146 EOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



moderately after the late frosts commence, and am not aware that 

 the practice has been detrimental to the hay crop. "While I believe 

 that too early and too close feeding is highly injurious, I think 

 moderate feeding after autumn frosts may be profitable, as it causes 

 the grass to thicken up at the roots, and secures a better under 

 growth the following season." 



From Caleb Hodsdon, Standish. 



. " The feeding of mowing fields in the fall, I think one of the great 

 errors that farmers fall into. In 1853, I purchased a field of twelve 

 acres, that had been feed snug in the fall, for twenty years, and as 

 it was three-foui'ths of a mile from home, I concluded to fence it up 

 and not feed it, and there has been a steady increase of hay, and I 

 now cut double that I did six years ago, when I made the purchase. 

 I think if farmers would have less field and feed less in the flill, and 

 consequently more pasture, they would find it to their advantage. 

 Ten years ago I turned half my field into pasture, and I cut more 

 hay now than I did before." - . ' 



Few, if any, of the States of the Union are better adapted by 

 nature to grazing than Maine, yet no portion of her lands are more 

 neglected than her pastures. 



Necessity compels us to cultivate winter stores of forage in order 

 to preserve the lives, and in a good degree the condition, of our ani- 

 mals ; good policy would dictate, that after being preserved with such 

 pains, they should when turned to pasture find feed in amount and 

 nutrition amply suflicient to insure a full flow of milk, or a j-apid 

 increase in growth or weight. If we reckon the money value of the 

 milk, meat and v/ool obtained from pasturage, we find it very far 

 exceed that obtained from the consumption of all the hay, roots and 

 grains which have been cultivated and harvested for their use at 

 great cost, while the care and expense bestowed upon those pastures 

 to render them fertile bears a small proportion to that given to the 

 harvested crops. This, it is true, would still be the case under an 

 improved husbandry ; but that the disproportion at present existing 

 between them is quite too great, and that true policy dictates that 

 far more attention should be given to pastures, is a proposition so 

 palpably true that no intelligent farmer would for a moment think 

 of disputing it. In fact, our pastures to a considerable extent con- 

 sist of lands formerly in meadow, and which have been cropped for 



