St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1915-09-01

VEGETABLES LEND THEMSELVES TO ANY
CANNING SCHEME.
the average will De fair, and with eight
or ten products to depend on a salts
factory farm income will be assured.
Crop prices fuctuate widely from
year to year. Even in the same season
certain districts receive high returns,
while others show losses. No single
crop or product is safe against unfa-
vorable conditions at times. There
fore diversification is the best assur-
ance against heavy loss. For example.
if potatoes or beans are low in price
they need not be sold at once if there
are a number of other products with
which to meet expenses and payments.
1t may be better to consume the low
priced products on the farm than to
haul them to market.
Feeding to poultry, hogs and cattle
will at any time make potatoes worth
so cents a bushel. With a large crop
of tubers on hand at time when the
market is extremely low it is entirely
feasible for any farmer to cut down
the grain rations in poultry house and
barn and substitute boiled potatoes.
Beans could be added and the crop
consumed entirely at home. Many
other articles will work into such a
plan. 1t will even pay to buy young
pigs and steers for the purpose of max
ing profitable use of potatoes and root
crops, especially carrots, rutabagaS and
sugar beets Animals generally, as
well as chickens. ducks and geese, will
consume these vegetab leS to advantage.
Mixed with bran, middlings or corn
meal potatoes form a palatable and
wholesome diet, and the farmer is en-
abled by this substitution to sell
large proportion of his corn crop. Each
farm should also produce number of
crops in the vegetable line, such as
cabbage, onions, cucumbers, celery, etc.
A number of vegetables lend them
selves to any canning scheme on the
farm and thus may be saved from
waste or low markets. Canning puts
the financial touch upon various fruits
and garden crops which otherwise
would amount to nothing. One may
plan to eliminate waste by a little
study along this line. The ordinary
farm family can manage a canning
outfit and thus secure a new source of
revenue.
In urging diversi1catiOn for both
large and small farms / suggest ten or
twelve distinct products, which must
be arranged so as to distribute the Ia
Dor as evenly as possible. 1t is in this
respect that many farmers are weak.
and it is observed that settlers in the
new agricultural areas of western and
southwestern states have yet to learn
important lessons on this subject
When agricultural districts are devel-
oped so rapidly that economic forces
do not have time to properly act the
result is a very imperfect scheme of
farm organization. One cause Of this
is the extreme proftableness Of GER
tain crops for few years and the con
sequent development of farms on the
basis of a single enterprise. Coupled
with this one sided organization land
prices are often forced so high that an
intensive form of agriculture is neces-
sary when only fairly extensive type
Of farming should prevail. 1t is these
single crop farmers who are the great
est sufferers in years Of low prices for
their special products. Aside from bet
ter use of labor and land, mixed farm
ing is one of the surest safeguards
against total failure.