The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-10-14
Fall Work on the Farm.

There are many ways of managing
farm work. What every farmer wants
to do is to carry on his farm success.
fully, support his family, pay his dues,
keep from running in debt, and, if pos
sible, increase his property and income,
truly difficult matter these days. If
farmer looks over his expense &C
count, he will find that the three largest
items, as rule, ere for help, fertilizers
and feed Hence the study of every
one should be how he can best lessen
these three chief items of expense.
To study he must use his head, and at
this day it is not the farmer that can
do the most hard work who succeeds
the best, but the one who combines his
work with study and thought. We
must say right here that the man who
does not include in his fall work the
reading of some of the best farm pa
pers is making a great mistake. Prob
ably most of the readers of the WATCH
MAN who are farmers do read one or
more of the agricultural journals, but
we know that there are many farmers
who do not see farm paper from one
years end to another. These long
evenings are just the time to read up on
your business, and you will find 1t
great help to read with an interroga-
ton point in your head. Think of the
three expenses we have named, and,
when you find suggestion which ap-
plies, remember it. 1t is great won
der to us how any man can think of
farming without keeping well posted
in his work byireading the papers. We
find 80 many things of value every
week as we look over the farm papers
that we wonder what kind of ideas men
have who think it don't pay to take
farm paper.
Take your fall work. Do you do it
as your grandfather did, or in the most
modern wayP Do you know what the
best way is, for instance, of handling
the manure which has accumulated this
season? Are you going to put it in
small heaps on a field for the winter,
or in one or two large ones? Perhaps
you make a long low heap, but why do
you not spread it right where you want
it next spring? Have you ever tried
seeding down your potato ground in
the fall, or do you still grow oats and
seed down with them? Many farmers
grow no oats or small grain. Others
cut grain when green for hay. Have
you studied out which way is best for
you? Which is best for your land, to
pillow in the fall, or to do it all in the
spring? How many farmers have lit
tie or no definite plans about their
work, working their farms as their
wives do their crazy quilts or the chit
or-miss rugs. Business men do not
manage so. If they did, they would
be speedily pushed aside.
Many Vermont farmers will do lots
of useless work this fall. For instance,
few years ago the Experiment Station
printed the results of careful test of
four ways of preserving and using the
corn crop. The widest publicity was
given to these results, and yet their les
son goes unheeded by many. The les
son of the experiments was this: That
an acre of corn put into the silo, ears
and all, would yield 500 worth of but
ter. When the ears were picked off
and the stalks putlinto the silo, an acre
produced only $40 worth Of butter, the
butter being reckoned at twenty-five
cents. Here is saving of 800 per
acre with butter at this price, or saw
ing OF $13 with butter at sixteen cents
per pound, when the whole corn is put
into the silo instead of husking the ears
and putting in the slower Yet you
will see this done on many farms
throughout the state. According to
these experiments, it does notspay to
husk corn here in Vermont, especially
if you are going to hire it ground. The
acre of corn stocked and fed to the