The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1874-08-11

sustenance prepared for its maintenance
and growth III natures vegetable labora-
tory, and here | shall leave the merits Of
our animals and their products for others
to discuss, while | discuss some of the
principal OF our vegetable products and
how we can increase them Now while
we find our farm crops growing in the
soil and nourshed by the elements before
named, two Of their elements we find
never failing and ready at all times to
give maximum crops it the earth will but
do its share Hence on our land alone
we must depend for any increase Of our
crops.
We find as we look over our farms
variety Of soils and surface, and it has
been said that we are living on skeleton
farms, our fertilizers having consumed
the meat, and with due respect to tho
early settlers, we admit that it is in some
measure true. The early pioneer had
enough to contend with, many times, to
provide sustenance, schooling, &c., for
his family, together with his annual pay
ments and interest, though small 1t was,
to cancel the mortgage and secure the
coveted deed that would secure for him
the anticipated home for his comfort in
his declining years, without stopping and
looking about him to see what the con-
dition of his farm would be after the vr.
gin soil had lost its fertility. | have
often been told Of the enormous crops
that used to grow in this Champlain val
ley, by old people living herein, and
that at the time they were raising such
crops they supposed the soil inexhaustible.
Like ideas at this time are held by many
farmers 10 the West, but in the end their
land will become like ours, and must be
restored by intelligent farming to its for
mer productiveness, if we would get the
profit from it we ought, Now the great
question arises, How shall we do il?
And here we haveItheorists each of whom
has discovered the great panacea for its
restoration to fertility and they are many
times as blatant of its praises as our
quack medicine men are of their vile
compounds and often of as little worth,
What is wanting to restore our land to
its former produc.iveness Why, COM
mon sense tells us at once 10 put back
what we have taken from it, and other.
wise restore it to its natural condition.
How shall we do it? That is the great
problem. We will first take cur fiat
land, of which we have so much in this
valley, so rich in vegetable mold that it
was thought to be incxhoustible at one
time, and was even called a natural ma.
nure bed. But we find most of it to-day
unpTnductive and much of it only growing
the wild grasses, and those Of stnted
growth. Let us first examine the subsoil,
and if that is Of a tenacious nature and
has become packed hard by the operations
o. the plow which, gliding over it year
after year with the weight Of the upturn.
ing furrow thereon, has become so COM
pact that the surface water will not
penetrate but remain upon it, keeping the
surface soil saturated with water. Then
the water must be got rid Of first. And
here our undertaking friends will tell
US that undertaking is our only hope.
| think | hear you all say. That's SO.
Well | admit that that will DO it, but let
us see if with our present means we can
afford it, That is the question which we
must answer each for himself What
will answer for the rich amateur farmer
many times, will not do for US, for while
they are able to ride in grand carriages
with their three minute blacks hitched
thereto. We must content ourselves with
our plain wagons and often the farm
wagon with old Bob and Dick harnessed
thereto, and good servents we find them.
So with our land we have got to use the
farm team, so TO speak, to help us out
Of our difficulty, for when we estimate
the expense of undertaking we find our
purses will not allow US to do it, although
it might pay us back with interest even
tually have found that by working an
open drain 3, the base of the hill, paral.
lei thereto, adjoining our fats, get rid
Of the surface water in such a manner
that it leaves the land below the often
comparatively dry, and the superabund.
ant water hot being allowed to flow over
the surface and remain thereon, 10 the
winter the frost penetrates the soil so
deep that it looscns the subsoil so it will
become of sufficient porosty to absorb the
water falling thereon during our rains
and retain it for plant thirst during mid.
summer. The water being disposed of,
what next? We must manure. But
how can We get manure enough Now
right here is the great kew to successful
farming, manure we must have. There
is no commercial manure that | know of
that we can use to much advantage On such
land. Gypsum. SO valuable on some
soils, is worthless on our fat lands, and
lime is not much better as there is so lit.
tie slick for it to dissolve and prepare
for plant food. Now nature in growing