•22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



(Laughter.) I have adopted, after twenty years, this prac- 

 tice. I have a piece of meadow that I top-dress occasionally. 

 One of my neighbors said once that I buried it in manure-; 

 but I never covered it so but what the grass peeped up 

 through. I have one piece, however, that I have top-dressed 

 quite heavily, from which I have cut nineteen crops in ten 

 years. I cut this very earl3^ It is a meadow of mixed 

 grasses ; there are probal)ly thirty or forty different kinds of 

 grass in it. I cut this, I say, very carl}^. If my cattle need 

 it at the time I cut it, I feed it to them ; if they do not, I lay 

 it by to feed to them the next spring. I can cut that again 

 by the first of August, and this I use instead of feeding fodder 

 corn, or sowed corn, and, allowing the cows to judge, I think 

 it is better than corn ; and I believe a cow knows fully as well 

 what she likes to eat as her owner. I believe she knows 

 what will suit her wants full as well as your Secretary here, 

 Mr. Flint. Well, this bridges over that space. I would 

 bridge it over with grass. 



It may be asked, perhaps, what kind of grasses are best for 

 a pasture. The best one kind, I saw occasionally peeping up 

 through the snow of your pastures as I was on the way to 

 Barre. It is known as June grass. Now, gentlemen, do not 

 be surprised, or say I ought to go into a lunatic asylum, because 

 I say June grass is your best pasture grass. I will say some- 

 thing stronger than that. No section of country under 

 heaven, north of the equator, ever succeeded in the dairy 

 business without June grass. . You may travel through Her- 

 kimer County, " where all is light," according to friend Root, 

 and ask one dairyman after another, and ninety out of every 

 hundred — I was going to say ninety-nine, and I guess I will, 

 — will say white-clover is the best pasture grass. I have no 

 doubt you may go through this section of the country and ask 

 your dairymen here what is the best pasture grass, and they 

 will say white-clover. Gentlemen, June grass is what has 

 made Herkimer County what it is ; it is what has made Dela- 

 ware, Scoharie, Chenango, Ulster and Orange counties what 

 they are. It is the base of their butter and cheese. It is the 

 foundation upon which their milk restsj and it is the best 

 grass you ever saw in Barre for pasture. Now, gentlemen, 

 do not do as our Herkimer County farmers — our wise Her- 



