Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1877-02-23
Green Mountain Grange Discussion, Sat
urday Evening, February II.
Questions should a young man with n,
TIED capital buy q fafln or hire onei

/
aus.stlOn, shoTld young man with linn
| ued capital buy farm hire ouet
Alter opening remarks by the master, e
l.. Hovey, Il. II. Stone of Wide Awake
grange remarked that he might as well start
the discussion as any one. Do not think il
advisable here in Vermont for young man
to buy farm. II might do West, but not
here. He had better work for wages than
buy farm, spend the best days of himself
and family trying to pay for il and
be obliged to give it up at last. Hir-
ing farm is not a very good Job
for the man who hires. He never knew a
man to get well off upon hired or rented
farm. Rather than lease or buy farm in
Vermont with limited capital, l would "Go
West" take claim, rough it a few years
aud get well oil, as a majority Of Vermont
men do who go there and work as they do
at home.
The master admitted that il was not ex.
actly proper for him TO enter the list as a
DICTATOR, but il was impossible for him to
keep quiet. lie pitched into Master Stone,
and the battle (of words) between them was
an intellectual treat to the full house that
listened to it. Some of the remarks we
think would have sounded better in the nails
OF Congress than in q grange hall.
Mrs. Il. V. Powers read an essay upon
the subject Are sewing machines a bless
ing in farmers famiies2 Mrs. Powers
handled the subject with the skill and good
sense that characteristics all her efforts aud as
we hope to present the essay in full in the
grange department Of the FARMER, we shall
make no report Of it,
Dea. j. G.. Hovey was called out, and in
reply to the statement that sewing machine
was as useful and necessary in farmers
family as moving machine was in his
fields, remarked that both machines were
curse to the farmers of Vermont. Thirteen
years ago he moved into st. Johusbury. In
the school district in which he resided every
member of the district but one owned good
likely yoke OF oxen 1.-THE best farm team in
the worldly Now there is but one yoke of
oxen in the district. Why is this ? The
moving machine is at the bottom of it. You
must have two horses to run the moving
machine, and the farm work, too, must be
done with horses thereafter, and the entire
expense Of wagons, harnesses and other
horse fixings and the expense Of moving ma.
chimes on many farms would put the entire
hay crop in the barn every year. The farm
er who keeps hsrse instead of an OK team
is obliged to slave himself drawing wood or
lumber in winter to pay for the extra feed
required for his horse team. Sewing ma
chimes, in the deacon's opinion, were like the
moving machine, an expensive luxury. The
extra goods it now takes for lady's dress,
the puffs and ruffles and all the ridiculous
appendages to modern ladies' attire can be
greatly charged to the sewing machine.
Others spoke upon the subject with interest
and profit
The grange choir sang appropriate songs
between the speeches and a most interesting
feature Of the evenings entertainment was
the singing by Master HOveys two little
girls OF an interesting grange song accom-
panied by their mother upon the the organ.
Questions were drawn from the "query box"
such as allow shall we make farm life pleas
ant ?" The comparative value of wooden
and tin buckets for sugariug," which called
out remarks from many present. ii. c. |
Woodward was in favor Of tin buckets, and
the deacon had 700 tin buckets that he had
used seven years, and were, for aught he
knew, as good as new. He would not take
the gift Of wooden buckets to use for sugar.
ing The meeting was well attended and
the interest sustained to the close.