Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-06-01


we can successfully compete with our
Western cousins in overstocxed and fall
ing markets, presents a field for intelec-
tual as well as physical employment.
To substitute horsepower for hand
power, wherever practicable; to devise
and practice judicious systems of crop
production; to breed farm stock up TO
modern standards of perfection: TO select
and adapt that stock to the various uses
for which it is employed; to adapt the
rations used in such manner as to ac-
complish the best results with the least
waste of food and digestive energy: TO
adapt the productions of the farm to the
ever-changng and broader demands of
the markets; to crafty by an improved
quality the more fastidious tastes of con-
sumers, and thereby create a special de-
mahd' at high price, for the wares of
individual producers-these and scores of
ike details, which demand the attention
OF the progressive farmer, require more of
educated skill than our grandfathers
ever dreamed of.
In speaking of education as apple to
agriculture, do not mean that theoreti
cal brain-training of the schools. without
practical application; or physical devel-
opment, which educates away from the
farm and every other industrial calling.
refer to that combined scientific and
practical education, which embraces in
its scope sound physical development.
business tact and energy, which enables
the son to raise the mortgages on the old
homestead, and our young men without
capital to buy farms and pay for them.
This is the kind of education which the
present situation demands, and not that
kid glove variety which can spend more
money than score of past generations
have accumulated
But am not now discussing the ques-
ton of agricultural education. nor do I
propose to point out in detail Just how.
when and where this knowledge should
be applied; it would require volume to
do this; it would cover the whole field of
farm practice, in each and every DEPART
ment. l desire only to emphasize and
impress the importance of agricultural
Improvement, to show how it must be
brought about, in what departments it is
most needed, and point out some of the
means for its accomplishment.
The failures in agricultural practice
among us are not usually due to want
of intellectual ability or general intelli-
gence, but rather to the fact that the en-
terprise of our farmers has been directed
III other channels than that of crop pro-
duction, and the development of their
SOILS. Vermont enterprise is proverbial.
Our State has a worldwide reputation
for the production of blooded stock. and
III the various specialties in which our
farmers have engaged they have been
wonderfully successful. But not so with
general agriculture on the part of the
masses. The average Vermont farmer is
as proverbially unsystematic and waste
full of the elements of success in crop
production as our successful stock breed
ers are noted their systematic skill in
breeding. In this direction we must look
for the cause of depreciation in the pro-
ductiveness of our soils, and to this de-
cline in productiveness as the chief cause
of the decline in the market values of our
farm lands.
1t is true that over-production. cheap
transportation, ETC., have had damaging
influence. But had these been followed
by corresponding change in our agricul-
ture, their influence would have been
counteracted. The margin from improve
ment through the Introduction of i'm
proved systems for crop production; the
of labor-saving machinery,
which preceded and was the chief source
of over-production; the greatly reduced
cost of family and farm supplies; these
are broad enough to coun-
which have named. While these things
have necessitated a change in farm prac-
tice, they have not necessarily reduced
the profits of farming below those real
sale for farms at twice their present mar
ket value.
If we double the productive capacity of
a farm by judcious farming, we more
than double the net profits derived from
its cultivation, because of the fact that
the cost of production is reduced with ev-
cry judicious increase of yield per acre.
If we double the net profits of our farm
ing, we shall theoretically double the
market value of our farms, and the actual
increase in value would not fall much
short of this. Vermont intelligence and
enterprise may and should double our
present farm profits. 1t was upon these
that | based the assump-
ton, in my first article, that the present
low price of farms in Champlain Valley
results from causes which should be re-
moved, and for which defective agricul-