-side discus
sion. In his daily life and thought, farming