Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1890-01-10

In an able editorial of a column in length
urging the farmers Of the West to stop the
waste of fertility, Hoard Dairvmnn saws
The knife that is cutting the very vital~
out of eastern farmers is loss of fertility
in their soil Any farmer who came West
thirty years ago readily notices the gauge
of loss when he visits eastern farms One
of the principal reasons that has brought
about the abandonment of the Vermont
and New Hampshire farms, which we have
heard so much about lately, mas been the
growing weakness of the soil
The mischief began way back wears ago
The old farmers did not make an exhaust
i've study of how to keep up fertility. They
did not go resolutely and inteligentlv al
work TO handle that soil so that it would
grow better rather than poorer If they
had done this we never should have heard
of the abandonment of farms One of the
chief points on which the fate of farm
balances is the handling of manure Thou
sands of dollars worth of fertility have
been wasted on almost every 100 acre farm
in the West in the past twenty-five years
Where the East is today the West will be
tomorrow, hguratvely speaking, if brains
and energy are not used to stop the waste
of fertility. Indeed we have the fact right
before us here in Wisconsin
This county jefferson is today one of
the most fertile in the state Its soil is
mainly a gravelly drift The condition of
the soil may be judged somewhat by the
price of the farms sold which averaged
last wear SAL an acre Netin 1870 the pro
ductiveness of the soil had fallen so low
under a loose wasteful system of wheat
culture that the average production of
wheat per acre was only eight bushels
There were only 5000 cows in the county
which consists of l6 townships each six
miles square The editor of this paper
then commenced the agitation of the dairy
The farmers have slowly come to under
stand the laws and principles which under
lie dairy farming, until today there are
about % 600 COWS Ia the county. Glover
has taken the place Of wheat the COW mas
supplanted the pillow improved methods of
saving and handling the manure are more
in vogue The best farmers are using land
plaster in the stables TO gather up the
wasted nitrogen and thus purify the air for
their cattle. In short there is an effort all
along the line to increase the productive
strength of the soil All this has been
brought about by agitation and the work
agitation has suggested with the result of
bringing up the fertility of jefferson coun
" soil, so that today the average yield of
wheat is about 10 bushels per acre
We have several times given statistics Of
production tending TO show that the soil of
New England especially that of Vermont,
so far from being exhausted, as many cool
people both at home and IN other states
seem TO believe. was never as a whole
more productive than at present We
have imported large amounts of fertility
from the West in the millions of bushels of
western grain that have been consumed
here. For the past fifteen years phosphates
from the South Carolina rocks, from the
bones of animals slaughtered in the great
cities, and nitrogen and potash imported in
various forms have been used literally on
the New England soil There is no ex
haustion of the land here not even deteri.
Grafton except in limited areas and this is
more than offset boy increased fertility m
other localities
While there hu, been NO substantial IN
crease in the agricultural population of
Vermont since $50 the number of mich
cows mas increased So per cent and the but
ter product more than 100 per cent Does
this fact show an exhausted soil