MANAGEMENT OF PASTURES. YJ 



But these pastures were not always as poor as they are now. 

 Formerly that wasn't considered a good pasture that wouldn't 

 support a cow to every two acres, but now it takes about eight 

 acres of the average pasture land of New England to support a 

 cow, and then the cow comes home at night. looking disappointed, 

 as if she had found nothing to manufacture milk from. What is 

 to be done? Here we are getting a little milk and the products 

 of the dairy decreasing. The question forces itself on us — what 

 is to be done ? In discussing the question from this standpoint I 

 shall have to go into practical details which, however important, 

 are not always interesting. 



In my humble opinion the corner-stone in regard to the im- 

 provement of pasture land must be put in the head of the farmer 

 hims(jlf. To improve the pasture land of Maine, the ciiap I should 

 go after is the farmer. While I am not prepared to endorse what 

 has been said about the ignorance of the fanner, it is so far true 

 that in seeking to make great reforms on the farm you must first 

 seek to reform the farmer. 



Now farmers of Maine, judging by your practice, what is your 

 opinion of your pasture lands? Do you prize them as valuable 

 property ? How do you treat them as compared with your tillage 

 and mowing lands ? The farmer seems to think that the pasture 

 is waste land — outside of all husbandry, outside of all tillage, out- 

 side of all manuring, thrown out to be pastured by the cattle, and 

 taken care of by the Lord, That is about the general idea which 

 prevails among the farmers of the community. The pasture land 

 may be a piece of swamp — it is all right, it is nothing but pas- 

 ture. As to going to work on it, and embracing it in the system 

 of tillage of his farm and increasing the production of it, ihat is 

 entirely outside of the farmers thought, as exhibited in his prac- 

 tice. Now the farmer is the fellow I am after; he is all wrong, 

 and the pasture land will never be improved until he is set right. 



Now contrast if you will our general idea of the management of 

 the pasture with the idea of the farmers of Holland. There the 

 pasture receives the same or better care and attention than the 

 land from which they get their hay, and in so high a state of 

 fertility do they keep it, that on the average, an acre of land in 

 Holland carries a cow and a sheep — and a cow in Holland means 

 a cow ; it don't mean one of your little scrawny, half-fed animals, 

 that we see on our New England hills, but a great, sleek, splen- 

 did Uolstein. The pasture land there is better cared for and has 



