Ig4 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a crop of turnips, or beets, or carrots. I usually raise the first 

 year, potatoes, mangel-wurzels, or something of that kind. In 

 the fall, if possible, I plow again. In the spring, spread another 

 coating of manure, broadcast, and if able to obtain another coat- 

 ing of ashes, I put on the same amount. I then sow barley, which 

 is the best crop we can grow here, and grass-seed with it ; and 

 my experience has been, that somewhere from the 20th of June to 

 the 1st of July, according to the season, I am forced to cut my 

 first crop of clover, because it is so heavy that if I let it stand 

 longer, it di'ops down and rots on the ground. 



Gov. Brown. How much seed do you use to the acre, with the 

 barley ? 



Dr. Garcelon. About 12 pounds of clover and a peck of herds- 

 grass, preferring rather more than less, and usually about a bushel 

 and three pecks of barley to an acre. One piece that was pre- 

 pared in this way last year, yielded 54 bushels of barley to the 

 acre, with as fine a catch of grass as any one need desire. The 

 year after, about the last of June or first of July, I am compelled 

 to cut the grass, and between the middle and latter part of 

 August, have usually taken off a second crop of about a ton or 

 ton and a half to the acre. Whether that is good policy or not, I 

 do not pretend to say. I only say that such has been my practice ; 

 I have five or six acres that were laid down five years ago 

 that are now yielding an excellent crop. 



My purpose has been, to make a grass farm, for I propose to 

 sell milk and raise grass for my cows. I desired to make this 

 ground smooth enough to drive a mowing machine, even where 

 the clover has lodged ; and when that ground begins to fail, I in- 

 tend to put on a top-dressing, either of leached ashes, finely 

 pulverized stable manure, or muck mixed with salt and quick lime, 

 or plaster, as I find my land requires one or the other of these 

 articles. While I admit that stable manure is of the utmost im- 

 portance, I am convinced that we can obtain manures which are 

 cheaper and better adapted to the wants of those farmers who 

 have to buy. Farmers who live six, eight, or ten miles from this 

 village, frequently go to livery stables, where they bed their 

 horses on the coarsest kind of bedding, even sawdust, and pay 

 four or five dollars a cord for this mixture, and cart it all the way 

 liome. 



It is commendable to manure, but the question is, can we not 

 do it in a better way ? I think we can. By the use of plaster, 



