NUTRITIVE QUALITY OF HUNGARIAN. 147 



ing these hays to be better in this respect. Of fat-forming 

 constituents, Hungarian hay has 2.23 per cent ; Timothy, 3.55 

 per cent ; and June grass, 2.63 per cent. Of nitrogenous ex- 

 tracts, Hungarian has 38.41 per cent ; Timothy, 53.35. Of raw- 

 er woody fibre, Hungarian contains 31.55 per cent; Timothy, 

 26.41 ; and June grass, 38.02. I do not think we can place 

 implicit confidence in these results, as the investigations were 

 made by different chemists on plants grown under somewhat 

 different conditions ; but they indicate, that, in the form of 

 hay, both Timothy and June grass are considerably superior 

 in nutritive qualities to Hungarian, — a result which might 

 have been expected. 



But Hungarian has steadily and rapidly gained in popular 

 favor, till the seed is now sold in Boston to the extent of 

 nearly seven thousand bushels a year. One small house sold 

 seven hundred bushels this season, another about two thou- 

 sand, and so on. That is a good indication of the estimation 

 in which it is held among farmers. 



Question. Cannot a pasture be harrowed with a fine- 

 tooth harrow, and clover-seed sown with advantage ? 



Mr. Flint. Where a pasture is bound out and mossy, 

 and the grass-roots unhealthy, which is the case with many 

 of our pastures, it might not be impracticable to improve it 

 by tillage. In such a case it occurs to me that it would be 

 well to run a Shares harrow over it diagonally, first in one 

 direction, and then the other, cutting it up into little squares 

 of about an inch, which would loosen the soil, and then sow 

 pasture grass-seeds, with a little white clover, or alsike 

 clover, and give it a light top-dressing. I think that is 

 perfectly practicable, and that it would make a permanent 

 improvement in our pastures. But red clover is too short- 

 lived to serve as a pasture-grass. 



Mr. Ward. It is supposed that our soils are exhausted. 

 I am happy to say, what I know to be true, that a clover- 

 crop will take out more nitrogen from the soil than any crop 

 that you grow. That being the case, it shows that our soils 

 here in New England, that we have supposed were exhausted, 

 still retain their pristine fertility. It only needs that we 

 put the soil in such a condition that the insoluble elements 

 that exist there can be extracted, in order to enable us to grow 



