80 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



MIXmG FODDER IX THE PITS. 



Much advantage will be gained by mixing clover, and 

 grass in which clover predominates, in the same pit through 

 fodder-corn, millet, or sorghum. The clover becomes, after 

 the first fermentation, a putty-like mass, which fills the inter- 

 stices in coarser and more fibrous fodder, and thus makes 

 the whole much more compact and weighty than it would 

 otherwise be, while it improves the qualit}' of the food. 



By this system red clover, fodder-corn, pearl millet, West- 

 India millet, or Guinea corn, hitherto the most uncertain, 

 difficult, and expensive to cure and preserve of all our 

 crops, become the easiest and least expensive in these re- 

 sj)ects ; while their value as cattle-food is greatly increased 

 over the same crops cured by drying in the usual mode. 

 This S3''stem, w^hen understood and practised throughout 

 the country, may become no mean factor in our national 

 prosperity. 



By it, through the great increase of the best cattle-food, 

 which may be produced at greatly diminished cost upon the 

 worn lands of the Eastern and Middle States, these lands 

 may be renewed and enriched, and their owners be ma- 

 terially aided, especially in dairying, in their now difficult 

 competition with the cheaper and richer lands of the West. 



By it, also, the Southern States, below the line of our 

 Northern grasses, are enabled to feed and fatten their cattle 

 in winter and summer, as well, and nearly or quite as 

 cheaply, as where tame grasses abound. 



O. B. Potter. 



New York, Sept. 15, 1880. 



