238 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



get it ready by August 20th, in latitude of Philadelphia; if the field 

 is loam of the limestone type, but if it is red shale and has to b'e 

 plowed in lands owing to the drainage, it is best to seed to grass 

 ten days or two weeks earlier. The farmer must keep his rye on his 

 soil and adopt his farming to his field, if he does not, he only 

 delays progress. Again, if his soil is inclined to hold too much 

 water as many of the shale soils do, do not bother with red clover 

 in the grass mixture but sow alsike, it being a much smaller seed 

 than red clover, two to three quarts of alsike to the acre. But 

 for the regular grass mixture sow six quarts of red clover, five 

 quarts of timothy, two and a half pounds of alsike, and one pound 

 of red top, sow this mixture broadcast over an acre as evenly as 

 possible on well prepared ground, with any broadcast seed sower 

 and harrow it in with a weeder going over it only once, do not 

 roll the field unless rolling after seeding on your ground does 

 well, let the field alone till about June 15th of the following year, 

 then cut the grass, make it into hay as soon as the hay is off, begin 

 to top dress the field with manure with about the same amount of 

 spreader loads, just as so.on as the red clover heads appear over the 

 field clip the field, do not wait till a few turn brown, clip it, but 

 above all things don't pasture it, if the clover heads appear in 

 a few weeks again, setting the mowing machine just high enough 

 to escape cutting the crown of the clover stalks; if it is necessary 

 to clip more than twice clip, do not neglect clipping any more than 

 you neglected seeding or mowing, let the field go into winter quar- 

 ters manured and mulched, if the manure is not put on the field 

 till in fall and winter, be sure and clip whenever the clover heads 

 appear, do not wait till some turn brown or still worse black, clip 

 when in bloom. 



The manure may be put on any time before it's too late in the 

 spring, but in my experience the sooner the better after the hay 

 crop is off the field. The field is laid over in this way for second 

 year's mowing, having been clipped and top dressed; the second 

 year's mowing ought to be a good one and as soon as it is made 

 into hay, top dress it again, to be put into corn the following 

 spring, but if any timothy or clover heads appear, clip them off. 

 Don't pasture this sod which will begin to look like a field ought 

 to look, but clip it, remember you are bringing up a piece of poor 

 ground to be a good ground and one mistake may delay all the 

 best efforts, put forth in three years — just be as careful of sod 

 for culm as for mowing. 



During this ripening of the field for a crop, it has had a manur- 

 ing for every crop, it had two plowings the summer it was seeded 

 for grass, one for the oats and peas, and then the plowing for grass; 

 it had three top dressings, and two manurings plowed under; it had 

 in three years eight different kinds of roots all reaching different 

 depths in the soil, the deep thick rooting clovers, the strong corn 

 roots, the fine winter rye, the pea root, reaching deeper than the 

 oats roots, the oats, the shallow root, with the grasses work the 

 top soil into the finest mechanical condition their countless rootlets. 

 Plant roots are the under ground harrows, the soil never having 

 been pastured has left the seed bed made by harrowing and pul- 

 verizing two years before in fact. I will be very much surprised 



