The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-10-03
Mr.. Douglas on Plant Food.

series discusses "Plant Food" and es-
pecially "the prodigal waste of ma
nures, quoting as a text Editor
Cheever's remarks: Your Vermont
farmers waste enough to make our
Massachusetts farmers rich" Ac-
cording to our own observation, this
waste of manure is not limited TO Ver-
mont or unknown in Massachusetts.
1t is everywhere, in fact; for it is only
the present generation of farmers that
has come face to face with the prob
lem of our weary land on a broad
scale. We say weary" advisedly;
for our New England farm lands are in
much the same condition as man or a
horse that is " tired out" by a hard
seasons work-poor in flesh and weak
in muscle. The man and the horse
may have been worked beyond any
practicable means of recuperation, but
this is rarely true of any land; and
much land that seems to be so worn as
to be barren is, in truth, but little in
jured. We have never known any
man to be smart enough, or lazy
enough, or to live long enough, to wear
out good piece of land, but many are
able to make it look, to an unskilled
eye, as though it had become quite bar
rem; and some men, who began by be-
lieving that the virgin soil of our rich
valleys was practically inexhaust-
ible," have lived long enough to come
to the conclusion that it is I" all worn
out" Both judgments are based upon
ignorance-very gross ignorance-of
how the world is made. Such men are
not farmers in any true sense. They may
know how to clear new land and bring
it under cultivation; they may know
how to plant, and reap, and gather into
barns; but when the crops begin to fail
they know neither the cause nor the
remedy. 1t is one of the infinite
mercies of God that what we cannot
know by nature he does not expect us to
know at first; and he only allows us to
suffer by our ignorance when suffering
will increase our knowledge. This
world is school, and on the American
continent the farmers who attend it
have been at it long enough to be pro-
NOTED into higher grade. If they
refuse to learn enough in the primary
grade to entitle them to promotion,
their fate will be to become the SER
wants of those who do-not as a pun
ishment, but for more instruction.
Mr.. Douglass discusses the practical
side of the question with the directness
of one who has not neglected the lessons
of experience, as taught upon many
Vermont farms, where the average
productiveness has been now mani
festly declining for upwards of half a
century. He says frankly:
cone of the first conditions of successful
farming is the provision of convenient and
effective appliances for saving both the
solid and liquid manures produced upon
the farm and for returning them to the soil
at the proper season. Plant food holds the
same relation to agriculture that bank stock
does to the business of the banker, or the
merchants stock in trade does to his bust
ness. The bank stock of the banker the
goods on which the merchant makes his
profits, the plant food with which the
farmer grows his crops, are each in their re-
spective departments foundations, without
which success is impossible. The more
possessed and employed, the greater the
fin oil hot
ter afford to waste his plant food than can
the banker his bank stock. The loss of
either implies bankruptcy, while their ac-
emulation is the evidence of financial sue
cess. TO waste the liquid manure of a
stock farm is equivalent to the waste of
half of the accumulation of our stock in
trade. The farmer, to succeed, must have
two objects in farming. He must not only
raise good crops, but he should also pro-
duce an abundant supply of material with
which to grow. succeeding crops. Like the
merchant and the banker, his stock in
trade and his productive capital should be
annually increased. With skill and energy,
he can avail himself of important natural
aids in his work. Among this class are
those which come to the assistance of all
farmers, whether intelligent and enterpris-
ing or not"
Our readers are very familiar with
this kind of talk. Sometimes we have
ourself got pretty tired of repeating,
year after year, what seems to be as
plain as two and two make four'
but it is by repetition alone that the
public mind is impressed. 1t is so in
farming, as it is in religion, politics
and every art. Progress is slow, and
they who take upon them the duty Of
instruction must not be impatient. Ir
due time they will see fruit; and right
here in Vermont we do see the fruit
in various styles of advancement
towards maturity, of what the agricul
tural press has been planting since i
began its work. The farming of to
day is far in advance of the farming Of
the last generation. There is no doub
of it; yet it must be admitted that gu
farmers are not yet, as a body, learn
ing as fast as their land is declining il
productiveness. A struggle has begun