The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-02-24
Editorial NOtings.

LAST year we took the opportunity
to make a trial of some special fertiliz-
ers. We had tried similar preparations
before, but were unable TO notice that
they produced any better results than
an ordinary commercial brand. But
the past season we made competitive
trial, and satisfied ourself that Bradley's
special potato manure is really much
better for potatoes than anything we
have before used. Applied at the rate
of about 700 pounds to the acre, it en-
tirely paid for itself, over and above the
yield from an ordinary fertilizer used
in the same quantity and under like
conditions. We shall use it again. On
several garden crops-peas, beans and
sweet corn-a like application of Brad
ley's potato and vegetable manure was
equally successful. There is know
how" in the composition of these fer
tilizers.
In another experiment we salts
fed ourself that $50 pounds of nitrate
of soda to the acre on wheat will also
pay a good profit. We sowed it in
strips across the field on wheat, oats
and barley, and it very nearly doubled
the crop in each case. An experiment
with the German su'phate of potash on
potatoes resulted queerly. We sowed
a strip about twenty feet wide across
The field. The tops grew about the
same as the rest of the field as to size,
but were two or three shades lighter in
color-a real yellow-green tint. There
was no perceptible gain in the crop.
Other experiments make US doubt il
potash is needed on our land-yet it is
one of the longest cultivated farms in
town. 1t has not been very highly
farmed, but has, we believe, been run
most of the time as butter farm-very
little else sold off but butter, and some
stock.
WE are more and more inclined to
think that large number of Vermont
farms, on which the soil is lightish
need nitrateS more than anything
else to make them productive. The
loss of nitrates in the urine wasted in
our stables for so many years is telling
upon much New England farm land
far more than our farmers are aware
Ashes is most often tried, and generally
it benefits the grass and corn; but
when, as often, this fertilizer does moi
seem to benefit other crops, we think
the most probable reason is that we dc
not have enough of nitrates to make
up complete fertilizer. Purchased
nitrates are very expensive, and We
ought to see, every one of US, that the
nitrates in our manure all go back or
the land. But this is not possible, ex
cept by saving all the urine of oul
stock.
For the amount of labor and manure
put into it, corn is our most profitable
crop on dairy farm. 1t turns out the
butter, and butter is our one crop thai
does not impoverish the land-if We
save all our manure. Indeed, if tina
is really and fully done, there is M
reason that we can see why every
farm cannot be kept on improving, an(
increasing in productiveness. Butte
is the only product that does not carry
anything of manurial value from thu
farm, and it is also the only product fo
which we can, by making it nic'
enough, get fancy price-that is, {
price beyond its real nutritive value.
BUTTER-perfect butter, such a
brings the top price-is luxury; ant
it is bought and consumed without an,
reference to its nutritive value as food
AS food, simply, it is not worth on
cent pound more than nice beef o
pork fat The latter will fill the plac
of butter as mere nourishment, at on
quarter the price or less; but butter
eaten or used in cooking merely be
cause it, or food made with it, is NOR
grateful to the palate. Now, how fool
ish it is, when for this particular kind O
fat, nicely prepared, we can get four O
five times the price of any other farm
produced fat, that we should not full
avail ourselves of this truth, so long a
it remains truth. Butter, good bu
ter, is the result of labor-and not c
rude labor, but of skilled labor. A poe
butter, especially strong or rancid bu
ter, is worth even less than tallow
but it costs just as much, or nearly a
much to produce and market it as bu
ter that sells for six times as much.
THIS thing of producing luxuries o
the farm-products that are rated abov
their nutritive value because of the