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

Editorial NOtings.
SoFT-SoAP.-F'drm Life says: "Soft-
soap, made with potash, has almost
completely gone out of use, and hard
soap, compounded of soda, has taken its
place: hence the suds are not so very
valuable" In this our contemporary
is mistaken. Potash soap is still made
and used very extensively in the wooded
sections of the country, not only on
the farms, but in the villages. But the
manural value of suds depends far
more upon the waste animal matter in
it, than upon its alkali, and it is always
very valuable plant-food, being in the
most soluble form.
DOES FooD MAKE FEvER?-F. ID.
Curtis says: Any kind of food which
will sooner or later create so much
fever in an animal that stiffness or
founder is brought on, cannot be the
best kind of food to depend on. Such
is the case always with corn" Here
is another blunder. No wholesome
food will cause fever, if properly fed.
The " fever" ascribed to corn is due to
the fact that corn alone is not we'll
balanced food, as it contains large dis
proportion of the heat-forming ele-
ments, and too little of the flesh
formers. Used properly, in connection
with bran, shorts, oats or oil-meal, corn
is a perfectly wholesome feeding ma
terial.
WHAT MAKES MANURE VALU-
ABLE.-It has often been said, but
needs constantly to be kept before the
farmers eyes, that the eXcrement of
an animal consists of the surplus of its
food after its bodily wastes are repaired.
The character depends altogether upon
the kind of food used. If the animal is
fed on straw, and barely exists and
maintains its condition, the manure is
nothing but straw, deprived of its
valuable soluable constituents, and is
therefore nearly worthless. But if fed
on wheat-bran, oil-cakes, corn-meal or
grain, and the animal is taking on fat,
the eXcrements contain nearly the
whole of the rich fertilizing constituents
of the food and are most valuable for
manure.
MORTGAGE STATISTICS. - We have
long been urging the importance of re-
liable information in regard to the mort
gage debts of our farmers. 1t ought
to be and can be cheaply collected by
the states from the records of the towns
or counties, but we get very little good
legislation from state legislatures, which
are too full of men whose idea of
economy is to save at the spigot and
waste at the bung-hole. But Uncle
Sam has taken the matter up, and an
amendment has been added to the
census bill, providing for the collection
of statistics relating TO farm mortgages
at the time of the general enumeration
in 1890. This should prove an i'm
portant feature of the work. All sorts
of statements, exaggerated and other
wise, are afoat in regard to the extent
of these mortgages, and reliable infor-
nation on the subject is much needed.
THE VALUE OF IRRIGATION.-Our
people are learning about this in the
drouthy West, and this knowledge
must in time affect the practice of the
East. Boussingault, the great French
agricultural chemist, concludes long
chapter on rotation of crops, manures,
salts of lime, potash, soda, magnesia
and ammonia in the following words:
" Irrigation is, without doubt, the
most economical and efficient means of
increasing the fertility of the soil, out
of the abundant forage which it pro-
duces, and the resulting manure.
Plants take up and concentrate in their
organs the mineral and organic ele-
ments contained in the water and
sometimes in proportions so minute as
to escape analysis; just as they absorb
and condense in modified forms the
acrform principles which constitute
but some ten thousandth parts in the
composition of the atmosphere. 1t is
thus that vegetables collect and organ
ize elements which are dissolved in
water and disseminated through the
earth and the air as a preparative to
their being assimilated by animals"
BONES DISSOLVED IN LYE.-Profes-
sor Kedzie of the Michigan Agricul-
tural College says:
"Strong I've will rapidly disorganize
bones, especially if boiled in the lye;
the osseine or organic matter of bones is
rapidly dissolved and they become brit
tie. If wood ashes can not be got in
sufficient quantity, bones may be fitted