Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-10-23

has resulted in profits of estimable value |
and secured them which are priceless in |
exemptions from extravaganza, vice and
| crime. Man listening to natures sweet |
est voices has avoided much of the poverty
and many of the hardships incident to
other callings But within century
all the horsepower agricultural ma
chimes, except the plough, the harrow,
the horse-hoe, the machine for drilling,
and the reaper, have been invented. |
| Within the last fifty years many new
ones have been added, and the plough |
and the reaper vastly improved. Mil
| lions of capital is invested in the manu-
facture of those implements. Skilled
mechanics are employed by thousands in
this work, and it is a source of direct
income to the country everywhere.
| The Batcheller fork, unparalleled any
where in the world, has given Walling
| ford wealth and name as wide as two
hemispheres.
Science, especially chemistry and gs-
ology, have made vast contributions to
! the knowledge and profits of agriculture
! within the century.
Books, furnishing the results of valu-
/ able experiments, and extended ObseFYa-
| fions, in vegetable and fruit culture, and
in stock breeding from the best foreign
! importations, have been published within
| the same period. The first Agricultural
! society organized in the United States
will not be century cid until ten years
hence. They are now quite in thefashion,
! bringing. products of the farm, and work
| shop as well, into healthy competition.
/ Tie government has an agricultural de-
! partment, and agricultural colleges, IN
their unpromising infancy as yet, it
must be admitted, are endeayoring to
! bring more thoroughly disciplined minds
3! to many Of the details of husbandry.
/ And although it is hard TO believe that
! almost every new machine introduced 10
4 tighten the labors of working men and
| increase their profits has met With OPP
/ position, yet that they have overcome
| that opposition and been accepted proves
/ their value / venture to say that su-
perior knowledge and facilities will find
| in agriculture subject deemed more
| worthy of their best uses, in the next
hundred years, than they have found IA
/ the last.
/ You do better even here and NOW than
I the first settlers of this town. who pos
4 sibly strayed down from the east or
west hundred years ago, over these
hills clothed to-day in their magnificent
and Yariegated uniforns-S Scotch plaid
they are-which Vermont hills ever
wear in autumn These hills! How
] gFandly when the summer flowers
have all faded do they lift their
pIumcd heads to the royal skies.
sustaining more than natures floral
beauty, bidding defiance to wind
and storms as with elemental wrath they
attempt to write desolati0n upon the
{ u
sweet maple with its scarlet and golden
! pennons, and the black oak waves its
fiery banners from meadow land to the
J.. sholders OF the mountains through all
| the treacberous Indian summer, when
I the frost curls the leaf of the beach and
blackens the ferns-.Hhcn winter filings
its white robes over all the landscape,
. kthe spruce and heThlock shake the snow
to their feet, as the hunted deer dashes
the foam from his lips, and lay chaplets
| of everlasting green upon the rocky
fronts Of these giant sentinels of the
hand.
Possibly those earliest settlers came
I up or down the banks of this winding
: stream, which has discharged from its
full bosom, overflowing in its generous
: / spring-tide the wealth of your farms,
{ | until they found in those rocks yonder,
g which partly obstruct its passage, a site
for a mill to grind their corn. But how
/ ever all this may have been, very certain
7 | it is that science and invention, leaping
: from one thoughtful brain TO another,
r have introduced the improvements which
d helps the farmer of to-day to vast adj
/ yantages over the earliest tillers of the
soil in this valley.
l Yet with all this prestige, coming
from almost every source from which
Y trades and professions derive their popu
: larity, farming, in New England at least,
b is not popular Why not Few young
d men are willing to follow steadily in the
D footsteps of bonored and successful
x fathers in the cultivation of the soil
+ Wiz not ? The distinguished orator a
d your State Fair last September, pro
!, pounding the same questions, said tina
e one reason was farming did not pay
!. because farming meant poverty An
d other reason for this desertion of the
e soil, he said, was agriculture, rs con
s Quoted in the past, did not supply yonns
t men with either the intellectual oppor
n tunity or stimulus which they craved.
/ think these statements are calculated
to convey false impression, and are no
, ! the true reasons for so general a STAN
{ pede from the farms. Docs farming
2 mean poverty? / obtained the fact
e which am about to place before yo'
q from one of the most intelligent farmer
g and the leading merchants III Rutlan'
e county.
$ Take an average farm of one hundred
Q and fifty acres. The land is worth "a
> an acre, or $4,000. You sell from 1t II
i. one wear, seyenty-five bushels of corn a
1 nN ~ q N tu
e bushels of oats, at 81 cents a busliel o
II $40. rs. Twenty bushels Of wheat a
81. 40 per bushel or $685. One hun
: dred and fifty bushels of potatoes at A
d cents per bushel or $50. 90 These SUM
s net S177.65, leaving the interest on th
4 farm at 80 percent. $43S, TO $3.50. 30
The farm keeps sixteen cows the aver
! age price of each is $50, or $3.50 for thu
b lot The profits on the milk of eacl
!, cow are $40, or S640 on the herd. Tha
7 sum abates the interest on the land, anC
G leaves a clear profit of 1879. There ar,
a six in the family who are boarded from
G the products of the farm; calling eacl
!, person boarded 50 per week, amounts t
: 1896. This must be added 10 the profit
d of the farm which will swell the sum t
$ $3.50. Add to this another item. Six
It teen cows viii raise ten calves, which
d will sell in the fall for So apiece, or $50
f This farm also might produce pork
n above the cost of keeping-poultry
/, eggs, honey, apples, turnips, squashes
0 pumpkins and buckwheat enough tc
: amount to S175 more, giving us still &c
S add to the $3.50 already accumulated
! making total of $1535. There may be
il other profits cleaned from sources which
: do moi occur to me, for | do not believe
e that the capacity of our farm is fully ex.
S hausted, but after paying Z $40 pei
; cent interest, which is large interest
e on land, there is net profit of little
S more than twenty-five per cent. Now,
: suppose you have $4,000 or $1,000 il
r United States bonds at the usual rates
:, of interest, and groan, every night when
d you go to bed lest they burn up, or will
, be stolen before morning, or loan it on