The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-08-12
Deep Questions.

We take the WATERMAN. My father
took it when 1 was boy and have
always read it with interest-with more,
perhaps, since began farming for my
self-and l see that they all go to you
for advice. l want some. / have
few acres that cut good grass this sea-
son, / should say about ton to the acre.
Will it pay me to top-dress for next
years crop and buy the dressing, as l
have not the manure for it? The hay
we feed on the farm and make butter
and pork. Ashes do well on most of
our land. If so, what shall 1 buy, how
much per acre, and what will be the
cost? We cut hay and raise fodder
enough to winter thirteen cows and two
horses in good shape, but can pasture
only ten cows, having to feed them
twice day with hay or green fodder,
and | guess with more meal than we
can afford to buy. The cows are sta
bled nights; the manure cellar is tight,
and we make all the manure we can. /
find it slow getting along to live and
get anything to pay more than rent
towards getting out of debt. What am
I to do-keep wasting feed and fertil-
izer on an old pasture, Or keep my cows
at the barn all the time and feed less q?
L. g., Worcester, Vt.
REPLY BY AGRICULTURAL EDITOR.
Our young friend raises the great and
fundamental questions of ordinary New
England farming, which "will not
down." but continually try the soul,
especially of the indebted farmer.
Whether it will pay l.. G. to buy sta
bic manure to top-dress his moving de-
ponds upon the quality and cost of the
manure, and the value of the hay after
it is grown and made. 1t may be that
twenty-five or fifty dollars can be better
invested in hay than in manure. This
is especially the case where all the ma
nure made on the farm is carefully
saved. Hay at So or 81 ton in the
field, not too far off, we should prefer
to buy rather than manure at 81 load,
drawing the same distance, to top-dress
a meadow with. A ton of hay fed TO
the COWS of butter dairy ought to give
manure enough to raise another ton,
and it will do so if the manure, solid
and liquid, is all saved and got on to the
land in good shape, without loss. In
this case whatever butter is got out of
the hay, less the cost of making and
marketing, will be profit over buying
the manure,
Why should L. G. buy his grain? 1t
seems to us that he had better buy fer
tilizer, or ashes and fine bone, and
raise corn, barley or oats to feed. He
must, of course, find out what his farm,
or the different parts of it, will do
in grain production, by experiment.
Again, why should he not so change
his fence as to proportion his pasture
more exactly to his moving, keeping
no more cows than he can pasture, but
try to make as much butter as now by
improving his stock
If l.. G. has access to a good muck
bed he can very much increase his ma
nure pile by using it as bedding, after
getting it as dry as possible. A rough
shed is good place to store it while
drying. Ashes, bushcl to load
mixed with the muck, greatly improves
it. A good second crop of clover,
plowed under in the fall, fits the land
for grain crop, with little or no ma
nure. A barrel of good superphos-
phate to the acre, sown on the furrow,
will, on fair land, give good crop of
oats. BE particular about your seed !;
care in this respect will improve the
crop enough to pay for the superphos-
phate. The best and cheapest fertil-
izer for grass and clover is ashes. For