IMPROVEMENT OF PASTURES. 17 



with green manure and one-third with superphosphate. We 

 had a fair crop, the best yield being from the green manure. 

 The other two-thirds of the lot were ploughed in 1864, and 

 planted also to potatoes, manuring with hassock ashes, getting a 

 crop of about seventy-five bushels per acre. We planted Lot 

 No. 2 two years, more effectually to subdue it. This year we 

 sowed to oats and grass seed. The oats we have not yet 

 threshed. It is light land, but we consider it very much 

 improved." 



The improvement in Mr. Keith's pasture is apparent. His 

 statement that it produces three times as much as it did formerly 

 is fully warranted, and that the improvement in its quality is 

 quite equal to its increase in quantity, his neat stock would 

 doubtless affirm, could they give oral expression to their great 

 satisfaction with the efficiency of their commissariat. 



We are not quite sure that the raising of rye is fully within 

 the scope of a premium experiment in renovating pasture lands, 

 or that it is, on the whole, a profitable or economical accompani- 

 ment to such an experiment. The immediate return, in this 

 case, was some ten bushels of rye per acre, from the value of 

 which must be deducted the cost of seed, and of harvesting and 

 threshing, as well as a loss to the soil of a part of its inherent 

 elements of fertility and of a considerable portion of the manure 

 applied. Mr. Keith's experiment might have been made more 

 instructive by varying the course of proceeding on different 

 portions of his lot. For instance, by sowing one-third with rye, 

 and with grass seed the following spring ; another portion with 

 both rye and grass seed, at the proper time for sowing rye ; and 

 the residue with grass seed only, in July or August. 



The practice of sowing grass seed upon the surface of grain 

 fields in the spring, although common in some localities, seems 

 to be of doubtful expediency. After the soil has become com- 

 pacted by the storms of winter, and by its own adhesiveness, 

 there must inevitably be a considerable loss of seed through 

 failure of germination, and a consequent irregular distribution 

 of plants, which, under the disadvantage of an unequal struggle 

 with a vigorous opponent, already in full possession, can make 

 but feeble growth. Many experienced farmers deem it the 

 better course to turn in the stubble, after harvesting their grain 

 crops, and seed down upon the fresh, mellow earth. It is 



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