The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-10
Some Notes and Queries.

Mr.. EditOr:-I have tried some of
your ways of work and find them very
good. Seeding to grass without grain
works much better than with grain.
Planting potatoes with harrow saves
a great deal of time and hard work, be-
sides keeping them down in the ground
where they will not get sunburned. A
little more work to dig them. 1t seems
strange that some farmers are so much
afraid to try any such ways. Some that
take the WATCHMAN do not seem to
know about the subjects that you write
on. 1 would like to know if the growth
of June-grass is an indication of lack
of lime in the soil. 1t seems that the
land does not return such crops as it
ought with a liberal quantity of stable
manure, and for many years the cows
have had great desire to gnaw bones,
etc. The soil seems to lack something
that is not supplied. What is the COM
parative worth of soft-wood or rotten
wood ashes to good hardwood ashes?
G. H., Worcester, VT.
REMARKS BY THE AGRICULTURAL
EDIToR.-The farmers of New En-
gland are still very conservative and
slow to adopt new ideas, but they have
made a considerable advance since
the days when they refused to use iron
plows " because they made the weeds
grows" which, by the way, was prob
ably the fact, since good tillage makes
better growth of anything that grows
at all on the land. Many who pasture
their meadows to death yet refuse to
make use of special fertilizers, because
"they are only stimulants which force
one or two crops, and leave the land
entirely worn out" 1t would take
long column to hold all the unfounded
notions that may be picked up on our
New England farms which will not
bear investigation. 1t is very rarely
indeed that man who is once well
imbued with wrong ideas ever gets
right ones. Nevertheless, the world
moves, and those who will not move
with it are sure to get left. Any man
can refuse to learn, but he cannot pre-
vent the other man, who does learn,
from getting ahead of him. knowledge
is Power.
Yes, it is more work to dig potatoes
when we plant them deep enough to
harrow over them. But the crop is
enough better to pay for the extra la
Dor several times over. We have had
neighbors lean over the fence and call
our hired man all sorts of a fool because
he was narrowing potato-field just as
the crop had begun to break the ground.
We have been at it for nearly twenty
years, and yet we do not know of a
man who has adopted the plan. The
same is true of planting corn in drills
and cultivating it level, instead of hill
ing. 1t adds at least twenty per cent to
the crop, but very few will try it. Grow
ing grass without grain is equally profit
able, but who does it? Speaking self
ishly, this state of things is great
benefit to enterprising farmers. If
everybody else farms as well as he does,
and gets as good crops and as good
prices, he has no advantage whatever.
But when he can depend upon nine
tenths of his neighbors going on in the
bad old way Of growing small crops at
high cost, he can be sure that prices
will be regulated by what the crops
cost the poor farmers. Therefore if
he raises bigger crops at less cost he
scoots ahead of these railing rivals like
steamboat from scow. sc He laughs
best who laughs last.'
June-grass, far from indicating a lack
of lime in the soil, grows best on lime
stone land. The famous bluegrass of
Kentucky is simply our June-grass
(I'oa Pratensis), but growing upon that
strong limestone soil it would hardly
be known as the same thing. On it the
finest beef in America (and that
means the finest in the world) is grown
and fattened. None who have not given
June-grass a good chance have any