Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-07-10

moderate profit upon the whole.
pom many farms there might be a
much greater diversity of interests than
there now is, with reasonable chance for
oetier financial results. The numerous
manufacturing villages of Massachusetts
and Rhode Island and the summer hotels
and hoarding-houses create demand for
many farm and garden products which
might be, but are not, supplied bv the
Farmers in their own vicinity, and make
necessary an appeal to the markets of the
larger cities, which i'm their turn are sup
piled by farms and gardens in localities
where land is more costly and labor more
expensive than it would be within a few
miles OF the place where the same was to
be consumed.
why should the express teams and
trains going out of Boston be loaded daily
with fruit and vegetables, meat and poul-
try and eggs, for the country towns of New
hampshire or of central Massachusetts, or
the resorts along the seashore, where land
is idle and laborers seeking for work in all
these sections? 1t certainly should not be
so, but it certainly is so, as an examination
will show. Can the farmers there grow no
other crops than corn and potatoes. and no
fruit but apples? Have they no one who
can take care of hens and ducks. raise
chickens and gather up eggs? Is it not as
easy to keep few sheep, and have lambs
and mutton to sell, as it is to keep swine
and sell pork? Are there no flowers in the
field or the forest which would furnish hon
ey for few swarms of bees? Are there
not boys, and girls too, who could find time
to attend to these specialties and who
would, if given share of the proceeds.
take an interest in their work that would
attach them more strongly to the old home
and to the healthy farm life?
Increase the size of the family garden
and grow greater variety of crops of such
sorts as the local markets have to send
away to procure. Get few sheep to run
with the cows in the pasture. 1t is an
old saying that pasture will better feed
one COW and six sheep than it will the COW
alone, and if this is not exactly true the
first year, the sheep will so enrich the land
and keep out the foul weeds that the soil
will soon be much better and the grass
more abundant. If accustomed to run to-
gether the cows will protect the sheep from
dogs, and the sale of wool and lambs will
prove a welcome addition to the income of
the farm. Build an addition to the poul-
try-house and keep a few more fowls
thpTn Unnb nd
keep strict account of the expenditures
and the sales. a good hen will pay more
money over her keeping than a poor COW,
and chickens and eggs are cash commOdi-
ties in almost any village, as current as
national bank notes, or easily converted in
to them.
Obtain few hives of bees. They find
their own food, and little attention daily
will be all they require, and in each one of
these hives will be from 10000 to 10000
busy workers, gathering honey for their
owner from the flowers of the field and the
forest. With the modern hives the labor
of taking care of bees is small. and the art
is easily learned, and within the limits of
the strength of boy or girl, with perhaps a
little assistance from older persons at
swarmng-time. a good swarm in a good
location can easily make twenty five pounds
of honey in season, beside what is need
ed for their own maintenance, and one bee
keeper has reported taking 800 pounds from
four hives. Somebody makes money in
growing these things, and why should
not the farmer who has land enough and
whose family need work and need the pay
for their labor?-Amcrjcdn Culticator.