44 AGRICULTURE OE MAINE. 



Scientists tell us that there remains in the first eight inches of 

 New England soil, fertility enough to grow good crops for the 

 next thirty years, and if liberated by cultivation it can be made 

 available for profitable plant growth. So, inasmuch as fall plow- 

 ing helps to prepare land for growing crops and lessons the work 

 of making an ideal seed-bed, I see no good reason why farmers 

 should not plow in the fall. 



The last reason for fall plowing is because it economizes labor 

 and promotes better work. "Time is money" some one has truth- 

 fully said, and upon its economy success or failure may hang 

 in a balance. Help is more plenty and cheaper in the fall than 

 almost any other time in the year. Besides, good work cannot be 

 done in a hurry. The rush of spring often causes high wages, 

 and consequently hurried and poor work is the result. Fall 

 plowing also gives the farmer an opportunity of hauling the 

 heavy manure of the stable on to his plowed fields in winter when 

 his help and team might otherwise be idle. 



KIND OE HAY TO PRODUCE. 



In growing hay, conditions should be considered. Producing 

 hay for commercial purposes, timothy finds the most ready 

 market, but for feeding value, except possibly for horses, it is 

 among the poorest grasses grown upon the farm, as analysis has 

 frequently proven. Besides, it is purely a surface grass, depend- 

 ing almost wholly upon soil fertility for its growth and produc- 

 tion. 



The successful growing of red clover is no longer an experi- 

 ment upon our farms. Methods of raising it differ as localities, 

 notions and conditions vary. One of the most successful ways 

 now practiced in Vermont for seeding lands to clover is to seed 

 in a well prepared corn-field. Clover seed sown in the first days 

 of July, with corn standing a foot or more high, will be well 

 protected from the parching sun and will make sufficient growth 

 to stand our winters. On rich and heavy soil twelve pounds to 

 the acre, with three or four quarts of timothy, is sufficient, but 

 upon lighter and dryer land sixteen pounds, with about the same 

 amount of Timothy, will generally give better results. 



Clover sod should be plowed every two years and I am not 

 quite sure but plowing every alternate year would be the better 



