Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-11-19
Notes from the Farm and Garden

Now that the fall work is done and the
farm cleared of crops, the next thoughts
are for the next year. During the leisure
days, when one may with great content
ment view his filled barns and bursting
granaries and cribs, the mind may be busy
laying plans for the future. Modern
farming differs from the old time ways in
this chiefly: that it is necessary to depart
from ruts and rotes, and sometimes leave
the road and 60 around it very widely. A
farmer now need not dread TO do this, to
depart from old fashioned rules and reru
lalions, and to lay out an independent way
for himself, When necessity drives, one
must move. 1t used TO be thought n reck-
less and ruinous thing to sell a load of
hay or straw from the farm. 1t should all
90 back on the farm, if only by throwing
it in great pile into the yard to rot
have known the farmers of locality to
prevent the establishment of Il paper mill
in their vicinity by refusing to contract
their straw mt fifteen dollars Il ton, and ut
the same time bran and corn-meal could
be purchased at less than twice that value.
Now, thanks TO the diffusion of knowledge
and some scientific information regarding
the feeding and manurial values of differ
ent substances, a farmer has greater free
dom, and may do as he pleases in this
respect; he may sell hay and buy bran
and feed his straw; or sell hay and straw
and buy commercial fertilizers. SO in the
choice Of creps; one does not now tie
himself down to any particular rotation of
CROPS. Corn may follow corn year after
year, and roots follow roots. have
grown my third successive crop of corn
this year, and except for the dry weather
in June and July it would have surpassed
the second crop, which was better than
the first. In this way weeds are destroyed
and the ground cleaned, and by growing
five or six successive corn crops, by the
help of artificial manure only, which
brings no weeds on to the land, the
ground may be made perfectly clean and
clear of weeds. If this should 50 turn
out, the discovery will be one of the great
est importance, for certainly weeds rob
the farmer of half of his substance in
many cases.
WINTER FEEUING.
The feeding Of cattle during the winter
is one of the most profitable labors of the
farm. When the value of the feed is re-
turned in the growth of flesh or fat or in
milk, or in any other way, and the manure
is left us profit, Il good business is done.
10 make manure should be the chief aim
of the farmer in winter. The plan | am
following is to haul swamp muck, dug Il
month ago, into the manure cellar, spread
the manure made each day and cover it
with two loads of swamp muck; IA few
shoveluls Of air Stacked lime is scattered
over the muck, and the next days manure
covers the muck, which is again covered.
In this way in about thirty days my cellar
forty by twenty-four feet, is filled four feet
Deep which is equal to thirty cords, or
one cord per day, from fourteen cows and
three horses, besides what is worked up
in the yard where the cows spend several
hours lying about and feeding on coarse
litter. BY spring there will be more than
two hundred cords made, and in that will
he the refuse of six tons of corn meal and
bran, two tons of cottoh seed meal and
two tons Of malt sprouts. besides at least
fifty tons of hay, straw. corn fodder and
roots. This manure is intended for ten
acres, and ii is hoped that very fair COM
parison of that with artificial manure en-
another ten acres may be made.
ARTIFICIAL MANUREs.
These are the farmers life-preserver.
When in danger of losing crop he can
save it by using fertilizers. After three
years constant use. | cannot help but
supply myself with two or three IONS each
year. They are ~ necessity. aud cannot
imagine q ease in which farm can be S o
rich, or farmer so well supplied with
but that n ton or more OF fertli-
zers would be found useful. In soilng
catte by feeding green crops, one cannot
well do without them. A field of oats,
sown all the same day, and MANFRED quite
literally, was dressed over, onc-half of it
with complete manure "a brandt This
half was cut twelve days before the other
was ready, and was fully one foot taller,
giving one.third more fodder, without
the increase in thickness of the
crop. Besides, their lasting qualities arc
much greater than would be supposed A
fourth crop now growing on land dressed
with complete manure shows distinctly
the broad rows over which it was sown,
and the division lines between the rows
where the fertilizer was thin are very
plain. So are the spots where each bag
was placed in the sowing; u circle of
deep green marks each spot where BAG
stood, and no manure or fertilizer has
been used on the plat OF three acres since
then. 1t will not be Il long time before
the use Of artificial manures will be
thought Indispensable .-Ne,O YORK. Times.