102 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



genous manures respective! j to those crops of the respective families 

 ■which are grown in our rotations." Farm yard manure, -which 

 contains both ammoniacal salts and mineral matters, was found to 

 be of great benefit to both. 



The hay crop of Maine is estimated at not far from one million of 

 tons, and its value at ten millions of dollars annually* — quite as 

 much, if not more than the value of all the other cultivated crops of 

 the State taken together; and the most important interest in the 

 State. If to this we add pasturage, the amount is materially in- 

 creased — perhaps doubled. 



The importance of this crop appears not only from its actual and 

 comparative value as expressed by dollars, but from other considera- 

 tions. In this climate we are compelled to feed stock for half the 

 year from winter stores, and for these we must depend chiefly upon 

 hay. Upon this then depend largely our flocks and herds, and upon 

 these, our ability to enrich the soil so as to insure a yield not of the 

 products of a stock husbandry merely, but bread for ourselves. 

 Never was a truer saying, and seldom one of broader and deeper 

 import, than the utterance of the Voice, "all flesh is grass." 



From the nature of our surroundings, grass is and always must 

 be the staple crop of Maine. The climate, it is true, if no other 

 » crops were to be grown, might be found better adapted to it if more 

 equably moist and mild in spring ; but look this vast country over, 

 to Florida at the south, to California at the west, and see if, on the 

 whole, any other State whatever has greater facilities in this regard 

 than we 1 — the long winters even which we are so apt to deem a 

 serious drawback, afford a protection to the tender herb in the warm 

 blanket of snow which is not to be lightly esteemed, and which many 

 others are deprived of. 



Much of our soil is so "natural to grass," that when in condition 

 to yield good crops of other products, we have to be active and vigi- 

 lant to keep it out when this is desirable. 



* This may be deemed by some too large an estimate for the past few years, in some 

 of which the hay crop has not been very largo, but when we note the fact, that in 

 1850 the census returns show a crop of 755,889 tons, and recollect too the piwneness 

 which always exists to understate in response to questions which may be supposed even 

 to .squint towards taxation, and also the largo increa.«c within ten years past, I think 

 the reader will agree with mo that it is a moderate one. 



