The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-02-10
Farm and Garden Notes.

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AN idea which is fast gaining ground
with practical sheepmen is that small
Hocks-comparatively small ones-are
the most profitable.
Do not depend on tariffs, or anything
outside of your own individual judy
ment and energy, to increase your in
come from the flock.
If an animal is well, he only needs
plenty of good food; if he is sick, the
wise course is to employ remedial
agents suited to the case.
To elevate the dairy business is to
adopt business methods, which means
that the farmer has no use for inferior
stock under any circumstances.
A BREEDER must not only have good
sense, but tact and good eye as well.
Form is a prime factor in breeding,
and yet some men of good sense have
but poor eye for form.
THERE are over two hundred silos in
Vermont. The great boom for the
silo has passed, and now is the time of
reaction and study. Ensilage is better
than the chemists make it out to be.
THERE are many places in pastures
where old brush or old logs can be
piled up and burned off and messy
knobs narrowed over and got into grass
and add to the value of the pasture.
Use plenty of grass-seed.
To 90 into dry barns and stables from
the cold and sleet of outdoors, and to
see the long rows of stanchions, and
stalls filled with well-fed, contented
beasts, must impart sense of pleasure
and satisfaction to the mind of any
properly constituted farmer.
SPREADING green manure directly
upon the land in winter is practice
that is being more generally adopted.
If the land is not subject to washing by
rains or melting SHOWS, there is small
objection to applying manure in this
manner for ordinary farm crops.
MANY keep their cows in the reeking
atmosphere of dirty stable, milk in a
slovenly way, and never half clean any
thing that is used about the dairy. But
how can they be reached and instructed?
They think they are clearly, and it
will not do to tell them they are filthy.
THE Rural Ne,o Yorker says: " From
numerous experiments we ere fully sat
isfied that two loads Of manure spread
now on a clover sod to be used for
corn next summer will produce as good
results in the crop as will four loads APP
piled just as the ground is to be plowed
for planting.
ANALYSIS affords no true guide to
the crop-producing composition of soils,
because soils vary so much the samples
analysed cannot represent them, nor
can analysis always reveal in what COM
binations the elements occur nor what
action is going on in the soil to make
them available or inaccessible as plant
food.
THERE is money in poultry. So is there
money in sheep, fruit-growing or bee
keeping. But it requires a practiced
eye to find it. The poultry business,
while needing but little capital in clean
cash for a start, cannot be successfully
carried on, on a larger scale, without a
large capital of practical experience,
combined with judicious management.
THE department of agriculture esti-
mates the increased value in the cattle
of Louisiana and adjoining cotton states,
due to the use of improved breeds and
crossing them on the native cows, dur
ing the last few years, at thirty-fve per
cent. During the last year the increase
in the value of every OK and cow in the
cotton states was from ten to twenty
per cent.
JOHN ALLEN of Lyndonville, Yer
mont, says, through the Manchester
Mirror, that his dairy herd has for
years averaged " three hundred pounds
of butter per COW, or a little better"
There are other such herds in the coun-
try, and there is still profit in such
diaries, Notwithstanding low prices.
Judge Parks of Passumpsic, VT, re-
ports like yield, with an income of
500 per COW.
Mr.. WOODWARD of the Rural Nelc
Yorker says that, as rule, barns are
built much too low. 1t is fact that
barn with twenty-four-foo posts, while
having only about fifty per cent more
room than one with posts sixteen feet,
will hold nearly twice as much grain or
other produce. This is owing to the
much closer packing of the lower part
of the NOW by reason of the weight of
the upper portion.
THE rule should be to equalize as
nearly as possible all the colonies in the
apiary, at the same time getting them
in condition to bring in the nectar from
the field in large quantities as soon as