The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-08-28

larly as part of their food, but they
must have it as freely as their natural
instinct Graves. From salt the system
obtains essential material for both the
bile and the gastric juice. Upon the
latter depends stomach digestion, while
upon the former depends the assimila-
ton of fat. Besides this, salt aids the
passage of the albuminoids of the food
from the digestive canal into the blood
and to certain extent facilitates the
circulation, thereby increasing the en-
ergy of the vital processes. For this
purpose it is necessary to feed an ex-
ira amount of salt, which, circulating
through the body, performs its functions
as an aid to the above work and then
passes out with the urine, in amounts
proportionately to the excess taken. 1t
is found that when properly fed, about
seventy-five per cent of the soda and
ninety per cent of the chlorine in the
salt taken into the body are excreted
in the urine and dung of the animal.
BUTTER AND CHEESE.-Professo
Long, in a lecture before the Cirences-
ter Chamber of Agriculture, England,
said that ton of butter takes from the
soil 81 pounds of nitrogen, LIS pounds
of pbosphoric acid, and one pound of
potash, the total value of which he es-
timated at about fifty cents. No other
product, probably, takes so small an
amount of fertilizing material off from
the farm. Cheese is much more ex-
haustive. The professors estimate is
that ton of cheese takes from the soil
112 pounds of nitrogen, 1.5S pounds of
phosphoric acid and one pound of pot
ash-valued at about $40. When the
milk is sold off from the farm there go
with it, in addition to what is in the
cheese, 2.72 pounds of nitrogen, 1.S4
pounds of phosphoric acid, and 5.67
pounds of potash.
! IMPORTANCE OF THE DAIRY The
aggregate dairy business of the coun-
try is immense. Somebody has been
figuring on this and has made out that
there are ~, 000, 100000 invested in the
business in this country. That amount
is almost double the money invested in
banking and commercial industries. 1t
is estimated that it requires 100000
cows to supply the demand for milk
and its products in the United States.
To feed these cows, $4,000, 900 acres of
land are under cultivation. The agri-
cultural and dairy machinery and i'm
plements in use are worth over $780,
600, 900, and yet, representing all this
wealth, and these resources, there are
half dozen politicians, mostly in the
service of our great monopolies, who
have more influence over government
action affecting the interests of farmers
than the holders of all the great dairy
property. And they always will have
it, until the farmers are better edu-
Gated, and more united.
Do COMMON Cows MAKE Poor
BUTTER?-An orator at dairymen's
meeting referred to scrub cows " as
producing butter of such a poor
quality that it will not sell for much
over ten cents a pound" Now the
point is, whether this inferiority is due
to the cows, or to the cow-keepers.
We can remember when all the blooded
cows in America would not have filled
common barn-yard; but the same
memory also recalls butter as good as
we have ever met with since. We be.
lieve that the common American COW
is of as good stock as the common
European COW, and is quite as sus.
ceptible of improvement as the ances.
tors of the European improved breeds
AS this improvement in European
stock is quite modern, not extending
back more than three-quarters of 6
century, it is plain that only improved
feeding and careful selection is neces
sary, and the gain is mainly in this
direction. AS to quality of product
where good feeding is practced, there
is no evidence that any better butter il
made than can be got from the com
mon stock of cows.
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