46 VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



gation has modified the figures to some extent, but the general 

 proposition still stands. Akin to this matter, although perhaps 

 not directly connected with agriculture, is the idea that there 

 is such a thing as a balanced ration for mankind. Those who 

 have been in a position to know, conservatively estimate that 

 there is more sickness caused by errors of eating than by the 

 use of intoxicants. It has also been clearly demonstrated that 

 the human ration is frequently out of joint, not well balanced, 

 that there is too much of the heat producing and too little of 

 the flesh forming ingredients. One of the marked advances in 

 the experiment station work of late years, has been the light it 

 has thrown upon human nutrition. 



DAIRYING. 



There are a good many modern notions in connection with 

 dairying, which, if time permitted, would be well worth con- 

 sidering. So large a share of this volume, however, is given 

 over to matters connected with dairying that it hardly seems 

 worth while to bring them in here. A good many of the ideas 

 that are broached in connection with the article by the present 

 writer, published in the Dairymen's Report in another portion 

 of this volume, under the heading " What can New England 

 do to Compete with the West in Dairying," would be pertinent 

 in this connection, and the reader is referred thereto. It may 

 be well enough to say, however, in brief, that, above every- 

 thing else in dairying, the modern notions lay stress upon 

 cleanliness as a great factor of success. 



In closing, the writer may once more remark that this arti 

 cle is of necessity, because of its character, more or less 

 sketchy, superficial, fragmentary. It is simply meant in a gen- 

 eral way to call attention to certain of the more salient advances 

 in modern agriculture. It by no manner of means even begins 

 to exhaust the list. It would be possible to fill this entire 

 volume with a discussion of matters which would be entirely 

 proper under the present title and which ought to prove help- 

 ful to Vermont farmers. No one, however, need remain in 

 ignorance of these more modern ideas, unless he himself delib- 

 erately elects so to do. There are now, as was said at the out- 

 set, so many different agencies working toward the uplifting of 

 the farmers, intellectually and socially, and they are either 

 free or available at so slight a cost, that all may use them who 

 will. 



