Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-09-11
Mixed Farming Best.


different from his condition before the war
as he is better farmer. Times will not be
always so hard as they are now, because
confidence will gradually return and bust
ness SO far revive, but prices will continue
low, and strict economy will be necessarily
more necessary than the younger generation
ever knew ito make farming pay.
In the old.times the " objective point of
farming was not speciality, or money
CROP" so much as it was to make a living
off the farm, raising and making by home
industry everything, as near as possible, that
the farmer and his family required for main
tenance and comfort. In those days farm
ers needed little money, for they had little
to buy. Food and clothing came from the
farm, and the small store bills were paid
with surplus products. Taxes were light,
and travelling that cost money was small. A
forehanded farmer might live in comfort in
those days without handling as much money
in year as of late he has often handled in
a month.
This comfort was the result of mixed
farming to AN extent the present generation
knows little about. 1t was then almost UNI
heard of for farmer to buy anything that
he could raise. The butter maker did not
buy his cheese the grain grower did not
buy his wooden yarn the cattle farmer did
not buy his fruit; the sheep raiser did not
buy his butter; and none of them patron
lied the ready-made clothing store.
The decrease of domestic manufactures
upon our farms, in consequence of the great
cheapness of factory-made products, is IA
benefit or an injury to the farmer according
as it affects him. If the labor that formerly
produced the clothing of farmers family
is now lost and produces nothing, then the
cost of such clothing procured elsewhere
makes him so much the poorer But if the
labor released from growing, rotting and
hatchelling flax, the labor released from
spinning and weaving, is directed into some
other and more profitable way, then is the
farmers family advantaged by the change
But if we do not find it to pay to grow
flax, spin and weave, we ought still to pro-
duce wool enough to Day for our clothing ;
and the female members of the family, if it
does not pay them to get out the spinning
wheel and set up the loom, ought at least to
find way to put in their time to profit
equal to that their mothers derived from
those time-honored implements of house
wifery.
Profitable domestic industry for women,
or some equivalent outdoor labor, such as
their physical strength allows, will have to
be sought in the coming time. And just
here comes in an advantage from the new
tangled labor-saving machinery which has
so much reduced the amount of "bone-
labor required in conducting the operations
of the farm. The mower and reaper, the
hay-rake, the tedder, the sulky cutivators
and plows, are all implements that require
skill rather than strength for their operation.
We believe it will soon be a common sight
to behold all these implements managed, as
a rule, by the women OF our farms, not
only to great pecuniary advantage, but
also to vast improvement of their physical
health.
But in order to bring about such change
there must be return to simplicity OF dress
and living "Housework " in old times
was simple thing, and rapidly dispatched,
so that the female members of the family
might get soon to their spinning and weav-
ing. Housework nowadays is terribly
complicated by the elaborate furnishing and
ornamenting (3) of our domicles, until many
farmers wife has become the slave, rather
than the mistress, of her house. Much OF
this is the result of an absurd social amb
ton, and more the consequence of childish
and uncultured taste for "gim-crack orna
mentation.
Simplicity may be brought back to the
home without returning to the baroness, the
GOODNESS or the inconvenience of old-fash
Toned houses. We can have the benefit OF
all modern Improvements and be the better
for them, inasmuch as they save labor Bu
those thousand things that make work hac
better be dispensed with. Let the womel
study how to do this and let them study
too, how to dress themselves, SO that the,
can walk on the ground without hurtin.
their feet and can take full breath with
out bursting their clothes.
1t is said that the machinery of EnglanC
equals in producing power the hand-labor o
four hundred millions of people. There il
no doubt that the use of farm-machinery il
New England has doubled the produciu,
power of every farmers family, at the sam
time wiping out much of the hardest work
or transferring it from men to beasts.
The modern farmer who attempts nike
farming has many advantages over his pre-
decessors, not only in easier and better
working implements, but in better stock an,
better markets, and greater variety O
marketable crops and products. Fruit, 70
example, even the most perishable, can nov
be prohtably cultivated upon FARMS Nc
only can potatoes be grown for market, bu
onions, and, near villages, many other veg'
tables. Poultry are always profitable. hiu
Ton sheep IN small fiocks, will generally Civ
proht, II well managed. Small dairie
where every COW is a prime one, will brin
more gain than large ones with sma