48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



later. I have for sixteen years got my hay into the barn the 

 day it was cut, and before that, I tried the experiment for sev- 

 eral years with a few loads at a time, and tried experiments 

 with salting, with the tightness of the barn, and the packing. 

 I think I have learned it for myself, from my own soil, from 

 my own stock, and from my own operations. Now, if any man 

 can show me a better lot of cows than I took to the New Eng- 

 land show, that had been fed on my early cut and little dried 

 hay, and show me that they had no more grain than mine have 

 had, I will give in. If he will bring forward a pair of horses, 

 weighing two thousand seven hundred pounds, that will go 

 from my place to Waltham, and will not vary five minutes from 

 two hours and twenty minutes in making the sixteen miles, 

 and show no indication of the heaves, I may begin to doubt if 

 my hay is so good as I think it is. If it -brings the heaves on, 

 I shall begin to think it is poor. I have three horses, and they 

 are as fat as does, although they work. I have a pair of heavy 

 horses, that weigh over two thousand seven hundred pounds, 

 and of course they are not so fleet as some of the small horses ; 

 but one of them, in particular, will trot ten miles in an hour, 

 and has done it a great many times, and has never got the 

 heaves. If he had had poor, musty hay, he would have been 

 very likely to have been troubled with the heaves. A good 

 many horses in my neighborhood have the heaves. I don't 

 know how they got them, but I suppose it was because they 

 were fed with poor hay. 



Three years ago this last July, a physician was at my place. 

 He was not there by reason of any sickness, but of course he 

 must have been a very sensible man, or he could never have 

 been the successful physician he was ; and he said that it was 

 reported to him that I cut my hay and carted it right into the 

 barn, without waiting for it to dry. I told him it was not so. 

 He said he had been told that I cut it when it was half grown. 

 I told him I cut it at the most profitable time. I took him to 

 a field and examined it in the way this young man (Mr. Buf- 

 finton) has described, by squeezing the sap out of the grass. 

 Then I cut a little of this grass and let it lie a very short time. 

 " Now," said I, " see if you can find any sap in that grass." 

 He tried it, and could not find any. Here we have the science. 

 I am not a scientific man ; I lay no claim to any science what- 



