196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that it is scarcely worth harvesting until it has been ploughed and 

 again seeded to grass. Here "we can suffer the grass to remain, 

 without deterioration, many years, by giving it the necessary food 

 in the form of top-dressing : and experience has shown that our soil 

 and sub-soil absorb and retain manure, so that it does not 



" Waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



I consider this no small desideratum, for a saving of about fifty per 

 cent, in labor and manure is made, by this mode of cultivation, over 

 the one commonly practiced with the plough. Top-dressing may 

 be denominated nature's own method of distributing fertilizers. The 

 hay crop is also protected against the wet Aveather of fall and spring, 

 by the porous condition of the soil. It is also more secure against 

 injury from insect tribes than in lower latitudes. I consider the 

 hay crop less liable to injury from these causes, and consequently 

 more certain, than in any other portion of the country. 



Red clover, herds grass, and most of the other valuable perennial 

 grasses, are well adapted to our soil, and our climate is well adapted 

 to them, for they are seldom winter killed, unless enough of the crop 

 is left upon the ground to smother the red clover. 



The porous state of the soil is a preventive against injury from 

 the late and early freezing of the ground; while in the colder months 

 we are secured from this evil by a covering of snow, that almost 

 wholly prevents frost from entering the ground, and producing the 

 deadly effects so often seen in the pastures and mowing lands of the 

 sea-board. The plants of clover and grass are in a healthy, and 

 even vigorous condition, when the snow leaves the ground. I say 

 vigorous, for, if frost was in the ground when the snow fell, it has 

 disappeared, and the plants have already commenced the growth of 

 the season — a growth that is scarcely checked by cold after the snow 

 disappears in spring. Hence the full development of these plants, 

 and the abundance that greets both man and beast. 



As I shall have further occasion to remark upon our climate and 

 its effects upon the stock-growing interests of the region, I will 

 briefly describe our winters as commencing upon an average about 

 the middle of November, by the fall of deep snows, which generally 

 leave the earth's fair face about the middle of x\pril. We can hardly 

 be said to have a spring, for it ceases to be winter, and summer with 

 its verdure has already commenced. By this protection from the 



