Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1905-06-27


wv. c. Whitman. Turner Center, Me-, in New
England Farmer)
Among the many things farmers have
to contend with in New England, We
have first, Nature. The land is more oI
less rough and stony. Our fathers in
their efforts to better their condition
have many times piled these stones into
fences dividing the land into small lots.
remember hearing them say when
was boy, "to get the stones out of the
way" AS nearly all farm operations
were then carried on by hand labor these
interior fences were not SO serious an
obstruction as they now are. The man
with the hoe could not cultivate large
areas but he could easily transport the
hoe from place to place; so the practice
of. .cultivating small patches of land here
and there as chance might direct has
been handed down to the present time,
a time of great scarcity of farm labor
making necessary the use of machinery
in every farm operation possible. 1.-THE
man with the hoe and the method of
the past are obsolete. This is the age
of machinery. That it may be used sue
cessfully interior fences and other OBJ
structions must be removed so that the
distance we may drive our machines
shall be limited only by the amount of
our arabic land and instead of cultivat-
ing so many small scattered pieces OF
land have the area under cultivation If
possible in one piece and save the in-
Vulnerable turnings of the teams and the
moving implements from place to place
made obligatory by the many small
plots.
In our community the keeping of live
stock is the base of all our agriculture.
The custom is almost universal here TO
keep all the animals our land will main
tain and those creatures save the neces-
sary teams are almost wholly dairy stock,
the cream going to the creameries.
Every day the cream collector gets our
cream and leaves a record of the amount
taken. At the end of the month the
reports the percentage of
fat found in the cream and the two put
together give us the gross earnings OF
our herds. We venture the assertion
that not one in ten of our dairymen ever
stops to compare this sum with the cost
of keeping the herd, and knows whether
the business is run at a profit or loss.
Would il not be we'll for us TO give this
matter some attention? Granting that
the balance of the account is on the
right side may we not by judicious Selec-
ton make the herd more profitable?
Cows vary widely in the amount OF milk
produced and the quality OF the milk
varies as widely as the quantity; while
the better ones pay good profit the
other end of the herd is kept at loss,
the poor eating up the earnings OF the
GOOD. The scales and the Babcock
machines, if used, will tell us which
members of the herd are bread winners
and which are boarders. But Babcock
testers are almost as scarce in our COM
munity as feathers on toads' backs.
Our institute workers and dairy instruct
ors have labOred with us and tried to
have us use better business methods, to
use these simple and inexpensive ma
chimes and weed out our Improbable
stock; but for the most part 'the seed
has fallen on stony ground" We say,
in effect, that it is some trouble and the
counsel is unheeded. Which is the more
trouble, to weigh and test each cows
milk a few times each month or to pro-
duce and harvest crops to maintain AMI
mails that are kept at loss? IL all the
unavoidable COWS in our town should be
sent to the butchers thousands of dol
lars would be saved to the dairymen
each year.
Our own and surrounding towns are
large producers of fruit, mainly apples.
Thousands of barrels are yearly shipped
10 market from these towns. We have
abundant supplies of timber suitable
for cooperage but the stock from which
our apple barrels are made comes most
lv from the west and costs the farmers
when ready for use about 40 cents per
barrel, while were our timber utilized
the cost would be at least one-third less.
But in spite of all our bad practices
and poor business methods we do pro-
gress slowly. We visited the World S
fair at st. Louis last fall and as we
iourneyed we observed the general ap-
pearance of the country and we were sur
prised 70 note that the farmers living IN
the more favored western states do not, to
the casual observer, show more thrift
than do the farmers of New England.
Our farm buildings are as good and our
crops as abundant as those of any sec
ton we passed through. :,
One thing we have which is unrivalled
the natural beauty of our scenery.
Every time we drive over the hills and
valleys of New England we see natural
pictures, if we will, that no painter
brush can equal. Let us not then go
through life as one having eyes and see
ing not. II our land is somewhat rough
and our winters long and cold nature
offers in compensation beautiful scenery,
pure water, and pure, bracing air that
has developed race equal to the max
ing of our New England the peer of any
country we have ever seen.