St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-01-18
agricultural.
Agricultural Prospects.

| aSflculJuTlSt anu all OlueTS euSdgtu III
productive industry. For many years
the nation has been undergoing il severe
process of liquidatiug debts, casting off
fictitious ideas of values and, to use a
common expression, looming down to
hard pam" Al the outset of this revul-
sion, which was inevitable after the pre-
viOus years of an inflated and deceptive
prosperity, farmers were the first to
suffer, and the most seriously at
fected. Nearly every one was in
debt for borrowed money or for prop
erty, machinery, implements, or stock.
Prices of produce first fell, but the cost
of all things needed for the farm and
household, together with the price of
labor kept up, and farmers had more
than their share of adversely. Along
with the business troubles, came I'M
favorable seasons, fatal disease among
stock, and the "hateful grasshOpper,"
with other pests. But out of adversely
grew an improved condition which now
appears to have placed the farmer be-
yOnd the reach of trouble, and to prom
Use him in the future heightened sea-
sou of prosperity, should no untOward
accident occur. After the disagreeable
experiences of the past years we now
have good reason for congratulatiOn.
We are embroidered to act once more
with the usual native enterprise of the
American people. Circumstances of all
kinds favor this. The bottom has been
reached. For the past 20 years the
prices of many things which the farmer
purchases have not been lower than
now. Labor is lower than ever before.
Hundreds of thousands of laborers are
waiting for work, yet there is work for
every one. What a change for the bet
ter would it be if all this labor could
be turned at once to productive ac-
count Considering the vast amount
of work that is waiting to be done, the
necessary improvements of roads, fields,
buildings, tools, implements, and other
things upon which the prosperity of ag-
riculture depend the vast field in fact
which is opened up by the absolute need
for the best and highest culture of our
soil, and the most profitable exercise of
the farmers art, one is amazed as he
POWDERS over the results that might and
would be attained were all this labor
employed and all these improvements
set in operation and made. What fruit
full fields, where now are barren wastes
or worthless weeds; what wealth, where
now is poverty ; what pOpulous viii
lagos, where now are wretched hamlets;
what comfort and enjoyment, where
now misery and destitution prevail.
Here is the labor and there is the work
TO be done; what keeps these apart,
and binders the desirable result ? Ger
tainly every farmer in the land can do
something at this time to change all
this, and hasten the loOked-for pros
perity.-Am. Lyric.
FARM fSHoRTs."-Corn is cheap. Fat
ten and sell all poor and old cows and
get better ones for breeding and for
milk.
We ought to whitewash our yard
fences and out-buiIdings more, and our
public officers and great men less.
There are some things it never pays
to doctor. If you have sick fruit tree
of any kind, dig it up at once, and in 50
doing dig big hole ready for Il thrifty
tree next spring.
IfyOu want to keep your hogs, horses,
cattle aid sheep healthy, give them salt
regularly. There is no better vermi-
fuge than salt. Much of the sO-called
hog cholera is due to intestinal worms,
which salt would prevent.
THE STINK OF MANURE NOT TEST
OF It's EFFICACY.-The artificial appli |
cation of ammonia, or organic matter
containing it, to land as plant food, is
unnecessary, and every dollar spent by |
the farmer for it is Il waste-a useless
expenditure the results of my ex-
periments, which have extended through |
ten years, convince me of this fact. In |
what condition ammonia reaches the |
earth, | cannot say, but from the well
known fact of the immense deposits of
nitrates Combinations of nitrogen and |
Oxygen) it is no more than fair to admit |
the truth of what many chemists claim,
that nitric acid is formed in the air,
which In turn unites with another form |
of nitrogen (ammOnia) forming a harm
less salt, reach the earth by the ordi-
nary channels. There is no other source
for it, and hence the fountains fiOm
which all organizations receive their
supply must be through the falling rains
and soothing dews, instead of by every
sinking, rotten thing the fertilizing men
can get hold of, from rotten fish, putri-
fled blood, burnt cracklings, and every
other similar matter, which is palmed
off on the poor farmer as just the thing
for wheat, tobacco, cotton, etc.,-many
thinking that without the stink there
can be no virtue in it. God never gave
us such stuff for plant food. On the
contrary, he gave sweet, pure air, dis
titled water, the rays of the glorious
sun, and the pure deposits from the
plutonic rocks, doubly purified by fire
and heat. The stink is merely an evil
dence of the putrefaction or slow COM
bustion, the mineral matter or ash aim
ing toward the earth, and the gases to
their home in the air (hence the smelly,
to be purified and again returned as
water, carbOnic acid nitrogen and oxy-
gen, to bring into existence new life in
the shape of living plants, which in due
time pass into animal life, and again to
their old home, and so on.-Count,y
Gentleman.
The Abuse of Over-Shading.
such an unusually wet season as this