1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FAR:VIER. 



407 



In the mean time, what shall consumers do? 

 Shall they pay the high price, and grumble, 

 or practice self-denial and philosophise? They 

 can inquire how far butter promotes health 

 and !>trength, — whether it do«s not chiefly 

 make fat and support animal heat; whether 

 in hot weather, when rich food is freely eaten, 

 an unrestrained use of it, to say the least, is 

 superfluous ; whet'aer it would not be wise to 

 eat more cheese and less butter, since the 

 fornivT contains more of the elements of milk. 

 If these questions are itivestigated and the 

 answers they suggest acted upon, high prices 

 may prove a benefit to consumers as well as 

 to producers. N. S. T. 



Lawrence, Mass., June 24, 1869. 



For the Neiv England Farmer, 

 BEAINS IN FARMING.— No. 2. 



I propose in this article to present some facts 

 which have^fallen under my own observation, 

 indicating a lack of the proper use of brains 

 among farmers. 



Here is a farmer who has alr(>ady twica as 

 much land cleared as he can cul'ivate properly. 

 He has a nice wood lot, which is "a thing of 

 beauty" to the passers by, a grateful shelter 

 to the birds in the summer season, and a pro- 

 tection from the keen northern blasts that 

 sweep over our Verm int hills in winter. But 

 wood is four or five dollars a cord. There is 

 money in that wood lot. It is in vain that we 

 cry, '"Woodman, spare that tree!" Down it 

 must come, with all its brothers, and go to 

 feed the iron horse. This wholesale destruc- 

 tion of our noble Vermont forest trees is 

 enough to make any sensible man indignant. 

 Unless this destructive, brainless proL-ess is 

 arrested, western Vermont will be a desert in 

 less than fifty years. Already we are begin- 

 ning to experience the evils of this practice. 



Said a larmer from the central part of Ver- 

 mont to me, not long since : "I don't think 

 much of your Jjake Shore farmers." I asked 

 him why ? His reply was, "because they stack 

 so much of their hay. They waste enough to 

 build all the barn loom they need." This is 

 an unquestionable fact. A few years since, 

 in riding seven miles from my residence, I 

 counted seventy stacks of hay in view from the 

 road, as I passed along, averaging five tons, I 

 presume, to the stack. If, as some assert, 

 the waste in stacking be one-third, — but we 

 will put it at one-fourth, — it is not a difficult 

 matter to calculate what the loss must be where 

 the practice is kept up from year to year, as 

 it has been, probably, to a greater or less ex- 

 tent, ever since the first settlement of this sec- 

 tion. Does not this fact indicate a lack of 

 brains somewhere ? 



Another fact. All around me I see farmers 

 selling hay to be pressed and sent to the city 

 markets. This is done more or less year after 

 year. Have they not brains enough to see 

 that this is a ruinous practice ? That they are 



impoverishing their farms at a fearful rate ? 

 That they are burning their candle at botii 

 ends ? 



Again, as I pass along in the summer sea- 

 son, 1 notice field after field of corn or pota- 

 toes so overrun with weeds that not halt a crop 

 can be realized. If there be any truth in the 

 old adage, that "one year's seeding makes 

 seven year's weeding," what a task have such 

 farmers before them ! It shows a sad lack of 

 brains for a farmer to plow and manuie, and 

 put m his seed, and then allow the weeds to 

 rob him of his crop. Cultivate only what you 

 can do thoroughly and well, is the true com- 

 mon-sense me' hod. Yet how few farmers 

 practice upon it? I do not know how it is in 

 other States, but in Vermont it is a rare thing 

 that we find a peifd tly cl> an crop of any kind. 

 This ought not so to be, and would not be, if 

 faimers would only put a sufficient amount of 

 brains into their business. I am well aware 

 that this weed question is a diffirult one to 

 deal with. Weeds are bard to kill. Some 

 kinds, I confess, I have found hitherto more 

 than a match for me. Therefore I am disposed 

 to be quite charitable towards my brother 

 farmers when I see the weeds getting the mas- 

 tery of their crops. Some insist that the only 

 way to get rid of weeds is to keep your lands so 

 poor that they won't grow. But I rather think 

 that would not be a very profitable method, 

 and I would suggest a better one. Make your 

 land as rich as possible ; and then when the 

 weeds show themselves, apply the following 

 compound, viz : Brains, ail you hi^ve to spare ; 

 muscle, all you can muster. This method is 

 not patented, and all who read this artitle arc 

 at liberty to apply it to their fields persi tently 

 until these terrible pests of the farm are ex- 

 lerminated. 



I don't know, Messrs. Editors, where I 

 should find a stopping place, if I should go 

 on presenting tacts which have a be.iring on 

 my subject. I see them all around me, — even 

 on my own farm. Some mav perhaps say, 

 "Ph>sician, heal thyself." Well, I wish I 

 could. Be it understood I do not profess to 

 be overstocked with brains ; but I have enough 

 to see where I and my brother farmers often 

 miss it. 



There is one fact, however, having a bear- 

 ing on my subj -ct, which occupies a promi- 

 nent place in my mind just now and has 

 done for some years ; and that is, the in- 

 difference, if not opposition, with which the 

 great majority of our Vermont far ners look 

 upon our Agricultural College. An t ffort on 

 the part of some has been made to get up a 

 Farmers' Convention or Institute, similar to 

 those held in some of the other New Eirgland 

 States, the past winter; but the effort failed — 

 public opinion among our farmers not being 

 ripe for such a movement. I am aware that 

 this does not speak well for the intelligence 

 and enterprise of our Vermont farmers. But 

 so it is. For one, being a Vermonter, "to 



