Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-05-09

some kenaOnabIc Hints.
t'A Young Farmer" in the Boston Journal
Keep cattle out of the meadows in the
spring. l have advocated fall feeding of
moving land under certain conditions and to
certain extent, and some good farmers have
disagreed with me for so doing, but never
advised spring feeding of land that is intend
ed for moving. And do not know us l ever
met farmer who would defend the practice
or give any reason for following it, excepting
that the hay is about used up and we want
to piece it out" And yet, utterly condemned
as the practice is, you cannot ride n dozen
miles through any part of the country, be
tween the middle of tApril and the middle of
May without being likely to see as many
herds of cattle in meadow land often when
the ground is so soft as to allow the cattle to
poach it up to the destruction of the grass
and the injury of the scythe or the moving
machine which will try to cut it by and by.
In some cases it happens because the cattle
have been turned into the pasture before the
fences have been fixed up, but that is no OK
cuse. The cattle have no business in the
pasture at this season of the year, and they
have no business there at any season until
fences are SO built as to keep them there
Getting stock to pasture when there is not
grass enough to give them fair feed is as
unwise as allowing them to cut up the now
ing land. 1t spoils their appetite for the hay
and does not furnish an abundant substitute
for it.
Keep the cattle in barn and yard until the
grass in some parts of the pastures is enough
to give them fair feed. When the time
comes that you feelsure they can get good
bite, give them plenty of hay the night be-
fore and also that morning before you let
them out. This will be better than allowing
them turned out when hungry
Too sudden change from all hay to all
grass will sometimes prove a little dangerous
unless this care is taken. Do not have them
out too long the first day, but take them up
early, SO that they may find before night that
that they still have little appetite for some
good hay. (You should, of course, have lit
tie of your best hay saved for this very occa-
sion.)
This will make the change in the character
of the food more gradual 1t is a very ad-
cal change Mt the best, and especially. so if
you have not been feeding any roots this
spring, and is is no wonder that so many
cows have the "horn-a all and "scours." or
are liable, if dropping their calves soon after
this change, to be affected by ''milk-fever"
Also, if you have kept your cattle in the
barn, AS you ought to through the winter, do
not allow them to be too long exposed to the
cold spring rains. When such days come.
get them out late in the morning and in early
in the afternoon. If you have wintered them
on the lee side of the straw stack, or in shed
where wind and snow have had free circula-
ton all winter, you need not be so particular
Those which have lived through are proba-
bly, so hardy that little more ill treatment
will not kill them, or they are so near used up
by what they have endured that it is not
worth while to try to favor them now.
One bit of work which you may very well
attend to now, while you are waiting for the
ground to dry off fit for blowing and plant
ing, is an examination of sink drains and
cesspools to see whether the winters frost has
broken through them anywhere so that their
contents are leaking away into localities
where they are not wanted. l do not like
very well to see the wash water from the
kitchen sink running along upon the surface
of the ground, often pertaining the air with
an odor that is as disagreeable, and more un-
wholesome, than that of a slaughter house
But better SO than an underground drain
which discharges at almost every point but its
mouth and which is saturating the ground
for its whole length with its deposits of de-
caying vegetable and animal matter The
first allows its malarial germs to escape into
the surrounding air, and but part of it will
return to the house again, while its odor may
lead some one to think it worth while to clean
it up, and thus dispose of the nuisance for a
season. The underground drain, if not in
| good order, sends all its poisons generated
| by decay, back into the house again, not al
ways with powerful odor, but none the less
unwholesome because less disagreeable. The
| open sink spout and the uncovered cesspool
are bad enough, but the underground drain
and cesspool are foes more secret which may
| do deadly work before we know that they are
not doing that which We intended them to do.
Therefore beg of you TO clean them out
| and add the contents of the ono n the com
| post heap, and see that the other is a perfect
| conductor without break or leakage. See that
they do not have the least chance to leak or
overflow at any point where it may find an
underground passage into your supply of well
water. Look also that vaults and barn yards
do not drain their rich juices where they will
reach your well.
We boast of our pure country air and pure
water; we pity the unfortunate poor of the
cities who may not enjoy them; we read
with shudder the occasional statements of
| enthusiastic chemists who tell us of the poi
sonous adulterations often found in our food
and our drink, but honestly believe that the
vilest decOctions of the grog shops are scarce
| ly more poisonous, excepting in the amount
of alcohol in them, than the pure water
from the ''old oaken bucket" at many a farm
| house well, if it were taken for test at time
when the springs are low. Call at a farmer :
house for a drink of water at such time
and how often will he acknowledge that ''our
water does not taste good after it has stood
a while" How long will it be before the de-
caying matter in such water will make it Of
fensive to the smell?
We blame while we pity the sufferers by
the yellow fever last summer. because the
doctors tell us of imperfect drainage and i'm
pure air and water resulting therefrom as
predisposing cause, but when typhoid fever
goes through New England village or an
isolated farm house in our neighborhood, we
talk about mysterious dispensations.
kindred job is the cleaning out of the
cellar, getting out all decayed or decaying
vegetables and all the dirt which will accumu-
late in almost all cellars, the letting in plenty
of fresh air and as much sunlight as may be
possible, and the use of little plaster or lime
to absorb or neutralize whatever may be left
of impurity either in earth, wood or air with
in the cellar.