r^fi, BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



deficiency. ITere comes in the benefit of the discoveries of 

 modern science in supplying additional means of fertilization 

 after ordinary supplies are exhausted. I verily believe, yea, I 

 know that the fertility of the class of lands I have spoken of can 

 be restored. 



I would make a composition like the one I have given here as a 

 top-dressing. I wouldn't plant it and crop it. I would till it 

 thoroughly and put on composition, and then I would sow some 

 herds-grass, blue-grass, red-top, red and white clover, and then I 

 would sow about two bushels of rye to the acre, and this I would 

 do if I had but a single acre of such land on a twenty acre lot. 

 r would do the work well, and then ask God's blessing on it, and 

 wait for it. What would be the result? The rye would come 

 up, the cattle would go on and eat the rye, the rye would protect 

 the grass. In the second year the grass would be up, and I 

 would have part of a crop of rye, and a well grown crop of grass. 



Now, gentlemen, I have seen this thing done. I have seen 

 land brought up from where it took five or six acres to keep a 

 cow. I don't say that you can't make more doing it on some 

 land than on others ; but there is no land, unless it is like the 

 driving sands of Sahara, that cannot be renovated. 



Thus 1 have gone over the different classes of pasture, and pre- 

 scribed a method of treatment for each. Now a word as to feed- 

 ing your pasture lands. You put on tlie land a stock greater than 

 your pasture is capable of bearing, and the grass is gnawed down 

 60 close that sometimes some of the soil is taken with it. The 

 surface of the ground is left bare and the bulbous roots of the 

 grass are exposed to the cold of winter. Put no more stock on 

 the land than it will carry, and don't let a foot step on it after the 

 fifteenth of October. Some one will ask — " Shall I turn them 

 into my mowing land ?" No ; turn them into your barn or barn- 

 yard. You cannot afford to feed pasture land, if you mean to do 

 business on it, after the fifteenth of October, and for this reason : 

 There should be sufficient growth of grass on the land after you 

 have done feeding it for mulch to the new grass. You should be 

 husbanding the resources of your soil so as to leave it strong and 

 vigorous fur next year's work. A stool of grass on your pasture 

 land is the same as a stool of grass on your mowing land. Would 

 you think it good policy to have the roots of the grass on your 

 mowing fields all exposed to the frost of winter? If it would 

 liot be good policy there it is not good policy in your pasture. I 



