The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-08-06
Editorial NOtings.

NOtthRcs
THAT intelligent stockman, Editor
Fust of the Montreal Journal of Agri-
culture, referring to the dog plague in
New England, says: " A pretty state of
things, that a man can not keep sheep
on account of the dogsl No wonder the
Vermont farms are for sale by the thou
sand at low prices!" That is just the
size of it, Brother Fust; and yet the
majority of our voters and of our legis-
lature are farmers, and could proftably
keep sheep if it were not for dogs.
The only hope, however, is in some of
our lawyers or business men in the
legislature taking the matter up. AS
for the farmers, the only thing they
seem to think about is low taxes, which
means poor schools, to turn out new
generation of the same ways of think
ing, and poor roads for them to ride
over.
WE note that Mr.. Fust thinks corn
stubble great nuisance, as it makes
rough work and great deal of trouble
to fit the field for root crop the next
season. Try planting potatoes after
corn, Brother Fust, blowing the stub
BILE well under. Those rough stumps
of corn make Just the food for the
potato to flourish on. If you dig them
yourself, you will notice that every hill
in which there is bunch of corn stub
BILE will have the biggest and incest
potatoes. The neTt year the land will
be all right for your turnips and
mangels.
THE farmers dog is we'll defended
in another column by our friend Paine.
Conceding all he claims for the good
dogs (and we have owned such our
self, we think the frequent accounts
of the depredations of dogs upon sheep
prove that great many people are
kept out of the sheep business by them.
OF course if there are no sheep-killing
dogs near Mr.. Paine, and his neighbors
have not suffered in that way, they
might think as he reports. But many
others think very differently, and we
believe that if any other half-tamed
carnivorous animal, large enough to Stay
or harrass cows as dogs do sheep, were to
be introduced into Vermont and turned
loose there would be big row about
it right off. We are all accustomed
to having dogs around, and many of us
have become attached to certain good
dogs. So the public have come to look
upon them as a necessary evil When
farming was more profitable this evil
might be endured, but now, when the
almost universal cry is that farming
don't pay, we ought not to allow any
unnecessary hindrances to exist. If
our people were taxed outright, in a
cash payment collected by public
officer, the amount of their share of the
total loss of this state by dogs, there
would be an anti-dog movement that
would sweep them out of the state.
But as it is uncertain where the loss
will fall, we all run for luck, rather
than make a fuss. But that is not
business.
THERE are certain drawbacks about
what we call free government. 1t
tends to become altogether too free for
lawless and selfish citizens, and Just in
that proportion it becomes the opposite
of free to those who suffer from them.
An absolute government would put its
heavy hand on the transgressor, and
make him respect his neighbours rights.
In America an evil has to become ut
terly intolerable before anything is
done to end it; and then, if influential
people are interested in perpetuating it,
they can hinder and obstruct the opera
ton of the law, until they wear out the
hope and patience of those for whose
good it was framed.
SOME editors seem to have notion
that farmers will not read an article
more than dozen lines long, and they
make their paper all hash" Long
winded" articles may not be liked, but
usually it is more because of their wind
than of their length.
"WHAT ails the oats?" has been the
inquiry over large extent of country
this year. We ourself called it rust
while most of our neighbors said worms
did it. 1t seems, from the following
report of Professor Halsted, published
in Garden and Forest, that our neigh
bors were right; but, considering The
fact that it requires microscope to SCI
the little wrigglers, they were certainl,
sharp-eyed. 1t may be interesting tt
add that these nematoid worms are o
the same class as the better known