The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-09-29

freshness.
Do not forget to give the cellars
thorough and effectual renovating be-
fore commencing to store vegetables
and fruit. Too much care cannot be OBJ
served in this. The health of the fam
lily, as well as the preservation of the
articles stored, requires this work
A STRONG weed growing near a stalk
of corn consumes as much food as the
latter and robs il of one-haf of its due
allowance. Shall we suffer it? Itnever
has paid, and never will, to cart manure
and make the land rich and productive
merely to produce large crops of weeds.
AS the early melting hens make the
winter layers, they should be fed so as
to assist the growth of feathers, having
meat at least three times a week, bone
meal daily, and pinch of sulphur two
or three times week. 1t requires
three months for hen to shed her
feathers.
WHEN we find these thrifty-looking
weeds, reaching away above our heads,
among our neighbours crops (and, to
tell the truth, sometimes even among
our OWN, we are always impressed with
the folly of buying and carting manure,
or applying costly fertilizers, merely to
feed these parasites.
THERE is a great deal of repair
ing on a farm that may be done on
rainy days, if one has room and suit.
able tools. Sleds may be shod, stone
boats made, farm gates made or re-
paired, fence-posts holed, sharpened
and got ready to use when an old one
gets rotten and breaks.
WE have seen a paragraph in several
papers informing their readers that
fifty hens would furnish enough ma
nure in one season to manure five or
six acres of corn. Writers who indulge
in the production of such utter non
sense should fertilize their brains with
little practical experience.
"THE farmers of this country waste
enough feed each year to winter as
many animals as they keep; that is, by
saving all food and feeding it iu-
diciously they would double their hocks
and herds" So says an exchange. 1t
is strong indictment, perhaps too
strong. What do you think?
IT must be very bungling farmer
who cannot afford to have from ten to
twenty-five dollars worth of shop tools
and good place to keep and use them.
The interest on such an investment
will be less than it may cost to make a
single trip to the village to get some
small but very indispensable repairing
done.
IT was the greed of money, the eager
seeking to be rich, the making haste for
tin brief, the disposition which urges
us to get money quickly and without
labor-that st. Paul condemned. Never
among any people, at any period, is
there a record of such an outbreak of
this moral disease as there has been in
this country for the last generation.
THE legislature of the State of Wis
consin last winter passed statute
making the state bounties to the agr-
cultural societies contingent upon i'm
perative exclusion from fairgrounds of
alcoholic liquors and every form of
gambling-an example which might well
be commended to the notice of the legs-
latures of some of our Eastern States.
THE Farmers Supply Association is
the title of an organization of farmers,
recently formed in Scotland to pur-
chase agricultural supplies, especially
fertilizers, from first hands at wholesale
rates. This is the right way to proceed.
Cooperative buying for cash in large
quantities does away with middlemen
and enables manufacturers to sell on
the closest possible profits.
To want to sit, after laying her litter
of eggs, is natural instinct in the hen.
If you don't want her to do so confine
her in a well-ventilated, roomy coop,
give her plenty of stimulating food and
clean water, shut her up with brisk
young cockerel, and in day or two she
will forget all about sitting, her comb
will grow red and she will sing a new
song" and soon begin to lay again.
The perfection of good tree-planting
is to do it when the ground will powder
and not paste. AS soon as there has
been dirt enough put in to somewhat
cover the roots, pull the tree up and
down little, to encourage the earth to
Jolt into every hole and Granny, then
fill in and pound down the earth as
tightly as possible. Prune out all the
weak shoots and shorten the stronger
ones.
PRICES of farm products are low and
we must learn, among other things,
how to cheaper their production. We
should remember, too, that for the past
| tWenty-fiye wears every labOrinU man