The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-11-03

creasing the productiveness of corn by
farmers generally that ought TO be. 1t
is as easy to raise sixty as thirty bushels
per acre.
, AT the recent Eastern Maine fair at
Bangor, Me-, nearly all the prizes for
Jersey cattle went to Maine breeders.
The breed is highly priced in Maine,
which is rapidly becoming dairy state.
STEALING fruit is a mean business.
A highwayman who meets me on the
road dark night, and, presenting a
revolver, demands my pocket-book, is
more to be respected than the sneaking
thief who creeps into my garden just
before day and helps himself to apples,
pears or grapes.
THE Brattleboro Phenir agricultural
editor says that a dairyman Gin that
county?) who keeps between twenty
and thirty cows, and who has reputa-
ton for making the finest butter, is re-
ported to have said, 81 haven't sold a
pound of butter for the last five years
for less than fifty cents"
A WESTERN editor has adopted a
rather startling style of head-lining in
his description of local cattle-show,
putting the name of the exhibit in bold
type, and arranging the names of the
] l. Ill.
! Thus we find "HoGs: DIR. James A q.
Wallace, Eben Norcross, Arthur jane
son-CALvEs: Antony Brooks, Rev.
Joseph Burbank" etc.
THE Androscoggin County Patrons
Mutual Fire Insurance Company re-
ports an issue of go policies during
the year ending September LIST, 1886,
covering risks to the amount of 1891
$4,000. This company is now carrying
risks to the amount of nearly 81 ,000,-
100000 at a cost of one-half of one per
cent for term of five years. 1t in
sures the property of none but patrons
in the State of Maine.
A NEW YORK religious paper says:
" A correspondent informs us that he
recently saw at county agricultural
fair, mot far from New England the
president of the agricultural society
driving a trotter in one of the races.
He justly regards such spectacle as a
very discreditable one" Bless your
dear soul, don't you know that three
fourths of our " agricultural fairs - are
got up, managed and run by horse
jockeys?
A recent graduate of the Iowa Agri-
cultural College writes to the College
Journal that he is now taking the prac-
tica course of life on fine stock farm
and that the knowledge of veterinary
science he received there saved him
one very valuable COW this summer.
He has also been so successful as to
make a good breeder of cow which be-
fore has always been barren. This is
the kind of instruction that will make
agricultural colleges popular.
THE editor of Farm and Garden
say: "Our squash vines have done
very well and are yet growing Wig
orously, yet not a single one of
them has the least connection with
the original root, which was long
since entirely severed by the squash
vine borer. We had noticed the in
jury early in the season, and covered
the growing vines to the length of per-
haps two feet each deeply with fresh
soil, which precaution has saved us the
plants by inducing the vines to form
new roots all along the covered
section"
j. S. WOODWARD of Lockport, n. Y,
recommends a mixture of rye and oats,
half and half, and sown very thickly,
for covering the ground with vegeta-
ton after the crop has been gathered.
Strawberry and raspberry beds which
are to be abandoned should be SO
treated, as nothing impoverishes land
faster than exposure of bare soil to
sun and rains. The oats grow rapidly
soon covering the ground, and when
they are killed by severe freezing the
rye continues to grow, making with
the dead oats fine coat to turn under
in spring.
THE Maine Experiment Station has
been Analysing wood ashes, and after
testing nineteen samples from different
localities reports that spruce and pine
ashes contained less than one-third as
much potash as ashes from hard wood
This comedies with the popular belief
but not with previous analyses, which
have seemed to show that, weight fol
weight, there is about as much potash
in soft as in hardwood ashes. The sta.
ton gives the average proportion OF
potash per one hundred pounds in
hardwood unleached ashes as g..
pounds, and in soft-wood ashes 36;
pounds. The phosphoric acid in a hun
dred pounds of hardwood ashes was
equivalent TO nearly eight pounds Of