The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-08-08


ter is lost in this way, it is true, but a
large amount of available phosphoric
acid is secured very cheaply. We have
followed the practice many years with
profit. There are large quantities of
bone to be had in almost every locality.
Several tons are brought to us every
season by boys in exchange for Gull
apples; and we have just purchased
four tons of butcher for S15 ton, to
be paid off the farm. In this way we
are filing our soil with phosphoric acid
at very moderate cost.
A COMING REFORM.-The Spring
field Republican takes an intelligent
interest in many good causes, and in a
recent issue says
"The importance of manual training,
not merely as developer of hardness,
but as cultivating eXactness of thought
and steadiness of purpose, has been
recognized in Great Britain more
widely than in this country, where
with certain class of educators book
learning still holds its place as the one
thing essential. 1t appears from a re-
port read during the recent exhibition
of the Home arts and industries asso-
citation at London that upward of
1000 children are now being taught in
nearly 300 classes, chiefly by volunteer
teachers. An interesting exhibit of
the work done in these classes was a
feature of the exhibition. Drawing,
cabinet-making, wood-carving and re-
pousse work in brass and copper were
among the branches of industrial edu-
cation represented. 1t may be pre-
dcted with confidence that the train
ing of the hand, eye and brain at the
same time will shortly pass out of the
experimental and into the established
stage in this country"
"TELL THE TRUTH. MANY even
very good men are not as careful as
they should be when speaking of the
doings, beliefs and purposes of those
with whom they do not agree. Perhaps
Henry George is the man just now most
grotesquely misrepresented in the av-
erage newspaper, such as the one from
which we cut the following:
Henry George is said to have at
tanned competency amounting to $780,
600. The money has come from the
sale of his books and from his paper,
The Standard. He lives handsomely,
and has not as yet offered to divide
even his real estate with his less for
tunate neighbors."
Henry George is not a communist,
and he has never advocated the division
of anybody's property with "less for
tunate neighbors." His effort has been
to find out some way to prevent the ag-
gregation of large values of real estate
in few hands; and his plan (Which we
do not believe to be practicable) for
preventing this, is to put all taxation
upon land. This appears awful =" to
farmer, at the first report; but when
we look into it, we shall see that Mr..
George believes that farmers would pay
much less taxes under his plan than
they pay at present. The land in and
about cities, held for rise by specu-
lators, who do nothing but expect to be
enriched by the industry and enter
prise of others, while they sit idle, is
what George is after. This increased
increment" which has so enormously
enriched so many men and families, in
all the thriving towns of the nation, he
would make impossible by land tax,
which would absorb all the profit of
such spectators, and compel them to
sell out. He thinks keeping land in
the cities cheap would make rents of
all sorts so very much lower that the
business of the country would be done
at slight expense compared to the
present cost. Store rents and house
rents constantly increasing, and build
ing up millionaire's families, constitute
a large part of the cost of handling
farm products and other merchandise.
If these were reduced, farmers would
get better prices for what they sell, and
lower prices on what they buy, says
George; and the saving would far ex-
coed the land tax which would fall
upon them. Taxes being taken off from
all other things, trade and the general
prosperity would increase. We do not
believe there is particle of chance
that Georges ideas about the taxation
of property in land will ever prevail in
America, and doubt if they can be
made practical anywhere. Even if we
thought the contrary, and were ever so
much afraid of them, we would try not
to lie about them, as all "reform ers -
are lied about, and have always been,
by those who, like the Ephesian idol
makers, think they may be endangered
by novel ideas.
Agricultural Notes and Items.