DAIRY AND SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETINGS. 407 



That this is fact and not theory is illustrated by an experience 

 of twenty years ago at the College farm. There were few 

 agricultural students, the income of the College was small and 

 the demands for students in other lines than agriculture was 

 increasingly large. The farm was not paying. The trustees 

 put the farm in charge of a professor with the instructions to 

 make the farm pay a dividend. This he did for two years by 

 selling hay and carrying no stock of any amount on the farm. 

 At the end of that time the professor died and a year later the 

 farm was turned over to the speaker to be run as part of the 

 experimental work of the Station. It took four years' time and 

 an expenditure for fertilizer larger than the net profit of the 

 two years that hay was sold to get the farm back to the state of 

 fertility as measured by crop production that it had when stock 

 feeding was stopped and hay selling begun. And this on land 

 that had a strong natural grass soil. 



Because of the great cost of seeding down land it is usually 

 better to plan at least a five year rotation rather than a shorter 

 term one. Mixed agriculture is far safer and a better proposi- 

 tion for the state as a whole than one crop farming. This is 

 said despite the fact of an apparently very successful one crop 

 farming carried on in the leading agricultural county in the 

 state. Top dressing grass land has always proved profitable 

 when put to the experimental test. The Station top dresses all 

 of its mowing fields each year, using about loo pounds of nitrate 

 of soda, 200 pounds of acid phosphate, and lOO pounds of 

 muriate of potash per acre. In 191 5 the potash will be omitted 

 from the top dressing formula. Such a top dressing will give 

 an increased yield beyond the cost of the fertilizer applied and 

 will make it possible to grow good crops of grass from the land 

 for a number of years without reseeding. 



The speaker recognizes that there are special instances in 

 which it may be well to sell hay and purchase plant food. For 

 instance, one may be located near a town where hay can be sold 

 at a good price and stable manure obtained at a nominal cost. 

 Sometimes oats or corn may be exchanged to advantage for 

 more concentrated mill feeds. This may furnish work for teams 

 and men in the winter when otherwise there would be little that 

 could be done. But in general both from the experimental 

 point of view, and from a not inconsiderable experience in farm 



