Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1869-03-02
Correspondence
Vermont the first State in the Union.


Green Mountain State. "The Great
West" The Broad Prairies, with soil
many feet deep aud open winters, g. No
Barns for Cattle" fertile like Gar
den," ETC., have been sung so loudly and
persistenly, that the old geography fable
of 'sterile soil" is believed true descrip-
ten of the State when 'snow birds are
seen all the year round" Yet there are
many facts within the reach Of any read
ing man that give the lie to the big-eyed
romances of the West, and to the igno-
rant if not malicious tales so generally
believed.
The plain truth is, that Vermont pos
scsscs a soil throughout the State, which
even under careless cultivation yields more
per acre than that of most States of the
Union and much more per acre than the
prairie lands under the same kind OF care.
Turning at random in the U. 5. Agrl-
cultural Reports, we find on page o.
report for 1861 table of corn and wheat
yielded per acre, in the States of Vermont
New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois and Iowa, in which Vt. has the
highest average yield Of both cereals
All through the successive agricultural
reports for years the same fact is undenla-
bly, shown, the little "sterile soii' State
nearly always leading the list. Many
like the honorable nunbskulls who furnish
the nation with statistical reports, persist
emily account for this fact so strikingly in
favor of an Eastern State, as due to SUI
perior mode Of cultivation. Any well-in-
formed agriculturist knows that superior
cultivation" will not always give the best
crops of wheat Massachusetts,, Connect
cut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and
other States being much ahead in skilled
application of fertilizers, do not come near
the Vermont standard. Even in the West
where the yield peracre is annually stead
lily decreasing all efforts fail and many
have been made, to keep up to the old
mark. The conclusion is inevitable that
our soil is the best for wheat. Pennsylya-
MIA, under system of careful cultivation,
alone, of the great States, hold her own
she having peculiar soi--not like, nor
so good as ours, yet well adapted to sue
cessive yield of grain, if largely lined. A
thorough investigation of these aericultu-
raj phenomena, must convince candid men
that our soil is superior for grain to that
Of most States.
The West has its great merits of soil,
but among them We must not allow that of
superior adapability to the growing of
corn, wheat, oats or bar,ey. Vast guam
titles of grain grown in an immense terri
tory prove nothing as to the superior ca
pacity OF the soil for such grains, it is
only the quantity yielded per acre that is
test. Deep soils are of no account un-
less there is more power to bring them to
the surface. Eighteen inches are as good
as eighteen feet of fertile soil.
Every farmer in the State should read
carefully the statistician's tables in the
agricultural reports If this be done,
there is not citizen Of the Green Noun
tains who may not raise his head with a
noble pride which comes from sure
knowledge that his State tho not blest (?)
with Western climate, is yet the very first
State in the Union for productiveness aud
for the real value of its farming lands,
A few evenings over these reports, and
less time, worse than wasted, with N. Y
Ledgers, Mercurys, etc, will destroy the
romantic nonsense that sends so many mer
wandering westward to find gardens o.
bliss. So far as we can learn, no one
there has found the labor, troubles ant
trials of the tiller Of the soil less--tho
perhaps different in kind, than they arr
here. Vermont is certainly more healthy
with as great, if not greater, social advan
tages, nearer reliable market, less like
ly to injurious climatic changes during thu
most important seasons, and can grow am
crop adapted to its very strong soil with i
surety of larger profits than any othe
State--exccpting always the Pacific State
and those not more than equal.
The very same methods of tillagc fo
wheat employed in Pennsylvania. will
make two-thirds of Vermont lands sur,
fore the same grain and yet give twice al
many bushels to the acre.
Vermonters, grow your own wheat, ant
thus make your cultivated lands worth al
hundred dollars an acre and then if YOU
boys want the fever and ague badly you
can give them abundant means to enjoy it
with summer heat, drouth and "northers: ,
stmud and snow, snow and mudn winter
on any number of Western acres xxs
Il ---------I7-- .. o -r--------------
pExS HAVEN, Pa Feb. 10, 90.
Eo, NEwsDEALEn Away up among thu
mountains, in region so wild that thu
very wolves will not dwell therein, witt