The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-08-18
Farm and Garden Notes.

keeping the soil deep, rich, clean and
mellow upon the surface.
THE soil is the great laboratory for
converting dead into living matters
the useless into useful, manure into
plants, plants into animal life.
THE deep blowing of dry land, or the
breaking up and stirring of the subsoil,
promotes fertility by increasing the
power of the land to absorb water by
cohesive attraction.
ALsIKE clover is beautiful with its
scarlet blossoms, but not equal to the
red as forage plant. 1t is between
the red and the white in its yield and
in the size of its blossoms.
Now is the time for ministers who
believe in practical Christianity (and
Sunday-school teachers of the same
way of thinking) to impress upon their
hearers the fact that fruit-stealing is
sin.
GRASS lands form the basis of agri-
culture. These furnish fodder, the
fodder supports cattle, and the cattle
furnish manure, labor and all the means
necessary to thorough system of cu-
tivation.
SUMMER-FALLow is a remedy for
weeds and for insects, or at least can
be made so. Otherwise it does not en-
rich the soil. Resting can improve the
soil only when covered by carpet of
vegetation.
GOOD pastures are the good farmers
main dependence, and be should bend
every energy to make them luxuriant,
rich and nutritious. They should be
cared for, MANFRED and lined as well
as are the grain fields.
THE more cattle there are well kept
upon farm, the more manure; the
more manure there is applied, the
greater the product and the profit, and
the greater the means of sustaining an
increased stock of animals upon it.
CLOVER is less exhausting to the soil
than almost any other crop. 1t derives
nourishment from the atmosphere, and
its tap-roots, penetrating the soil TO a
great depth, break and pulverize it and
fit it admirably for the reception of
tillage crops.
WEEDS are particularly prejudicial to
crops in dry season, as they exhaust
the soil of moisture in proportion to
their superficies, or the surface of their
stems and leaves, some species tran
spring their weight of moisture every
twenty-four hours.
THE secret of making good hay is to
prepare it as quickly as possible, and
with as little exposure to the weather
and as little waste of the natural juices
as circumstances will allow. When we
are enabled to do this the hay will be
sweet, fragrant and of greenish color.
Mr.. j. S. WOODWARD of Lockport,
N. Y, has learned from the past win
ter's experience that mich cows need
little or no exercise during the cold
weather of winter, provided their sta
bles are tight enough to keep them
warm. This is a good deal to learn in
one season.
THE time has passed when there is
any necessity for a man being clod-
hopper because he carries on farm.
The calling of agriculture is consistent
with the highest intelligence, and the
farmer boy has more than an average
chance to make of himself an educated
and influential man.
PROFESSOR SHELTON says that while
most of the students of the Kansas
Agricultural College are sons of farm.
ers, many of them get their first lessons
in hauling manure to the field on the
college farm. The Kansas College is
doing good work. The students viii
take the lessons they have learned
home with them.
GOOD judges think that scraping the
bark of fruit-trees renders them more
susceptible to the cold of winter, anC
coating the bark with a shell of lime i,
of little use. 1t is much better to pro
mote growth by good cultivation or b,
a top-dressing of manure, and to xii
insects on the branches by direct attacl
whenever they may be found.
THE man who is raising colt for hi
own use will find it to his advantag,
not to pamper it, The colt that ha
"roughed " it on much pasture, plent,
of good fodder and hay, no grain at al
the first winter and not too much tn
second, with the free use of pastur
and field (even in winter, except il
time of stormy, water whenever h
wants it and plenty of salt, will max
by far the most serviceable horse.