The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-01-01
AGRICULTURAL.
UP TO DATE FARMING.

VI ~ LA l. " IL AMMAN W
The Agricultural College of Illinois
has during the last few years made q
practice of sending one or more mem
bers of its faculty to almost every
farmers institute in the State to tell
what scientific agriculture is, and, in
cidentally, to advertise the college and
its work. This brings the college to
the people it was intended to educate
and benefit. 1t interests the young
men and opens the eyes of those who
have grown gray tilling the soil. 1t
as proven great factor in overcom-
ing the peculiar disfavor with which
'book farmers have been regarded
by the old style farmer. These old
men are beginning to see that there is
something more i'll farming than
mere ploughing., sowing and reaping.
They are beginning to see that learn
ing creates skill, and that skill is
now necessity on the farm. The
day of the 10-inch iron plough and the
hundred pound 6-foot harrow is past.
The wearisome trudging after such
implements that made the bright boy
hate the farm is gone, never to return.
We have now implements that require
skill instead of mere muscle to operate
them to the best advantage. The
young farmer is now almost an en-
gineer. Instead of merely steering a
team of horses or a yoke of oxen across
field, shutting along after them in o
weary, uninterested manner, he rides
on the implement and manages it so
that he accomplishes from three to
five times as much as he could with
the old style tools.
The managers and workers in the
experiment station connected with
the college have thoroughly tested
most of the improved implements man.
ufactured, and have learned which
will do the best work and give the
best satisfaction in the widely differ
ent soils of the State, and they tell
this to the farmers at their institutes
so that they may buy intelligently.
Said farmer-one of those up-to-
date farmers who are sufficiently alive
to their own interests to keep fully
abreast of the advance in agriculture
81 have seventy acres of corn this
year, and it is yielding about sixty
bushels an acre. Last year it yielded
104 bushels an acre, but that was an
exceptional season. The corn is good,
ears large and grain sound. But
for a severe storm in July, that broke
down large number Of stalks the
yield would have reached eighty BUSH
els an acre. ~ asked how he manag-
ed to secure such yield season like
the past. "I'll tell you, "he replied,
"just how raise corn, then you can
see for yourself how I obtained such
a fair yield this season. 1 cut the
stalks with stalk cutter, ploughed
the land six inches Deep leading be-
hind me horse dragging section of
harrow six feet wide The horse
walked in the furrow behind me, and
the harrow broke up the soil turned
over by the plough, Two days after
the ploughing 1 disked the land set
ting the disks nearly straight then it
was planted three and four grains to
the hill, three feet apart After the
planting the harrow with teeth slant
ed backward one notch was kept 60
ing on it, until the plants appeared.
When about four inches high we start
ed the cultivators and kept them 60
ing, running two to three inches deep,
until the plants were too high to pass
under the bow. 1 disk after plough
ing to fine the soil and crush it down
into the air spaces formed underneath
the surface when the soil is turned by
the plough. Fred Grundy in Farm
and Fireside.