Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1862-09-19

Vermont Stats nor Of Rutland County
Fair. A town fair, or @ town, village or
neighborhood meeting Of farmers to discuss
agriculture as a pursuit or interchange ideas
and suggestions concerning their own voca-
ton, was never thought of in the narrow
circle which bounded my daily life
STw IDEAS.
In spite Of The too general sluggishness
and inhospitality to new ideas OF the class oil
Door farmers, certain cardinal truths have
forced their way into the general mind, ana
will not be dislodgel. Among these, reckon
as important the following
|. No man can afford 10 keep indifferent
stock, nor 10 keep good stock poorly. In as
serting this, ] do not at all touch the merits
Of rival breeds Of cattle, nor assume that the
more re5ertly imported are better than some
that are termed netiTe. presume every
approved breed best adapted to certain To-
cality, to certain circ instances, go that the
conceded fact that the gross feeding Durhams
will present heavier carcass at two or three
wears old than almost any other, and are
consequently favorite on the Western pral-
ries-where grass costs nothing, and Is no
obiect-does by no means prove them the
right breed for Herkimer County or YER
mont dairy farmer. The Ayshires and Al
derneys which are admirably adapted to
family use and Tor butter-makers, are not
the thing for one who supplies milk TOR city
use, and necessarily cares more for the num-
bor OF his quarts than for the quality OF the
fluid. What il established and certain IN
the premises is this-ten or twenty genera
tions Of careful breeding and generous feed
ing will insure great improvement IN any
stock, so that each cali thus descended is
better worth SO to rear than oas who traces
his pedigree through an endless line OF hsli
starved progenitors, shIveriHs through sue
cessive winters under the lee Of rail fence,
is worth single dollar. Paying 81 900 for
a merino buck may be very foolish specula-
tion-it certainly is if you can get one as
good for Sl0-but paying 81 900, II you
must, TO increase in few years the value oil
a wool-clip Of ten or twenty tuns. some ten
TO twenty cents per pound, is wise and prov.
ident. Il is not every farmer who can afford
to grow either cattle or sheep for sale but
there is no farmer who can afford TO rear
poor animals when he might as easily have
good ones. And .his is one OF the points
which experience has established beyond fur
ther cayil.
.. No man can afford TO grO,r poor crops.
| can concede the possible existence or excep-
tions to this sound general rule. Robinson
Crusoe, alone on his island. might better have
grown ten bushels of grain to the acre than
none at all. 4 tun Of hay to the acre is q
POOR crop but better fill barn at this rate
than let your cattle starve. And still the
. rule holds good, that he who habltually
grows large crops per acre becomes ri,h,
while he who grows scanty crops remains or
becomes poor. | never yet saw halt-crop
Of grain that paid the grower day wages for
the time he gave TO il. | never knew tarm-
er who babitually grew poor crops without
growing poorer himself.
?. No man can afford TO bring up his ebll-
Grer m ignorance Of The pTInapleS and fats
rIlch uaderIe sueeesyfiH farming. do
not know that this truth is accepted BY the
great body Of poor farmers if not, | must
try to make it so. | hear complaints that
our cleyerer farmers sons dislike their ia
thers' vocation. and am not surprised that
| it Is so. The father has unconsciousfy taught
| them 10 despise it, as the least IN
tellectual and most stolid Of all possible pur-
suits. He never brought home book that
treats attractively wisely, enthusiastically ,ot
Agriculture He has as general rule con-
sidered an Agricultural paper not worth
taking. He has not deemed it important
that they should be instructed in the natur-
al sciences which underlie and elucidate his
own vocation. He never made the latest
improvements and discoveries in aid Of AgrI-
culture the subject Of inquiry, Of study, and
of fre-side discussion. IN his daily life and
thought, farming is as dreary and mindless
a drudcery as It can be to the horse 10 a
bark-miH. How. then, can he expect his
sons, II they haYe any aspirations beyond
hog and hominy, to like farming He has
given them every possible negative reason to
de test il.
Now do not hold that every man, or even
| every farmers son, should be farmer
/ There are other pursuits equally important
/ laudab,e, honorable. But do contend that
every farmer should 50 instruct and train his
l children that they shall at least respect his
vocation though they should not follow it,
| and understand its laws and processes 80
| thoroughly that they will never forget them.
| | would have every farmers son feel that, II
defeated in his chosen pursuit-Law, Medi-
cine, Trade, Mechanics, or whatever it may
/ be-he can at any moment return 10 the
vocation of his youth and earn therein an
honorable and adequate subsistence. He is
morally certain to prove more upright and
independent in whatever pursuit, if be enters
it with this well-grounded confidence in his
ability to live without it. But | still more
urgently insist that each farmer shall so
honor and esteem his own location, shall 50
render it and respect it as an intellectual
and liberal pursuit that his better educated
and mentally developed sons shall not despise
and reject it as fit only for oxen.