The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-11-12
Notes by the Way.

"THE income from sheep is always
sure, at least" says the Maine Farmer.
The loss to manure by exposure, es-
pecially by teaching, in tests by the
Cornell University, has reached as high
as forty-two per cent.
IT is stated in the Hartford (ConnO
Times that of the $4,000 sheep kept in
Massachusetts last year, 1900 were
killed by dogs-that is, one out of every
sixteen.
If the prejudice existing against
breeds that do not possess yellow legs
could be removed, it would permit a
much better quality of poultry to be put
on the market.
AS many bushels of corn, wheat oats,
rye and barley are produced in Yer
mont, per acre, as in the western
states, and the prices received per
bushel are very much greater.
LET your standard be solely the
amount of product, and count as moth
ing such immaterial things as color or
particular markings, or fancied beauty
of form or features, for they will not
produce butter.
Mr.. DEPEw tells the farmers that
they will profit who stick to their posts.
So many are rushing to the cities that
the food consumers are increasing
while the food producers are decreas-
ing. Soon there will be scarcity, a
heavy demand and money in supplying
it.
A PROMINENT citizen of this state
recently remarked that he would rather
know that there was to be made a good
road from ms county seat to every other
country town in the state than that the
state was to be interseCted by railroads
sufficient to carry its products and have
our roads remain as they now are.
IT appears from a statement in Col
mans Rurdl World, that tobacco waste
is so disgusting to white grubs that
they will leave strawberry bed on
which it is placed. Moreover, the APP
plication is said to have remarkable
manurial properties for this fruit. Thus
comes fragrance and sweetness from
the filthy weed.
IT is stated that North Carolina
leads all the states in good farming and
that fifty farmers can BE- found in that
state who make more dollars to the
acre, to the mule or to the horse and to
the hands employed, than any other
fifty farmers on the American CONT
nent. How is that, Brother Howe?
We thought Vermont was at the head
ln these particulars.
How great the difference is between
the quality of the Canadian and the
United States cheese product, Professor
Robertson, the new Dominion dairy
commissioner, has told us. Scanning
the comparative prices realized in On
tario and the state of New York, he
finds that last year Ontario dairymen
obtained over $4,000 more than they
would have obtained had their cheese
been sold at the average price realized
by New York.
WITH characteristic vigor the Con-
necticut Farmer is urging the enact
ment of more rigorous legislation by
the next assembly to protect sheep from
the ravages of dogs. The Farmer is
engaged in a good cause. The sheep
industry, once a large and profitable
feature of Connecticut agriculture, has
been destroyed through the ravages of
dogs. Whatever legislation may be
demanded to insure the better protec-
ton of flocks should be promptly
enacted.
WHEN the statement is made that the
Swedes are an inventive people, how
few there are, at least in America, pre-
pared to accept the statement without
at least grain of salt. Yet the state
ment is true. The monitor and the
screw propeller, now so common, are
he results of the great Ericsson's
genius. These are the greatest and
most important Of inventions, but in all
be range of inventions down to the
most unimportant Of trihes, the Swede
has foremost place.
No important domestic animal con-
yerts so large a ratio of the food it con-
sumes into meat as does the hog. One
hundred pounds of grain will produce
twenly-eight pounds of live hog, while
the steer lays on but ten pounds from
one hundred pounds of the food it con-
sumes. The loss in weight by slaugh-
ter, hide included, is over twice as
great for the steer as il is for the hog,
while the resulting carcass of the steer
, contains far larger ratio of bones and
water than does the carcass of the hog.