52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



whole matter is, that farmers are so slow to learn and prac- 

 tise what is so plainly for their own interest. I know a 

 farmer, — yes, I know scores of them, — who, guided by the 

 usages of their ancestors, begin to mow on the Monday after 

 the 4th of July, as though, on the morning of that day, 

 by divine appointment, grass came to maturity, and should 

 be cut. If they would appoint a day when they would pick 

 their pease, or their cucumbers, or even their fruits, and 

 adhere to it, they might possibly be made to see the absur- 

 dity of such a rule. The most careless observer must have 

 noticed, that the time of ripening of vegetation varies with 

 the season from ten to fifteen days : hence the idea of nam- 

 ing a particular day as being the right time to begin to mow 

 is simply ridiculous. The right time is when the stalks con- 

 tain the greatest amount of nutritious matter; and that, I 

 think, is indicated by the blossom. When a field shows a 

 greater amount of blooms than it will at any other time, it 

 should be mowed immediately. The point to be aimed at 

 in making hay should be to preserve as much of the gum, 

 sugar, and starch in the stalk and leaf, as is possible. Now, 

 in order to secure this end, the stalk should be entirely and 

 absolutely free from external moisture ; and, when this con- 

 dition is attained, it requires but very little sun to fit it for 

 the barn. If one wishes to ascertain how little sun is re- 

 quired to make hay, let him take a grass-hook, and go into a 

 field in the middle of a bright day, and cut some grass, lay 

 it even as you would rye ; cut enough to make a bundle ten 

 inches or more in diameter ; lay it on a rock, if convenient, 

 and let it lay one hour exposed to the sun ; then, for con- 

 venience, put it on a piece of cloth about a yard long, and as 

 wide as the grass is long ; roll it up solid, and then,' with a 

 piece of marline, seize it hard, so it will be air-tight ; then you 

 will have a bundle of hay containing nearly all the nutri- 

 tious matter that was in the grass when it was cut. A pro- 

 cess on a large scale, involving these conditions, would 

 enable us to feed grass in winter as well as in summer. 

 The sudden atmospheric changes, however, to which we are 

 liable, especially on the seacoast, renders it very difficult to 

 give infallible rules for making hay. Even in a single day 

 or hour, the temperature sometimes varies from the extreme 

 dryness of a north-west wind to the humidity of a south- 



