70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF PASTURES. 



By Prof, Levi Stockbridge of the Mass. Agricultural College. 



As you remember, I had the honor last evening of addressing 

 yon on the subject of plant nutrition. At that time I honestly 

 thought that that subject was a very important one. To-day I 

 am to address you on the subject of pasture land and its improve- 

 ment, ..nd now I know I am speaking on one of the most impor- 

 tant subjects that can be brought to the notice of New England 

 farmers. Not only is it an important subject to the individual 

 farmer, but it is a question of national importance. We shall see 

 that it is such when we consider the pecuniary value of the grass 

 and hay crop. In stating the value I shall not pretend to be 

 exact, but I think the value of the annual hay crop of the United 

 States is something more than $300,000,000. If we had the value 

 of the pasture grass it would swell the aggregate value to more 

 than $600,000,000, more than the value of any other single crop. 

 Corn, in the best corn year we ever had, reached the value of 

 $600,000,000, and the average crop of grass in the United States 

 is equal to that enormous sum. 



But aside from its pecuniary value the hay crop of the New 

 England States has a value that cannot be estimated in dollars 

 and cents. In maintaining the fertility of our mowing lands, and 

 in its general influence on agricultural prosperity, there is no crop 

 which can compare with the grass crop. And yet we are obliged 

 to come together to-day and say that the pasture land of New 

 England has gradually deteriorated from its original condition in 

 its power to produce grass, until to-day it has not the nutritious 

 grasses which alone can make good animals, good butter, good 

 cheese, but hardly more than brakes, brush and brambles. These 

 are the prime crops so far as my observation has extended. Now 

 it is utterly futile for a man to call a piece of ground a pasture, 

 turn animals into it, and expect them to make good meat, butter 

 or cheese, where the animals live on browse. 



