1158 
HOPE  FARM  NOTES 
The  North  Country. 
Part  X. 
Northern  Vermont.  —  Tho  Hope 
Form  man  has  boon  on  his  travels  once 
more — this  time  into  Northern  New  Eng¬ 
land — a  genuine  cow  country.  We  went 
to  Burlington,  then  tO|Barre,  then  across 
the  State  to  Lyndmivillo,  then  to  Frank¬ 
lin  County  and  south  into  the  famous  old 
sheep  country  of  Addison  County.  Trace 
this  journey  out  on  the  map  and  you  will 
see  how  well  it  covers  the  typical  ar¬ 
rangement  of  hill  and  valley  where  this 
country  drains  o(T  through  Canada  to  the 
St.  Lawrence  Valley.  Very  few  of  the 
Americans  who  live  south  of  Albany 
know  anything  about  this  Northern  coun¬ 
try.  If  you  could  get  them  to  express  their 
opinion  you  would  have  a  collection  of  the 
most  fantastic  ideas  ever  put  on  paper. 
Vermont  is  the  Bashful  State,  and  some¬ 
how  she  has  kept  the  beauty  and  power 
of  this  section  under  lock  and  key — send¬ 
ing  the  clean  money  of  marble  and  gran¬ 
ite  and  milk  and  the  fine  men  and  women 
off  into  tho  outer  world  to  develop  other 
sections.  When  Champlain  came  with 
his  French  and  Indians  down  into  the 
lake  which  bears  his  name  he  had  dreams 
of  a  great  empire  to  he  built  around  this 
inland  sea.  Not  having  any  telephone 
connection  with  the  country  west  and 
south  of  him  Champlain  thought  he  had 
struck  the  heart  of  American  possibili¬ 
ties.  In  a  way  he  had,  but  the  blood  has 
been  sent  out  from  the  heart  to  sustain 
the  hands  and  feet  and  eyes  and  lirain  of 
the  nation.  Ouce  I  met.  a  man  in  a 
western  get-rich-quick  town  who  point¬ 
ed  proudly  to  the  new  school  house,  lie 
said  it  was  built,  of  Northern  Vermont 
marble  and  they  had  a  teacher  from 
Massachusetts.  That  was  the  top  notch 
of  educational  possibilities  for  that  town. 
1  told  Gov.  Cates  of  Vermont  about  that 
and  be  said  the  only  thing  to  say  was 
that  the  teacher  should  have  been  from 
Vermont,  too.  lie  claims  they  are  now 
prepared  to  send  out  the  finest  teachers 
in  the  country — ns  sound,  handsome  and 
enduring  as  the  marble !  But  why  not 
keep  these  fine  creatures  at  home? 
Reforesting. — As  you  travel  through 
this  country  you  notice  the  vast  stretch¬ 
es  of  hill  lands — much  of  them  without 
trees.  They  are  mostly  used  as  pastures, 
hut  some  of  them  do  not  give  much  gyass 
in  a  dry  Slimmer.  It  is  hard  to  realize 
that  these  dry  old  fields  have  contributed 
out  of  tlieir  wealth  to  develop  corners  of 
the  country  which  lie  thousands  of  miles 
away.  They  do  not  look  the  part  of 
wealth  producer  now,  but  seem  more  like 
the  faces  of  feeble,  wrinkled  old  men — 
the  big  granite  boulders  seeming  like  un¬ 
healthy  grey  patches  on  the  face  of  an 
invalid.  Yet,  it  is  true  that  the  timber 
on  those  bills  enriched  a  former  genera¬ 
tion — much  of  the  lumber  and  most  of 
the  money  working  out  down  the  valleys 
and  'along  the  river  on  the  way  to  the 
ocean,  where  it;  was  used  to  develop  a  new 
civilization.  For  these  old  hills  are  not 
unlike  the  neglected  monuments  in  a 
country  churchyard.  Scrape  off  the  dust 
and  moss  and  the  man  with  vision  and  a 
knowledge  of  history  may  read: 
“I  made  a  dollar  of  legal  coin,  but  I 
forgot  to  put  into  it  the  faith  and  hope 
which  should  have  tied  it  at  home.  It 
should  have  been  a  watch  dog  to  keep 
m.v  children  here.  Lacking  faith  in  its 
own  soil  it  wandered  away  and  my  chil¬ 
dren  have  followed  it.  I  toiled  that 
others  might  loaf  on  my  earnings  and  I 
forgot  to  provide  for  the  future.’’ 
When  those  men  of  a  generation  ago 
cut  the  timber  from  these  hills  they  could 
not  realize  what  they  were  doing  to  the 
next  generation.  I  know  about  that. 
When  I  was  a  little  boy  the  old  man  who 
brought  me  up  bought  a  tract  of  pine 
land  and  out  it  off.  Wln*u  the  field  was 
stripped — even  to  the  chips — it  was  left 
to  grow  into  scrub  oak  and  brush  and 
became  an  eyesore  as  it  is  today.  Now 
I  know  that  if  We  had  given  the  labor 
of  an  old  man  and  a  little  boy  to  planting 
seeds  or  seedlings  so  as  to  fill  that  land 
with  a  new  growth  of  pine  the  field 
would  now  be  yielding  enough  of  timber 
to  provide  for  me  in  comfort! 
For  The  Future. — At  Burlington  X 
saw  the  work  being  done  in  forestry  at 
the  Slate  Experiment  Station.  There  are 
thousands,  or  millions,  of  seedling  pines 
all  the  way  from  these  just  started  to  trees 
ready  for  transplanting.  These  trees  are 
sold  to  farmers  at  a  low  figure,  and  the 
State,  helps  with  advice  or  direction  in 
planting.  The  State  has  also  bought 
some  tracts  of  land  and  has  planted  trees 
in  its  own  right.  The  great  object,  how¬ 
ever,  is  to  show  farmers  that  forestry  as 
a  practical  business  will  pay.  Any  man 
can  now  realjze  what  it  would  mean  to 
him  if  he  had  20  acres  or  more  of  pine 
timber  large  enough  for  box  boards  or 
small  timber!  If  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  for  him  it  would  lie  doubly  good  for 
his  children  when  they  come  to  his  age. 
Here  is  a  man,  we  will  say,  who  owns  a 
typical  Vermont  farm  and  has  saved  a 
few  hundred  or  thousand  dollars.  The 
larger  part  of  his  farm  is  in  these  dry 
and  rocky  hillsides.  The  cows  nibble 
there  and  get  some  grass,  but  it  never 
would  pay  to  plow  or  cultivate  them. 
This  man’s  father,  or  grandfather,  cut 
off  the  timber  and  left  these  bare  hills 
without  providing  for  them.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  Vermont  would  now  be  richer 
in  both  money  and  men  if  when  these 
trees  were  cut  away  others  had  been 
started.  Now  the  timber  would  be  ready 
to  cut.  Now  the  man  with  the  rough 
land  and  the  limited  capital  begins  to 
realize  that  his  children  will  hardly  bo 
satisfied  as  he  has  been.  They  will  have 
to  see  some  definite  future  in  the  farm  if 
they  are  to  stay  with  it.  Where  can  such 
a  man  find  any  investment  equal  to  that 
of  spending  a  few  hundred  dollars  in  re¬ 
foresting  these  hills?  The  seedlings  are 
just  planted  in  the  soil  and  left  alone 
with  their  sure  but  slow  struggle  with 
the  grass  and  weeds.  We  saw  many 
acres  of  such  seedlings  growing  on  steep 
rough  pastures.  Very  few  had  died,  and 
there  they  were  growing  through  the 
years  by  tho  fraction  of  an  inch  into  sound 
and  profitable  timber.  The  child  now 
playing  oil  the  farm  can  easily  jump  over 
these  little  trees,  but  at  middle  age  these 
baby  seedlings  will  be  carrying  him  along 
the  road.  I  do  not  see  how  a  Northern 
Vermont  farmer  of  moderate  means  can 
put  his  dollars  into  better  service  for  his 
family  and  his  State  than  by  reforesting 
some  of  this  rough  hill  land.  Far  better 
do  that  than  send  the  dollar  out  of  tho 
State  for  investment.  Here  is  work  for 
the  next  generation  which  ought  to  be 
made  popular  and  general. 
A  Meeting. — At  Banc  there  was  a 
joint  meeting  of  the  Granges  and  farm 
bureaus  of  Washington  and  Orange 
counties.  About.  1,000  people  crowded  into 
and  around  a  tent  on  the  fair  grounds. 
These  Vermont  farm  crowds  are  different 
from  those  in  New  York  and  New  Jer¬ 
sey  in  the  fact  that  there  is  usually  a 
large  majority  of  women  who  occupy  the 
best  seats,  while  the  men  do  the  standing. 
I  have  had  two  men  tell  me  about  the 
high  quality  of  Vermont  people.  One 
man  said  his  wife's  first  husband  came 
from  Vermont  and  he  therefore  knew  that 
they  produced  model  men  up  there.  The 
other  remarked  a  little  thoughtfully  that 
the  husband  of  a  smart  Vermont,  woman 
could  never  be  said  to  have  a  lazy  man’s 
job.  They  surely  do  produce  fine  wom¬ 
en  on  these  green  hills  as  well  as  in  the 
Blue  grass  region ;  and  what  beautiful 
highly  colored  children  grow  in  this  clear 
northern  air !  These  men  and  women 
the  hard,  old,  world-wide  problems 
of  farm  life.  Vermont  will  always  be  a 
farm  State.  Aside  from  the  business  in 
granite  and  marble  Vermont  must  ever 
depend  on  what  the  plants  and  trees  and 
cows  take  out  of  her  soil  for  sustenance 
and  savings.  In  llie-past  the  trouble  lias 
been  that  the  dollar  made  on  a  Vermont 
fai’m  lias  been  sent  rolling  down  the  val¬ 
ley  to  the  ocean,  ami  too  many  of  the 
bright  young  boys  and  girls  have  run 
away  after  it.  That  was  because  too 
many  Vermonters  considered  the  farm  a 
good  place  to  make  a  dollar  but  a  poor 
place  to  invest  it.  Then  it  was  “Ver¬ 
mont  for  the  rest  of  the  country,”  and 
the  farms  suffered.  For  you  may  fertil¬ 
ize  and  drain  and  lime  and  seed  and  cul¬ 
tivate  the  soil  all  you  please.  If  you 
keep  sending  away  the  best  of  the  flesh 
and  blood  which  that  soil  produces  it 
cannot  prosper.  Now  these  men  and 
women  arc  waking  up  to  realize  that 
Vermont  has  done  her  full  share  and 
more  for  the  rest  of  the  country.  Now 
it  is  "Vermont  for  Vermonters /”  the  best 
there  is  in  the  State  of  money  and  man¬ 
hood — a  manhood  as  enduring  as  marble. 
As  Vermont  will  over  he  a  farm  State 
these  things  must  be  worked  out  on  the 
farms  by  farmers.  It  is  a  land  problem, 
and  these  earnest  men  and  women  at 
these  farm  meetings  realize  it  and  are 
ready  for  it.  After  this  gathering  at 
Barre  we  rode  in  a  car  far  across  the 
State  to  Lyndonville,  where  a  remarkable 
experiment  in  farm  education  is  being 
started.  I  want  to  speak  of  this  school 
next  week.  n.  w.  c. 
The  Farmer  and  the  Hunter 
I  have  just  been  reading  the  article  on 
page  910  entitled  “Rabbits  vs.  N.  Y. 
Fruit  Growers,”  with  some  indignation. 
I  think  you  are  unfair  to  the  hunters; 
they  have  interests  and  rights  as  well  as 
the  farmer  and  I  certainly  dispute  your 
statement  that  those  interests  clash  with 
the  farmer.  I  am  a  hard-working  farmer 
and  fruit  grower  myself  and  also  an  en¬ 
thusiastic  hunter,  and  while  I  have  never 
hunted  in  New  York,  everywhere  I  go  in 
my  own  State  I  find  cordial  relations  be¬ 
tween  hunter  and  farmer,  the  latter  often 
hoards  the  sportsman,  and  for  a  consid¬ 
eration  gives  him  the  right  to  hunt  mi  his 
land.  I  as  a  sportsman  have  almost  al¬ 
ways  been  politely  treated  by  the  farmers. 
On  the  other  hand,  as  a  farmer  myself  I 
have  mostly  found  the  hunter  Courteous 
and  careful.  No  doubt  there  are  some 
rowdies  with  guns  who  go  about  doing 
damage  and  irritate  the  farmer,  but  I  be¬ 
lieve  the  sportsman  is  usually  a  gentle¬ 
man.  and  considerate  of  the  farmer’s  in¬ 
terests.  Please  remember  if  it  were  not 
for  them  and  other  city  folks  we  would 
have  a  hard  time  to  dispose  of  our  pro¬ 
ducts  even  for  a  35-eent  dollar. 
The  rabbit  is  also  a  very  valuable 
food  and  I  am  always  glad  when  there  is 
a  good  crop  of  them  on  my  laud.  Let  Mr. 
King  use  old  wire  netting  remnants  or 
cheap  wood  hands  around  his  trees  as  T 
do  for  mice  as  well  as  rabbits.  God¬ 
speed  to  your  35-eent  dollar  crusade,  hut. 
please  give  up  your  grouch  against  the 
September  2.  1916. 
niuch-abilsed  sportsman.  Your  paper  is 
too  fine  to  be  so  unfair. 
Delaware  C’o.,  Fa.  j.  henry  bar-tram. 
IL  N.-Y — Mr.  Bar  tram  seems  to  agree 
with  us  that  the  game  should  belong  to 
the  farmer  or  group  of  farmers  when  pro¬ 
duced  ou  their  land.  With  that  under¬ 
stood,  and  the  farmer’s  rights  recognized, 
wo  could  not  object  to  Mr.  Bartram’s 
propositions,  llis  plan  is  all  right — pro¬ 
vided  he  has  the  power  to  say  who  shall 
come  on  his  land  to  kill  the  game. 
Wood  Pulp  for  Fertilizer 
I  have  been  reading  The  R.  N.-Y. 
about  one  year,  and  have  failed  to  see 
anyone  using  wood  pulp  or  rotten  wood 
for  fertilizer.  There  are  thousands  and 
thousands  of  tons  going  to  waste  here  no 
Long  Island,  either  because  the  farm¬ 
ers  do  not  know  the  value  of  it  or 
do  not  believe  that  machinery  can 
be  bought  to  pulverize  it.  I  wish  to  hear 
what  the  value  of  the  rotten  wood  is, 
also  whether  anyone  has  used  it  with 
good  results,  and  whether  there  is  ma¬ 
chinery  to  grind  it  in  this  country.  As 
1  understand  it,  the  wood  pulp  is  most¬ 
ly  imported  except  where  the  sawmills 
make  sawdust  and  planer  shavings. 
Some  of  this  wood  is  pulverized  from  age, 
no  doubt  an.  accumulation  of  thousands 
of  years.  X.  g. 
Moriches,  L.  I. 
We  have  no  record  of  the  use  of  wood 
pulp  or  rotted  wood  directly  as  a  fertil¬ 
izer.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  would  have  any 
greater  value  than  ordinary  sawdust.  Un¬ 
less  the  sawdust  is  first  sweetened  or 
used  as  an  absorbent  for  the  stable 
liquid,  it  is  not  very  satisfactory  for  use 
in  the  soil.  In  many  cases  farmers  who 
have  obtained  possession  of  a  pile  of  saw¬ 
dust,  find  it  most  economical  to  burn  the 
pile  where  it  stands  and  then  use  the 
ashes  for  fertilizer.  This  is  more  eco¬ 
nomical  than  trying  to  haul  the  bulky 
sawdust  any  great  distance  and  putting 
it  on  as  it  stands.  We  think  that  the 
rotten  wood,  or  the  wood  pulp,  would 
best  be  handled  in  much  the  same  way, 
burning  it  first  and  making  use  of  the 
ashes.  If  anyone  has  had  experience  in 
handling  this  wood  pulp,  wc  would  like 
to  hear  from-  him. 
Potash  in  Bananas 
The  English  Mark  Lane  Express  prints 
the  following: 
At  the  meeting  of  the  Yorkshire  Sec¬ 
tion  of  the  Society  of  Chemical  Industry 
a  paper  was  read  by  Mr.  Ellis,  of  Selby, 
in  which  he  stated  that  some  weeks  ago 
he  was  asked  to  make  an  examination  of 
the  banana  stall:  with  a  view  to  the  use 
of  its  fibre  for  paper-making,  or  its  possi¬ 
ble  use  in  other  directions.  In  the  course 
of  (he  examination  he  noticed  that  the 
juice  of  the  stalk  was  sufficiently  alkaline 
to  cause  irritant,  action  on  the  skin,  and 
this  led  him  to  examine  it  further,  with 
the  Jesuit  that  he  found  that,  there  was 
present  a  large  percentage  of  potash  and 
practically  no  soda.  The  composition  of 
the  ash  was  as  follows: — Silica,  9.61; 
oxide  of  iron.  0.16;  oxide  of  alumina, 
6.-19;  lime.  1.69;  magnesia,  1.68;  potash, 
•15.90;  soda,  a  trace;  sulphuric  acid, 
2.10;  carbonic  ncid,  31,11;  chlorine, 
1,52;  and  phosphoric  acid,  2.74, 
This  moans  over  900  pounds  of  potash 
to  the  ton  of  ash — nearly  equal  to  muri¬ 
ate  of  potash.  Compared  with  the  ashes 
of  some  other  plants  wc  have  the  follow¬ 
ing: 
POUNDS  IN  ONE  TON. 
Potash  Plios.  Acid 
Corn  cobs .  400  90 
Cottonseed  hulls .  510  220 
Oak  wood . 140  145 
Leather  scrap .  40  60 
Wool  waste .  540  50 
Wo  think  these  banana  stems  rank 
higher  in  potash  than  any  other  vege¬ 
table  substance,  except  perhaps  sunflower 
stalks.  Nature  gives  it  a  chance  to  do 
great  work  at  taking  this  potash  from 
the  rich  tropical  soil,  and  carrying  it.  to 
lands  where  the  soil  is  starving  for  it.  It 
is  said  that  there  are  large  quantities  of 
potash  in  Russia — derived  from  the  ash 
of  sunflowers,  a  crop  largely  grown  for 
the  oil ! 
Making  Beet  Sugar 
Can  yon  give  me  any  information  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  sugar  beet  industry?  *  With 
the  price  of  sugar  soaring  would  it  be 
profitable  for  farmers  to  co-operate  and 
manufacture  their  own  sugar?  F.  J.  n. 
Pennsylvania. 
I’ast  experience  seems  to  show  that 
sugar  beet  culture  is  profitable  only  in 
sections  where  large  areas  can  he  put  in 
beets  and  where  hand  labor  is  plentiful 
and  easily  found.  The  Far  West  is  best 
adapted  to  this  business.  Attempts  to 
introduce  the  business  into  New  York 
State  proved  failure.  Even  when  the 
State  paid  bounties  for  beet  sugar  the 
factories  failed  and  were  abandoned. 
RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
have 
Trying  Out  the  Car. —A  Lesson  in  Mechanics.  Fig.  470 
