The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-03-11
Notes by the Way.

ucts adapted to our farms.
THE manure, with half the cost of
the food fed, we continue to baptize
under the caves because our ancestors
did.
THE poultry house should be made
light with whitewash, and the floor
covered six inches deep with cut straw
or leaves.
NOTWITHSTANDING the scarcity of
apples throughout the country, some
300 900 barrels have been exported to
Great Britain.
GENTLEMEN, now is the time to put
blankets on your horses, and not leave
them uncovered, saying you will only
be gone minute.
WHEN hens are kept in confinement
and green clover is cut for them, it
should be cut as fine as possible; if into
quarter-inch lengths, so much the bet
ter.
How much does it cost to raise an
acre of corn, ready to cut up? That
depends upon the magnitude of the
crop, the kind of tools and the amount
of labor put upon it.
ONE reason for poor creamery butter
is that the hog-pen is always too close
an adjunct to the creamery. The drop
pings of milk-fed hogs, in time, create
a most disagree cable odor.
LICE will worry the hens in winter
as well as in summer, but the kinds
that exist in the cold season are those
that remain on the body, and not on
the walls of the poultry house.
A CHANGE in the draft of ten to thirty
per cent, which may easily occur as a
difference between good plows and
poor one or between good and poor
blowing, adds immensely to the extra
cost.
THERE are COWS which do not give
milk containing thirteen per cent solids,
but their number has been greatly
overrated. The average COW, properly
fed and cared for, will give milk above
this standard.
MEN who evade the burdens of taxa.
ton are not honest, and it should shame
them when they see the flag of our
country. They may be honest in
everything else, but so were Ananias
and Sapphire.
WE have thought so long of Ameri-
can greatness and Yankee shrewdness,
and have been so stuffed with political
taffy that we are like lot of candv-fed
poodles, totally destitute of all relish
for hearty food.
HERE is a good definition, from the
Farm, Stock, and Home: Consist
ency-a man looking half a day for
lost fifty-cent pocketknife and leaving
his farm machinery unprotected from
the weather all winter"
els it better to water cows before
or after feeding?" After, and give food
dry. A Illuminating animal does not
want its regular food in sloppy form.
There should be full mastication in
order to secure full secretion of saliva.
THE winter food most conducive to
abundant milk flow is cheaply provided
for by the use of the silo and bran,
with a luncheon of clover hay. Six
| tons OF silage Tor each Cow will abund
antly feed her from November to
May 20.
THE fact the English agriculturists
can produce more crops TO the acre
than farmers do in this country is an
evidence thai systematic and scientific
farming pays, and that in the long run
all tillers of the soil must adopt it or be
crowded out of the business.
THE very worst method of attempt
ing to start a balky horse is that of
pulling the head of the animal by the
bit, and it is a method almost univer-
sally adopted by inexperienced users of
the horse. The stubbornness of the
horse is only increased by that method.
OUR success in farming depends upon
our working only good land. We have
more of such land than we have good
farmers to improve the opportunities.
Let the poor land alone, or else make it
good. Unless it will pay to make it
valuable, let it severely alone. Good
lands are cheap.
THERE are thousands of landowners
in this country who never would
think of buying plants if not person
ally and perseveringly solicited to do
so. The enjoyment of fruits, which is
one of the greatest comforts and bless
ings of life, has actually to be forced
upon great number of them.
RAW food for swine is preferable to
cooked. Dry fodder is as digestibe as
green, and therefore as valuable for
stock food Slage will produce no
better results when fed to stock than
the same fed in its natural or its dried
state. A fodder is worth just what di-
gestible material there is in it.
SECRETARY WOODWARD of the New
York Agricultural Society says: my
cows say that green grass and silage
are more digestible and assimilable than
hay and grain. Those fed silage gave
more milk, more butter, consumed less
grain and sold for more for beef, than
those fed all the hay and grain they
could eat"
THE average farmer has mind
enough, but he is mentally lazy or
sleepy. If he only knew how much
undeveloped, unused strength he had
in his head, you would soon see in him
a dawning of self-respect, an activity
of thought, mastery of business
principles which would command the
respect of all men.
ENCOURAGE the boy, trust the boy,
-