MIXTURE OF GRASSES. 21 



that bulb is broken off, you get no more grass from that root. 

 Therefore, although I am in favor of about all the agricultural 

 tools now in use, I am inclined to object a little to the horse- 

 rake. I think we may find some machine to rake our hay that 

 is better than the spring-tooth horse-rake, although I have used 

 one for many years. 



Now, if we plough our ground slightly, cultivate it slightly 

 with a harrow, give it no pulverization, plant it, hoe it carelessly, 

 and then seed it down, when we come to mow, the knives of the 

 machine are dulled by the dirt and broken by the stones, the 

 teeth of the horse-rake scratch up the dirt with the hay, and it 

 is rolled over and over in the winrows, and gives us just what 

 we don't want in our hay. It wears the teeth of the cattle, 

 and is a dirty mess to feed, and they don't relish the hay as 

 well as they do good, nice, clean hay, well cured, and cut 

 early. 



For mowing, I should not recommend the early grasses to be 

 mixed with the late. If not mixed, the grasses usually sown 

 will be in blossom very nearly at the same time, and you can 

 cut and cure your hay so that there will be no loss on either 

 kind of grass ; whereas, if you mix the early and late grasses, 

 when the late are fit to cut, of course, the early will be in too 

 advanced a state to make the best hay. But for pastures, I 

 should decidedly recommend a mixture of the early and late 

 grasses, and quite a number of varieties, as the early will come 

 forward and mature before the others, which will come in in 

 their turn, and thus the cattle will have later pasturage than 

 the early or late grasses alone could afford. 



I think a great mistake is many times made by covering the 

 seed too deep. Many farmers harrow their seed in, and a great 

 deal of it never germinates. I would recommend the covering 

 of grass seed as lightly as possible, never using a harrow to 

 put in the seed. The object of farmers should be to obtain the 

 greatest income from their lands with the least amount of labor. 

 Now, the question is, In what way can we do that ? There is 

 no doubt in my mind that the grass crop is the most profitable 

 crop that we can grow in the eastern part of Massachusetts, at 

 least, except in the immediate vicinity of our cities, where mar- 

 ket gardening would pay best, and to get that grass crop at the 

 least amount of labor should become our object. But it cannot 



