The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-04-17
Editorial NOtings.

Editorial NOtings.
THE correspondent who recently in
quired for butter-boxes of a certain
kind is referred to Marvin Parmenter,
Rochester, Vt.
HEN MEDICINE.-An exchange says:
Mr.. William II. Yeomans recommends
and then ground as valuable adjunct to
food of chickens, hens and turkeys.
{ 1t corrects acidity or fermentation of
too much corn - Why not avoid Civ
ing them too much corn? 1t would be
much easier.
SELECTION OF Cows -No farmer has
any business with testing cows, as now
so frequently advised, until he has well
learned the art of feeding them. Until
cows are properly fed and otherwise
cared for, weighing tests are sure to
mislead, because the best cows will not
show their quality under bad feeding,
and are more likely to be rejected than
poorer ones.
JOHN GOULD writes us that he has
{" finished up his seasons work with
two weeks run of malarial fever,
which cost him ten pounds of the little
flesh he had left after his winters mis-
sionary work on behalf of the silo,"
extending, we believe, over some half
dozen states. But he promises not to
forget his promise to write few arti-
Giles for this department.
THE Mirror and Farmer says: "Sugar
beets make excellent feed for cows for
either milk or cream The beet and
other roots are not generally fed be-
cause farmers prefer TO grow corn,
which is cultivated so much easier with
out any of the STOPPING or hand-weed-
ing required for roots" This is the
general experience, but Mr.. Aitkin
told our dairymen at Burlington how
to grow beets without any STOPPING or
handwriting, We shall give an &C
count of his method soon.
ALFALFA. - Field and Farm says
that I" for milk and butter purposes
there is no native grass that can equal
alfalfa" Alfalfa is not a grass. 1t
belongs among the clovers, and pos
sesses no advantage over our common
clovers, except in being perennial
But in a cold climate, like that of New
England, the long life which distin-
cuisines alfalfa elsewhere is so fire.
quently ended by freezing that it does
not practically endure as well as clover,
and is therefore inferior to it.
PERENNIAL FooLIsHNEss. - Farm
and Home tells its readers that @ if YOU
dissolve bones by boiling them in a
strong potash lye, and then use dry
earth or leached ashes as an absorbent,
you get fertilizer or compost rich in
both phosphoric acid and potash. 1t
will contain also most of the nitrogen
which was in the bones.n This is all
perfectly true, but if time and fuel are
worth anything to the eXperimenter,
he will not attempt to manufacture
manure in this way more than once.
GOVERNMENT SEEDS. Senator Nor
rill has kindly sent US a package of
seeds from the department of our new
Secretary of Agriculture. These seeds
Purple-top Rutabaga, Sugar-loaf Cab
bage, Dutch Caseknife Beans and Sugar
Pumpkin-are not quite so new as Sec
rotary Rusk's secretaryship. They
have, on the contrary, the advantage
of being such as our oldest citizens can
endorse, on. the strength of lifelong
experience of their merits. But why
seeds only? Would it not be quite as
proper for the general government to
distribute among the people gratutous
jack-knives, boot-jacks, brushes
or horse-shoes-al of the oldest pat
terms, of course?
No PROFIT WITHOUT WORK. We
are told in print that an acre of fruit,
especially strawberries, will sometimes
pay better than five acres of grain"
That depends. A good many men have
tried planting an acre of strawberries,
and figured out rather heavy loss at the
end of their experiments. We venture
to state, on personal experience, that
whoever attempts it will learn that to
make an acre of strawberries pay any
thing will require as much labor and