24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



night, is all saved. If sufficient pasture is not afiorded for the 

 whole farm stock, a selection can be made and such as are not 

 needed often, or do not need the best feed, can be -turned out upon 

 the old pastures. Pasturing will eradicate many weeds that have 

 escaped the plow and the scythe. The experience of some in this 

 eastern part of the State shows this to be the case with white weed 

 (ox-eye daisy) caraway and that pest of light lands, with half a 

 dozen aliases, witch grass, couch grass, or whatever it may be 

 called. For this purpose, as also enriching the soil by droppings, 

 pasturing by sheop is best. We will here digress to say that 

 where couch grass has fairly taken possession in pieces of any con- 

 siderable extent, unless it is convenient to feed it to death with 

 sheep (cattle will do) the better way is to let it have its way, turn- 

 ing it over once in a few years, or when it binds out, plowing 

 shoal, putting on a dressing, harrowing down well and leaving it 

 to come up again and flourish. It produces a good crop while the 

 ground is rich, and cut early, makes fair ha3\ 



Some cultivators disapprove of the latter grain crop, preferring 

 to seed down immediately following the hoed crop, arguing that 

 the land being saved the draft of the grain crop is in better order 

 and win consequently bring more and better crops of grass. 

 Though this course has some benefits, they do not appear suffi- 

 cient to turn the scale. The first hay crop is apt to be less in 

 quantity as well as not equal in quality, and more liable to be 

 killed out the first winter. Then a crop of barley or other grain 

 at the present high prices will more than make up any deficiency. 



Sandy soils will require a rotation extending over less time than 

 the one we have been considering. Such soils will not be likely 

 to hold in grass more than two seasons, and will afford but indiffer- 

 ent pasture more than one year after. Upon extensive farms or 

 those made up of widely differing soils, there can be no objection 

 to using difl'erent rotations upon different parts. In this as in 

 other things judgment must be used as well as system. 



Where farming is carried on more extensively than in Maine, 

 one year of fallow is made a part of the rotation. Upon an estate 

 in Now Jersey where wheat has been grown for a hundred and 

 twenty years, and which the manager claims is steadily iniproving, 

 the rotation is corn, clover, wheat, grass, fillow, oats. The corn 

 is heavily manured and the wheat is well limed. The fallow is 

 plowed many times during the season. Whether fallowing will 



