The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-10-09
Editorial NOtings.

Docs VERSUS SHEEP.-A corresponds
ent of the Tribune says that ga dog
show in New York brought $780, 0C
worth of dogs together, and the little
one-horse fair at Hornellsville, N. Y,
last year, had dogs valued at 100000.
The posters didn't state the value of
the sheep exhibited; probably it was at
least the hundredth part of this sum
and | am told that the farmers almost
crushed each other in their anxiety to
see the dogs" -
ToP-DREssING GRASS. - Brother
Cheever, of the Ne,C England Farmer,
says:-" know of no better time to
use stable manure for top-dressing
mowings than Immediately after cut
ting and removing the hay in June or
early in July. The manure then acts
as mulch to the bare stubble and will
protect the roots of the grass from in
jury by drought. If rains follow soon
the strength of the manure will be
worked down to the roots, and, if a
good grass sod, cause heavy second
crop"
BUT there must be some grass to
dress. AS Mr.. Cheever well says:
"Top-dressing pays best on land well
set with healthy, desirable grass plants.
An old, worn-out moving in which
wild and inferior grasses predominant
offers little inducement to the top
dressing method of enriching the soil !;
such land should be plowed." These
are points that we have tried to impress
upon our readers for many years, and
we are glad of the support given by the
experience of so able grass farmer as
our friend.
A PERTINENT DOG QUERY.-Mr.
Henry Stewart wants to know "why a
dog has the privilege of wandering at
large over all CREATION so to speak
while sheep is to be kept on its own
er's farm" 1t is easier to ask than an
swer. He adds: "If the owners of
dogs could be obliged to keep their ami
mails on their own premises and pre-
vent them from trespassing upon the
property of others, the sheep would
have a fair chance. We could easily
keep enough sheep of various breeds to
supply our own factories with wool and
to ship abroad; and America could be
the worlds purveyor for wool and wooden
fabrics, as it is for cotton and its
products
FAIR COMPETITIoN.-An exchange
says: Farmers can not raise hogs to
compete with cottOn-seed oil, any more
than they can make butter to compete
with oleo." So? Well, the farmers
are in a bad way, then, surely. If it is
fact that vegetable oils and fats can
be grown and sold more cheaply than
those from animals, and can be made
equally acceptable to consumers, we
must accept that fact. But we strongly
doubt the truth of such statements.
Just as soon as an effective law is in
general operation, requiring adultera-
tons of butter and lard to be sold as
such,-and only as such 1--WE shall be
able to put this matter to a conclusive
test. We believe the public demands
pure articles of food and will not largely
buy any fixed-up substitutes. Let the
competition between the two be made
compulsory, full, fair, free and above
board, and we believe pure butter and
pure lard will maintain the lead in every
market, and bring remunerative prices.
MAINE RYING.-According to the
Maine Farmer, Mrs. M. L. Robins of
Winthrop, Maine, has for several years
managed the dairy farm and Jersey
herd which her late husband left in her
possession, and continues, as he did,
to make contributions to the exhibits
at Kennebec fair. She now keeps six
Jersey cows, and in June makes about
fifty pounds per week, and in winter
about forty pounds, as the COWS come
in fresh at different seasons to keep up
the supply of milk. In June she gets
twenty-five to twenty-seven cents per
pound, and in January thirty-two to
thirty-five cents. In June the COWS get
their food in the pastures, and in win
ter they have about twenty pounds each
daily of early-cut clover and herds
grass, two quarts corn-meal, two quarts
middlings and two quarts bran. The
largest and Oldest cows get two quarts
cottonseed-mea in place of middlings.
They are not fed at noon in winter
The milk is set in pans the old way
and sets from twelve to thirty hours
according to the weather,
THE MANURIAL VALUE of clover is
very slow in getting understood and
practically accepted on this CONT