168 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



was employed as a crop to seed with, but now barley and oats are 

 sown. With oats, the catch is not so sui-e, particularly if a thick 

 and heavy growth of straw is obtained, or if they lodge badly ; 

 in which case the grass is apt to die out on those places where the 

 oats lodge upon the ground. If, however, seeding must be done 

 with oats, it is best to put on but a small quantity of seed, (say 

 three bushels,) to the acre. Seeding in the fall, or rather during 

 the months of August or September, has not been much in use, 

 but it has some advantages. Especially so, if the land is in a 

 rough state in the spring and cannot be made smooth enough for 

 mowing. In August it can be worked to advantage, brought into 

 a suitable condition for laying down, and the surface left smooth 

 and even. The rains of September will bring up the seeds, and it 

 will get well rooted and make a good growth before the setting in 

 of winter. The season following, a fine crop of hay may be taken 

 off, which will be rather later than that seeded in the spring, but 

 this will only make the work of haying more advantageously ac- 

 complished. If moist or clayey lands are seeded in autumn, they 

 are more liable to be thrown out by the frost during the winter, 

 and upon such lands it is a good plan to go over them with a 

 heavy roller in the spring. This operation not only presses the 

 roots into the soil, which would soon diy up, but it levels the 

 ground for the better performance of haying. 



The top-dressing of grass lands is but little practised. Among 

 some of the farmers it is beginning to receive more notice, but is 

 not yet a general custom. Ashes are a most valuable dressing for 

 applying to grass, and are found to keep it in a luxuriant state. 

 Liquid manure, if it could be preserved and applied in a convenient 

 manner, would form an active, ready and efficient dressing. At 

 present, if the liquid voidings of stock is not allowed to run to 

 waste, it is thrown into the cellar or shed with the solid portion. 

 In making use of any manure for top-dressing, the best time for its 

 application is doubtless in the spring, when the grass is just start- 

 ing ; but a fiirm team in performing the operation would badly cut 

 up and injure the hind, leaving it in a rough state for mowing. To 

 obviate this difliculty the manure is carted on in the fall, and con- 

 sequently loses much of its value. It is a fact which the farmers 

 of ihe county should never lose sight of, that a large proportion 

 of their grass lands may be kept in a fertile condition, and at far 

 less cost, by means of top-dressing than by any other method. 



It has long been an established rule to commence cutting grass 



