The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-08-02
Editorial NOtings.

to agriculture to DIR. T. II. HosKINs, Newport, Vt.
Editorial NOtings.
GOOD reader, what are your ideas
about horse-rakes? We have pretty
much used up one Bay State" in the
past four years, and have stood in dan
ger of death or damage from flying
fragments of teeth about as long as we
want to- Are they all like that? A
neighbor bought new one this season,
and broke two teeth the first day. Can't
these teeth be more suitably tempered?
THERE is no more common mistake
made in newspaper offices than the
printing of "effect" for Affect" or
Uice versa. 1t makes nonsense of
sentence, when it does not reverse its
meaning. In every composing room
there ought to be a sign before each
compositor's eyes, reading Is it effect,
or Gfect?' -
Both the wild turnip and the wild
beet have hard, stringy roots, without
any of the succulence developed by cul-
ture. OF the latter, Meeban'S Monthly
for August says: "Probably few vegeta-
bles have been developed to such re-
markable degree as the beet. The writer
has gathered it along the shores of the
south of Europe without finding the
slightest trace of succulency,in the root.
Its development to the extent we find
it in modern gardens is extremely re-
markable." And yet there are con-
siderable number of culinary vegetables
of which the like is true to great ex-
tent. The wild potato is unedible in
all the forms now known to be extant.
The parsnip, too, has been developed
from the wild form in much the same
manner; and asparagus, rhubarb, and
nearly all of the melon and squash tribe
are in the same category.
THE same publication tells US that
English statistics, recently issued, give
the longest average of life to clergymen,
but next to them come flower lovers.
Gardeners are so nearly equal to clergy
men in a long lease of life, that slight
change in the average would place
them at the head of the list.
THE new agricultural editor of the
Mirror and Farmer is justly sensitive
to the charges of business incapacity so
broadly urged against farmers by city
writers for the press. Such incapacity
is not limited to any pursuit in life.
The lists of commercial failures, of
manufacturing failures, and the many
failures in professional life, all testify
that better training for men and
women in all avocations is highly
necessary in this trough and ready"
country of ours. But while the aver
age farmer is perhaps less likely to
make total failure in his business than
most others, it is quite useless to deny
that every one of us would be the
better for larger store of general and
special information than we at present
possess. We feel this on our own ac-
count, every day lin our life. There is
much, very much, that we don't know
which would make us a better and more
successful cultivator of the soil than we
ever have been. We lack both what is
called practical knowledge" and what
is called Observation-Disclosures" though
why the quality of any useful infor-
nation should be lessened by being
printed in book we have so far failed
to comprehend. But there is a good
deal of "daubing with untempered
mortar" in the everyday practices of
men and women in all the avocations
of life. -
The moral of all this is not that any
truth, no matter whence derived, is
worthless, but that its value depends
mainly on the manner Of its application.
Most of us are aware that we might
make better use of what we do know.
if we would chaw it over" more. 1t
is mental Incidence, quite as much as
ignorance, which binders progress and
prosperity upon our farms, as well as
elsewhere. In this age of strife, of
haste to be rich, every faculty is sharp
ened and put to use to the best advan-
tage by increasing numbers of men and
women. This works a wider and still
widening difference between those who
do their best, and those who are salts
fed with "just getting along" Things
are tending to that condition where
"just getting along is actually harder
for the man who tries it than pushing
things" The old proverb that "the
lazy man takes the most pains" is
growing every year more true. 1t has