Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-07-10
OUR FARMERS.
SUPPLY THE LOCAL MARKETS.

cash sale. The trade has been devel
oped within a few years and the Gus
toners for these things include abou
all classes of people including farmers
The summer hotels require grea
quantities and altogether vast sun
of money is annually sent out of farm
ing centers for supplies, large share
of which can and ought to be pro
duced in the vicinity, for many of the
things shipped long distances to
New England market, right in the
midst of fertile farms, are grown
under no more favorable conditions
than exist right around where they
are purchased and consumed. Io
supply the local market with these
things in fresh and palatable condl-
ton should be the aim of our farmers
today, and is already the practice OF
our most successful ones. Of course
some of the things included in this
list cannot be produced here, for pine
apples, oranges, bananas and sweet
potatoes are not easily grown in New
England, and the earliest vegetables
and fruits will be obtained from ear
Iier localities and from lighthouses,
but there is no good reason why most
of the fruit and vegetables should not
be produced in New England, and
every egg and chicken required in
every kind of market in the New
England states should be produced
here.
1t doesn't cost much more to grow
an acre of early potatoes than it does
an acre of late ones, and yet the for
mer are always worth twice the price
the latter. 1t doesn't cost much
more, aside from the harvesting, to
grow an acre of Strawberries than an
acre of potatoes, and yet the former
are worth four times the latter. 1t
doesn't cost any more to winter an
old horse and no more to winter four
hundredshens than four old horses,
and generally the income from the
hens is eight times the income from
the horses. 1t doesu't cost much more
to winter twenty five lambs worth So
each in June, and wool worth dollar
per sheep, than it does to winter
sufficient number of young cattle that
will sell for 500 in the spring. These
take into account cost of
feed and labor but not the care and
skill required in the more profitable
methods of farming mentioned. 1t is
this care and skill that makes these
methods more profitable and those
farmers who will not exercise care
and skill had better continue to grow
staple crops, feed old horses and
young cattle, for there will be more
profit to them in these lines than in
strawberries, early lambs and poultry
indifferently managed.
We believe farmer in New Eng
lane, however energetic he may be,
Will have a hard time in producing
staple crops in competition with the
prairie farmers of the West and can
only do it successfully by cultivating
reasonably large areas by machinery,
poultry, dairy and sheep products
there is a local market for every far
mer of New England that should be
his chief aim to supply. Many small
country villages send away hundreds
of dollars annually for cultivated
large share of which
are sold to farmers. New England
villages can be named that send S10,
700 out of their state every year for
fruit, vegetables and poultry products
hat should be produced by farmers
living within four miles Of those viii
ages, and our summer hotels are
1oing the same thing.
To do these things successfully re-
1uires constant care and intelligent |
but that is necessary in |
my business that offers any prospect |
Of success. The person who produces |
hose farm crops and products that |
require only muscular or machine |
abor will be in constant competition |
with producers of the lowest type in
he most ignorant countries of the |
world, so far as the surplus beyond |
he requirements for local demand is |
and the price of that sur
olus in the country fixes the selling |
Price of the quantity used. The per-
on who produces those things which |
equire skill and intelligent effort |
will only come in competition with
people of like qualific ations and con-
litions, and experience has proven
hat the number of these is very small
with the number engaged |
n the coarser form of agriculture