MANAGEMENT OF MEADOWS AND PASTURES. JQ9 



ference for some spots, and for some kinds of grass over others, pick- 

 ing out these spots to the very surface of the soil, while they leave 

 others untouched; the grasses thus left, will throw out flowering 

 culms, which bear seed ; it thus happens that the more undesirable 

 kinds are increasing themselves by the self-sowing of their seeds. 

 To prevent this, the scythe should be used. If the flowering 

 culms are cut off* before they mature their seed, their roots send 

 up a rich aftermath, which in its fresh state, is greedily eaten, and 

 thus the uniformity of the sward is maintained. It should be a 

 settled rule never to allow grass or weeds to go to seed upon the 

 pastures. Cutting off the roots of grasses is often resorted to 

 successfully to increase -the thickness of the sward in pastures; 

 for this purpose, sword-shaped blades are inserted into a horizon- 

 tal bar, about ten inches apart, which is drawn over the pasture, 

 penetrating the soil to the depth of four or five inches ; this is 

 repeated once in five or six years, and in years when this is not 

 practiced, much benefit will result to it from going over it in the 

 spring with a sharp tined harrow. 



It will be found advantageous to divide pastures into smaller 

 lots than farmers usually do ; the grass when it affords a good . 

 bite should first be fed off by milch cows and fattening beasts ; 

 when the first flush of the feed has been depastured they should 

 be removed into a fresh lot and be followed by the young cattle 

 and the store cattle. When the fattening beasts have had a 

 good bite of the second lot, they should be removed into a third 

 pasture; the store cattle from the first should follow them into 

 the second lot and these should be succeeded into the first lot by 

 sheep. The fatting should be turned into a fourth lot when they 

 have tak^n off the best feed in the third and so followed by the 

 store cattle and sheep in rotation, while the first lot is left vacant. 

 When a good bite again springs up in this the fat cattle should go 

 into it again, and the different classes should thus follow each 

 other all the season,* leaving one lot to recruit all the time. In 

 this way all the feed is eaten off evenly and one lot is always 

 recruiting and the sweetest grasses are not destroyed by over- 

 feeding. This plan involves a large outlay for fencing materials 

 but I am convinced it will prove the most profitable method. 

 There is a method of laying down new meadows by transplanta- 

 tion somewhat in vogue in England which I have never seen 

 practiced in this country. Strips of turf two and one-half inches 

 thick and seven inches wide are pared off from alternate sections 



