IMPROVEMENT OF PASTURES. 143 



forty dollars a ton ; and I fed those sheep every day, morning 

 and night, with cotton-seed meal. They liked it first-rate, 

 and it agreed with them uncommonly well. I do not re- 

 member the exact quantity, but perhaps a pint for each sheep 

 at each feeding ; and the moment I went into the pasture they 

 would run to get their breakfast or their supper. The re- 

 sult was, they cleaned out absolutely every brier, and every 

 sumac-bush, and many other shrubs, but not the huckleber- 

 ries. I could not induce them to eat the huckleberry-bushes. 

 They covered the pasture with manure. It was a delight to 

 see the dressing they gave it. They went through the fol- 

 lowing winter in good store condition ; and the next spring 

 I put on twenty or thirty less, and they went along the sec- 

 ond year, and did very well. My original plan was to run 

 them three years on that pasture ; and I believe it would have 

 been entirely changed in its character at the end of that 

 time, judging by the improvement that had been made. 



The cotton-seed-meal was a great advantage to that 

 pasture. 



Cotton-seed makes about the best manure, according to 

 the chemists, of any feeding-substance you can get. But 

 the point I wanted to suggest is this, that we can do some- 

 thing by feeding our cattle while at pasture, either with lin- 

 seed-meal, cotton-seed-meal, shorts, middlings, or something 

 of that sort, by which they will be adding largely to the 

 permanent improvement of the pasture. I believe that 

 the method of improving rough pastures by sheep is, on the 

 whole, one of the best and most economical methods. But 

 if that is impracticable, if the farmer finds that he cannot 

 take care of the sheep, or is afraid of dogs, the next best 

 way is to feed the cattle with some extra feeding-substance, 

 and keep them as much upon the pasture as possible ; and if 

 it is necessary to get the cows up into the yard every night, 

 so that the pasture loses a considerable portion of the manure, 

 then I would return some reasonable portion of it as a top- 

 dressing, in the form of compost ; or else I would select some 

 concentrated fertilizer. Superphosphate and ground bone 

 make a good dressing, if they can be obtained at a reasonable 

 price. The point is, that money spent in improving our grass- 

 land is more judiciously and wisely spent than it is in put- 

 ting it all into our ploughed lands. 



