The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-09-15


feeds itself on insects.
THERE'S nothing like the agricul-
tural fair to educate the farmer. When
he sees the crowd tramp his big cucum-
bers and overgrown spring chickens
into the ground to pay twenty-five cents
to get in the amphitheater to see
horse-race that was sold out the night
before, he realizes the grandeur of his
profession.
THERE is profit in poultry as an adj
junct to the farm. Poultry-keeping is
one of the most profitable departments
of farm work when properly conducted.
Most farmers know this, and many take
fair care of their stock. But those who
are totally unacquainted with the bust
ness should take good care to get well
informed before embarking in it too
deeply.
Four years ago Mr. William p. Blake
of Oakland, Maine, plowed piece of
ground little short of two acres, APP
piled eight hundred pounds of phos-
plate per acre and sowed to winter
wheat. The next year he harvested
the wheat, the yield of which was sixty
two bushels, and has since cut from
one and one-half tons to two tons of
hay per acre.
A MODERN Shorthorn in milk has the
capacity to increase her milk flow but
little more, however well fed, and her
food goes where her nature and breed
ing design it should, to fat and flesh.
The Jerseys make nice beef, and fatten
in their way with little food but at
tempts to convert them into beef cattle
would be just as absurd as to make out
the Shorthorns to be good family COWS.
1. G. LIBBY, Maine cattle drover,
gives in the Maine Farmer this hint
about the Boston brighton and Water
town. cattle market " When we report
a short market with an advance in
prices of live sheep, if butchers will on
Thursdays and Fridays kill and for
ward for Saturdays and Mondays mar
ket, they will usually get good returns
if they consign their goods to honest
commission merchants"
" ALL the way through Arc ostook
county the Duchess of Oldenburg
apple-trees were presenting a thrifty APP
pearance, and were everywhere loaded
bountifully with fruit. Since this tree
succeeds so well, we are confirmed in
the opinion that other and more desira-
BILE varieties will, in time, be found
which will succeed equally WE'LL" says
and he has got hold of the right end
of the matter. All Northern New
England can and will grow it's own tree
fruits very soon.
IN order to feed the different foods
with economy they should be fed in
such manner that the different digesti-
BILE substances composing the entire
ration should be in certain ratio to
each other. In this way they protect
each other, and each goes to perform
that portion of the work to which it is
most admirably adapted. Give an ex-
cess of some of the substances COM
posing the ration and it will be wasted.
Remove the entire amount of some,
their places cannot be supplied and
starvation ensues.
"THERE is only one period at which a
healthy COW will secrete unhealthy milk,
and that is after the birth of the calf.
Such milk contains colustrum, and if
taken by young or by invalids might pro-
duce very harmful results" This state
ment is made by E. w. Martin, chemist,
the New York state dairy commissioner,
in the latter's annual report. But, as
matter of fact, colustrum is not I'M
healthy milk. 1t is peculiar milk, but
there is nothing injurious about it.
This nonsense has been circulating
long enough. Who has tried it?
l. hOf ESSOh DODD VI IOWd ltllo VI
row of chestnut trees on his old
homestead in Benton county which
were started from nuts planted eleven
years ago. The trees, he says, are now
from six to eight inches in diameter
and from twenty-five to thirty feet in
height. When four years old they bore
fair crop of perfect nuts. AS COM
parative growth, the trees are fully as
large as the ash, butternut and elm
planted at the same time and receiving
the same care. The trees were started
from some nuts Slightly dried) bought
in grocery.
AFTER thirty years. trial of the plan
of keeping up the soil by buying village
manure and commercial fertilizers,
Waldo F. Brown of New Jersey found
this course too expensive, and adopted
the plan of making the farm supply its
own fertilizers, and is pleased with the
! ,oe,,1t JIa lows down tho follou;pc, n