The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-10-14

purple of the lofty mountain ranges.
PICTURES AND MEMORIES.
What pictures and memories ride in this
lovely country leaves with you. You re-.
member a verdant meadow with group of
cattle and great green and scarlet NAPLES
flaming above them. A stretch of road bors
dered with goldenrOd, daisies MULLEN, silk
weed. Bouncing bats, live forever, and a
moss-grown stone wall into which hustles a
woodchuck with whistle of alarm and
along which scampers a chipmunk, his
cheeks protruding with beech-nuts-a ride
under two lines of lordly elms that inter-
lock their branches In solid arch of foli-
age over your head-a stream of water gush-
ing from the hillside into an old-fashioned
watering trough by the roadside, with a
background of white birch, princess pine
Tern fronds and crimson sumach-a turn in
the mountain road, under spruces and hem
locks, pines and cedars, with red pin cher
RES peeping through them, sweet smells Of
Dalsam and wintergreen in the air, and the
murmur OF stream dashing over its rocky
Ded hundred feet below. A mountain side,
sweeping grandly skyward, clad in all the
gorgeous hues of October. A bend in the
broad stream, with beach of silver sand
on the hither side, and beyond a painted
boat tied to the roots OF an oak, with cool
hooks under the shadows of overhanainp
willows and alders. A blasted pine upon a
mountain promontory, and an eagle that
at your approach, drops upon the air with a
spread of its great wings, and slowly circles
away toward the sky. An old New Eng
land mansion, with tall chimneys and pill
Jared portico, clustering locusts, lilacs, hol-
lyhocks and marigolds, level meadows and
clambering pasture lots" All things in
order stored; haunt of ancient peace "a
lake. cool and still, rejecting perfectly from
its clear surface the glowing colors of the
flaming mountain wall rising from its side;
farm wagon loaded with country folks,
going merrily TO the fair, who say Good
day, sir, as they pass; view from noun
tain brow of meadows and forests and cul-
tivated fields, white farm houses, red barns,
villages and SPIRES rivers and lakes, and,
lar away, the vast silver sheen of Champlain
in its magnificent framing of Green Noun
tains and Adirondacks. These are but bare
hints and suggestions of what ride and
ramble may be to one in these autumn days
in this surprisingly beautiful land.
THE COUNTY FAIR.
| AS you go about in the midst of scenes of
comfort and prosperity. fields of ripe grain,
| tall corn and wheat, busy harvesters, rat
thing reapers, tine roads and bridges, herds
| OF blooded cattle, tlOcks of sheep of royal
blood, horses of the most famous strains in
the, country, big barns, well-kept homes
and srhool-houses, churches, gardens, and
orchards fruited deep, you wonder where
those half-starved farming people and those
abandoned farms are. They are not in
ready evidence, and you must hunt for
them. When you go to one of the county
eyes changes to wonder and admiration at
what he sees, horses from the blood of
Black Hawk, Green Mountain Morgan,
Pocahontas Flora Temple, Ethan Allen,
Black Lyon, Lady Suffolk, Daniel Lambert
and so on; sheep of the Infantado"
Spanish Merino breed that are famous the
world over; Attorneys, Jerseys and Hol-
stems OF imperial pedigree; Cl. desdale and
Percheron equine giants Southdowns,
plump capons, tremendous beef critters "
| and RI ha lam
cratic presidents. You gaze with delight
upon pumpkins so big that the old rhyme:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had wife
and couldn't keep her. He put her in
pumpkin SHE'LL and there he kept her very
WELL" was not necessarily an exaggera-
ton. You see enormous squashes and tur-
nlps, beets, carrots parsnips and rutabagas,
cucumbers a foot long, tomatoes and APP
pies as big as your head, honey and
cheese and butter and maple sugar that
make your mouth water. You see WELL
dressed and prosperous looking people, fine
rigs and turnouts, red-cheeked country
maidens, well gowned and gloved stalwart
youths, bit awkward in their Sunday
go-to-meeting clothes, and stylish young
women and men home from boarding
school and college. There is plenty of fun.
The women discuss their jams and jellies,
and apple :" sass " and preserves, and quilts
and tides. The young men wrangle over
the respective merits of their stock and
speed their fast horses on generous wagers.
And all hands patronize vendors of pure,
sweet cider, with something added from a
| bottle that changes the odor and increases
| the ardor of the innocent cider to the ex-
tent of loosening the tongues of the old
folks on craps and politics in a susp-
cious manner. The small boys seem to be
well provided with funds to pay for a
dance on the platform, to the music of
money recklessly for lemonade, ginger
bread and peanuts. They pitch rings at
canes, nearly blow their heads off at lung
testers, break their backs at liftng-ma-
chimes, drop nickels into the slots of all
sorts of contraptons, listen in wondering
ecstacy with the monograph tubes jammed
into their ears. They slam the stuffing out
of the striking machine and fill up reck-
lessly with root beer.
ABANDONED FARMS.
AS to the abandoned farms, there are sew
eral points. First, if farm is abandoned
you will find there some reason for it. Un-
eXceptionable farms are rarely abandoned.
Second, the soil will yield fine crops, the
farmers have made money, and money can
be made now, but so many young men have
left that farms are more plenty than buyers,
and hiring all labor does not pay. Third,
the greater part of the abandoned farms are
farms that ought never to have been cleared
at all. The latter is the main point. In the
crowded condition before the Erie Canal
was opened or the great Western emigra-
ing was cleared for cultivation. The rails
ing of crops upon these lands was wearing
struggle for mere existence, and from it we
| derived the old stories of Vermont hus-
bandry, such as sharpening sleeps noses
for grazing among the rocks, pulling beans
with tongs, planting corn with a rifle etc.
The timber was thing TO get rid OF at any
cost---destroyed by burning-and fields two
thirds stumps and stones were cult
waited" The abandonment of these farms
/ il Dut "A reversal to their DrODer uses. the
furnishing of Vermont's immensely valuable
timber crop and the grazing pastures for
the tlocks and herds that are the source of the
princely revenue. There are abandoned
farms grown upto timber now that is " orth
more than all the crops ever raised upon
them, with the highest price ever paid for
them added. Among the exhibits at the Rut-
laud County Fair was one made by Mr. ID. j,
Etz, of Mendon, illustrating in the fairest
manner the possibilities of farming in Ver-
mont with judicious and economical manage
ment of lands considered practically worth
less for cnltiyatinn Tha town of Mendon