158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the field. It amounted to nothing because it is too much labor 

 and expense to preserve hay in that way. 



Mr, Farley. My brother tried that experiment, filling a hogs- 

 head and treading it down ; and the result was that it rotted. 



Dr. Garcelon. I would ask if the hogshead was air-tight. 



Mr. Farley. I cannot tell you. 



Dr. Garcelon. That is probably the explanation of the result. 

 In one case the hogshead was impervious to air ; in the other it 

 was not. 



Mr. Farley. Very little has been said of the effect that cutting 

 early has upon the next year's crop. I have practiced cutting 

 what is called earl}^ — the first days of July — and immediately the 

 grass springs up again and covers the roots, and the next year I 

 have another crop. I can mow the same piece for twenty years, 

 cutting early, and never cutting but once, but letting the grass 

 die down in the fall for a mulching. If you cut late and cut close, 

 the grass will be likely to be wintei'-killed. I did that once and 

 when the snow came nearly all the grass perished, although the 

 laud was in good heart. Another thing ; if you mov.'- too close you 

 kill the roots. I had half an acre, mostly herdsgrass, that was 

 cut by a mowing machine, to try it, and the man cut as low as he 

 could. The consequence was, that next year there was scarcely 

 a spear of grass on that half acre, except near the wall where he 

 could not cut it with the machine, and there it was as good as be- 

 fore, 



Mr. NicKERSON. That was my experince exactly, with the first 

 machine that went on my farm. 



Mr, Farley. The grand desideratum in putting in green hay 

 is to pack it close, and exclude the air. The old-fashioned idea 

 was, to open your barn doors when you got all your hay in. 

 Now I shut my barn as tight as possible. 



Mr. NiCKERSON. I have experimented more than twenty years 

 with herdsgrass. For instance, I have taken my knife and cut off 

 every spear that came from one root below the lower joint, next to 

 the bulb, and near that, I have cut off every spear rising from one 

 root a little above that joint; invariably, the root where I cut the 

 grass below that joint died, and the other root lived. 



Mr. RiDEouT of New Gloucester. 1 built a new barn five years 

 ago. A man happened there, just before I commenced haying, 

 from Canada, who told me that we farmers put our hay in too dry, 

 and advised me to cut and put it in the same day. lie told me 



