Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1911-11-03

Pomfret, VT, in the Tribune-Farmer
recalls the days of the scythe and the
OK team in the following very interest
ing article:
May was very dry, with little rain
and with some very warm days. June
was very wet, with cold nights. Grass
is looking fine and bids fair to be big
crop. Other crops are doing well.
Bugs have kept off the potatoes
well, and there have been few crows.
1t is interesting to note the changes
that have taken place in the state within
hundred years. The settlers at first
sought the hills; their farms supported
large families, and the schoohouses
were well filled with the robust children.
Now many of the farms are unculti-
waited, and the schoolhouses have been
taken down or stand idle. One cause of
it has been the low price of wool. When
wool brought so cents pound it paid to
keep sheep, and they were the main
source of income from the farm. The
innocent ones; now the pastures are
deserted and are growing up to trees
again. In 1910 there were 1851, Sl9
sheep in Vermont; in 1910 only $50, 900.
There should be more sheep kept. 1t
pays to keep the coarse woolled sheep,
with the high price that mutton brings.
Let wool bring 80 cents a pound, and
these deserted farms would be occupied
again. Once the grass was cut with the
scythe; the mower has done away with
that, and has caused the use of horses
more on the farm, and has stopped
largely the use of oxen. Once they did
most of the work on the farm; now
there are not one tenth the number in
the state that there used to be, and
they are mostly used by rich men, who
farm for pleasure and. not for profit.
There should be more oxen. The price
of beef is high. The income now on the
farm is mostly from the dairy. 1t is
hardly prudent or safe to depend
entirely on only one industry The
cows used to be healthy; hardly one
was lost. Now large herds are at times
destroyed. One writer claims the
trouble is caused by inbreeding, close
stables, high feeding and the lack of ex-
ercise in winter.
Before the cars came the price of
wood and lumber was low; four-foot
maple wood brought only So cord at
the village; now it brings S.. Sawed
hemlock brought only S. and Sc thou
sand; now it brings SIG or more. The
high price of labor and the foreign de-
mand have caused the rise. In-1850 the
best of help could be. hired from $40 to
$l2 month; now it costs more than
double. Once the saving was done at
the local saw mills; now it is done mostly
by the steam mills. 1t looks like a
mistake to cut off the forests as they
are being cut, and the Legislature may
stop it.
1t is wonderful what the railroad has
done for Vermont. 1t has brought the
East and the West together. There is
no fear of famine now. 1t makes one
think of the tales told in the Arabian
Nights when one sees the many trains
go by in day, and the number of cars
in some of the trains sixty or more.
What could we do if we We're to go back
to the four-horses teams again. At first
the settlers that went West drove
through with their horses and oxen.
The silo has stopped the fear of short
hay crop. 1t has been a great mistake
to stop raising grain, as the farmers
did fifty years ago. Half the flour con-
sumed in Vermont was made from Yer
mont wheat; now there is scarcely any
raised, and half the corn goes into the
silos. 1t would be interesting to know
the amount paid each year for the grain
and feed brought into the state and the
amount paid for phosphates.