Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-09-27

Today doing moro work than all the arti-
sans and arthcers on earth could do with
out 1t. Steam Is today mans most useful
servant; the horse and the OK do his bid
ding on far wider area but their relative
power is declining, while that of steam is
still rapidly advancing. To dispense with
steam would SGT us back long stage on
the road whereby we have advanced from
barbarism.
But steam has as yet rendered little di-
rect service TO the farmer. II should and
might have rendered much. Animal pow
er is not merely slow and ineffective in
comparison with this; 1t labois under the
capital disadvantage of being costly while
idly waiting through weeks and months
for the return of genial weather; whereas
steam engine no longer used or needed
may be oiled up and set away under shell
ter, where it need consume nothing until
once more needed. If steam were as cost
ly while in use as horse power, this fact
would render IL immensely preferable.
Never striking for higher wages nor for
fewer hours, steam will work INCREASINGLY,
uncompainingly from Monday morning
till Saturday night, asking only TO be fed
and drinking nothing stronger than water.
Our harsh, ca ,rcous climate, with its
late and early frosts, its long frozen and
then thoroughly sodden fields, invites to
the use of steam. l have known Illinois
and her neghbcrs to be visited by rain af-
ter rain in spring time, so that scarcely an
acre per township of plowing for corn had
been effected by the middle of May. Now
a. Il. II. Ill Iii a
thing invites to plowing and planting; but
there is hardly time to put in half crop
before seeding must give away to cultivat-
ing, and the planted area can be no further
enlarged. With steam plcws, quadruple
the present number of acres may be fitted
to receive the seed in week = and so all
the risk and loss TO which rainy season
in spring now subjects us may be obviat-
ed.
OF course, Now England will nevermore
grow all her own grain she can do better.
But that she might advantageously grow
more grain, and larger average crops Of it,
| l fully believe. The chief obstacle to her
grain growing inheres not in her climate,
nor even in the qualities of her soil, but in
| its vicious topography. An arabic, fertile
acre or so, with rocky ridge on one side
| and morass or sodden, weeJy brook mar
| gin on the other affords no scope for the
profitable growing of grain. Our eastern
| agrcult ture is too fragmentary-a thing of
| shreds aud patches. As 1 sat beside New
| England born farmer in Illinois, and look
| ed Off across his quarter section Of dry,
| fertile prairie, mainly under fence, asked
| him, "How much corn do you grow annu-
| ally?" "About sixty acres" With how
much belp?" "None." "What area do
| YOU plant in day?" "Fourteen acres" II
| would take man week, on an average,
| to plant fourteen acres hereabouts and
| then it would not be so well planted as by
the Illinoisian's seed-drill, dropping and
| covering two rows as fast as he wanted to
| walk.
Now the hilly, swam mpy, irregular surface
| OF New England is an unaterable fact, and
| as such to be respected. But while it can
| not be overcome, it may be modified. Here
are two strips of rich, arabic soil, with a
| swampy intervale separating them. Drain
| that efficiently, and you have field of
| TIVE I've or fifteen acres, all of which may
| be this year in potatoes, next year in corn,
,hor in oo,s ord thor ia;d doyr l., ,r,ss
or cronrod in ,yha,oyor roto,ior a, norjorco
NAV snccest n tho aroblo felds Of mi.
St,,o wero thrs orI,rood hv ,ho .wooninn
owov ~ roncoo tho ronov,i oI srnorfoia1
rooLs and ,ho dro,n,r, or hoos NH ,o,,
70 ro,t,. ,cro. mich, hn oi,,on - ono nro,,
ins,oaI ~ no,cS os ono ~ fvo ooros No. =,
rrosor, sho ,.o,,id ,.no.,, o.. "'
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