Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1915-10-20
AGRICULTURAL MEETING
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE


CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE
county as it exists today is one which
can only be handled through co-opera-
ton. The orchards are small, not
large enough to warrant spraying
outfit for each farm, and the dealers
are not prepared to furnish the needed
outfits and material largely because of
no demand being made for the same.
The farmers themselves are not over
interested and at the time when the
work should be done they are busy
with their sugar crop.
To overcome these difficulties, pro-
vided that enough farmers apply for
help with their orchard work and are
willing to pay what it costs to do the
work, the association will furnish a
man or men to go to the farms to
spray and prune the orchards which
should furnish the apples needed for
our locality. There are sufficient
number of trees here in this county to
do this. If the fruit is not what is de-
sired the trees can be grated over and
in short time produce valuable vari-
cites of apples.
The eradication of kale in grain by
the use of 100 pounds of sulphate of
iron to so gallons of water applied
with power sprayer was the next
demonstration work done. These dem
onstrations were successful and in
some cases the spray killed as high as
95 per cent of the kale in the grain.
Essential points in this work are first,
a high pressure power sprayer must be
used, next the kale must be sprayed at
the second or third leaf stage or before
it gets very strong and vigorous roots
started.
Corn variety tests nave been a big
factor in this years demonstration
work. Out of ten or a dozen varieties
under observation some three or four
show prominence, judging by the
growth of stalk and maturity of the
ear. These varieties are "Dibble's
Early Yellow Dent, ""Vermont Dent"
"Wisconsin's Yellow Glow and elm
proved Mastodon" for silage vari-
cites. Minnesota No. 10" is an
carrier variety than any of the above
mentioned but it does not make the
growth, but for many of our localities
it is to be preferred. Other factors
are fully as important as the variety,
first the amount of seed. It has been
shown on several occasions that 10 to IL
quarts of seed to the acre, depending
some upon the size of the kernel, is
superior to 16 quarts or more in making
silage of a high quality and amount
of dry matter produced. The kind of
fertilizer used is another important
consideration. 1t has been definitely
shown that by the use of the proper
chemicals the maturity of the corn can
be advanced at least two weeks. which
is worthy of our consideration in our
short season. Cultivation in the early
stages of growth is another point to be
considered. While this season has
been favorable to the growth of corn,
yet the early part of the season was
very unfavorable and on the whole we
should expect to produce corn on the
average nearly equal to this years.
with proper methods put into use.
Fertilizer demonstrations have been
a most interesting part of the work.
At the outset we planned to prove that
home-mixed chemicals were equal to
ready mixed goods when figured on
the same formulae. The results We're.
as far as the county agents observa-
tons went, that the home mixed goods
were equal in every case and in one or
two were superior. These demonstra-
tons covered such crops as corn, grass
and potatoes. In addition to these
mentioned an effort was put forth to
learn what particular chemical and
combination of chemicals produced the
best results. This work has covered
two seasons observations and one
season checks with the other. It has
been conclusively shown that the cutli-
waited crops respond surprisingly to a
liberal supply of acid phosphate. Both
corn and potatoes with acid phosphate
alone applied give better results than
with a complete fertilizer with 4-8-4
formula for potatoes and a 2-83 for
corn. In each case the land had been
we'll MANFRED. This information, if
applied to the land means dollars in the
farmers pockets because acid phos-
phate cost the farmers last spring
$3.50 per ton against $29. SO per ton
for the potato fertilizer and S22 90 per
ton for the corn made from home
mixed chemicals. Where the acid
phosphate was used the corn and oats
showed a stronger stalk and straw and
an earlier maturity, two valuable
points to learn. The county agent
plans to recommend a higher percent
age of acid phosphate in the home
mixed chemical formula this coming
spring than was used last spring on the
cultivated crops. The formula fol
grass gave such splendid results that it
will probably remain unchanged unless
new circumstances arise from those
which were encountered last spring.
Where the chemicals were applied to
the grass the yield was doubled over
the check plots in almost every case.
Alfalfa has taken prominent place
in the demonstration work, there being
about twenty-five different plots OF
about an acre each in the county.
Some have gone through one winte,
and are doing we'll while one or two
have failed mainly because of a lack OF
incubation. The plots started this
last summer are very promising, only
one of which looks to be failure thai
one not being inoculated. This winter
will be testing time as to whether
this seasons seeding will be a success
though there is every reason to believe
that we are to meet with success. Il
is but question of time to determine