294 STATE BOAKD OF AGEICULTUEE. 



MOEE MAXURE. 



It may be objected that it is all well enough to talk aljout tlie use of luore 

 manure, — to manure the grass land; but will it pay in tliis country? Emphati- 

 cally, yes ! I refer you to some experiments made by Dr. R. C. Kedzie in top- 

 dressing meadow, printed in our report for 1864. The outlay pays from 35 to 

 over 100 per cent, per annum. The top-dressing used consisted in ashes, muck, 

 plaster, salt, cow and horse manure. We have found at the Agricultural Col- 

 lege that we can make a valuable compost of muck and barnyard manure for 25 

 to 50 cents a cubic yard. On most farms the supply and value of manure can be 

 trebled as Avell as not by the use of muck. Bones can be pounded up during 

 winter with a sledge-hammer, and mixed with aslies or fermenting manure, or 

 sown directly on the land. Many a dead sheep, horse, or ox is buried which 

 should be cut up in pieces and mixed with the manure. On one of the poor bar- 

 ren islands near the eastern coast of Maine, I saw the lieaviest groAvth of timo- 

 thy I ever heard of. It was six feet high, and had been liberally treated with 

 fish guano. If a farmer can really once believe that it is profitable to jiay good 

 attention to his grass land, he will find ways enough to increase the quantity 

 of his fertilizers. 



Whether it is best for a farmer to keep some of his land permanently to grass, 

 or to keep all of it under tlie plow occasionally, I cannot tell ; but I believe 

 Michigan ought to have more permanent pasture. If we allow the grass to 

 remain only two or three years at a time, there is no use of sowing the finer 

 sorts, as Kentucky blue grass, red-top, fox-tail, or the fescues. As to the rela- 

 tive value of grasses there must always be a variety of views, on account of cli- 

 mate, soil, what they are used for, how they are treated, etc. AYhether it pays 

 to drain land well or not, I am almost ashamed to mention to such a body of 

 intelligent farmers as are here assembled. You know it pays. Yet we must 

 keep repeating this as long as there is so much wet land about us which does 

 not produce half a crop. It is not yet many years since the people of Geneva, 

 New York, made all sorts of fun of John Johnson for burying crockery in his 

 fields, — referring to his ditcliing with tiles. He has lived to see a complete rev- 

 olution in all the country about liim. 



XATIYE AXD FOKEIGis' GRASSES. 



Some 2")eople think we should use only the grasses native to our country. 

 But by a moment's thought on this we see that such grasses are not necessarily 

 the best because they are natives. Foreign plants and foreign insects often 

 thrive better than our cultivated ones. I need only refer to the thriftiness of 

 tlie imported codling moth, weevil, and Hessian fly, and to most of the worst 

 Aveeds in our gardens and fields. vUmost any farm in the State containing a 

 variety of soil will be found to grow already as many as fifty or more species of 

 grass. On the farm of the Agricultural College, saying nothing about the exper- 

 imental plats, I have found about 75 species, besides the cereals and clovers. 

 There are probably growing wild in the State, at present, about 115 sjiecies. 

 These grasses make their oAvn selection of place, and from this circumstance we 

 can learn a useful lesson: ''Some prefer low, wet situations, others grow only 

 on dry ground ; some prefer the shade of forest trees, while others flourish best 

 on the most exposed parts of the broad prairies ; some grow only in the water, 

 others along the margins of lakes and streams ; some attain tlieir maturity early . 



