PLOWS AND PLOWING. 297 



regard to the very great value of thorough pulverization in fur- 

 nishing material for plant growth. 



A point referred to by Mr. Gurney, with reference to keeping 

 grounds long in pasture, is one that came up during a course of 

 lectures delivered by Mr. Willard of Little Falls, N. Y., before 

 the students of the college. Mr. Willard stated that there are 

 pastures in New York which have been maintained in good heart 

 for sixty years, and that those old pastures are considered by 

 dairymen greatly more valuable than re-seeded ground. They are 

 more valuable in that the grasses spring up on those old pastures 

 earlier in the season, they continue longer, and they are richer in 

 those materials that go to make up milk, butter and cheese ; that 

 ten quarts of milk from one of these old pastures will make one 

 pound of butter, whereas it requires thirteen quarts of the milk 

 produced from re-seeded land to make the same amount of butter. 

 This is an advantage on the side of the old pastures, and those 

 pastures are kept up for an almost indefinite period of time by top- 

 dressing, in the manner which was indicated by Mr. Gurney — by 

 applying fertilizers — not by plowing. That is the policy adopted 

 by the dairymen of New York, and I think it is also adopted by 

 the dairymen in Massachusetts and some other States, but espe- 

 cially it is true in the State of New York. Wherever there are 

 bare places they re-seed them. They resort to any and every ex- 

 pedient by which they can keep the land in grass, without plowing. 

 They make an effort to sow grass seed that shall come into blossom 

 at different periods of the year, so that they shall have one grass 

 coming into blossom early, another kind a little later, and another 

 later still, and thus supply fresh, nutritious grass for their cattle 

 through the entire season. 



Mr. C. Chamberlain. I like the remarks of brother Jefierds, 

 and 1 hope the citizens of this vicinity will not be backward in par- 

 ticipating in this debate ; but when we have a man who has come 

 from a long distance for the purpose of aiding in this convention, 

 I believe in working him while he is here. We have with 

 us Mr Gold, Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, 

 who knows all about the subject now under consideration, and I 

 would like to hear from him. 



Mr. T. S. Gold of West Cornwall, Conn. I have been very much 

 interested in the remarks, and as the subject of pastures was up 

 last, living in a dairy region, I will state my experience. 



We have there pastures and meadows that never have been 



