18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



cussion. " How to improve the fertility of our pastures," is 

 a standing question of clubs and institutes, only answered 

 in theory. 



The original fertility of the soil has been for generations 

 sent into the towns in the diurnal milk-can, and the poor 

 savings of the business put into the banks of deposit to be 

 loaned to those who build up towns, or used to construct rail- 

 roads that bring butter from Iowa to Boston, cheaper than it 

 can be carried thither from Worcester or Franklin. Mean- 

 while, the moss-grown pasture, robbed of fertility, grows up 

 to a tangled maze of bushes. 



Briers, spoon-wood, hardback, wood-waxen huckleberry, 

 and similar usurpers take the place of grasses : hence the 

 constantly recurring question of improvement. 



In other countries pastures are not exclusively used for 

 neat-stock and horses. In Europe and the British Islands 

 sheep and hogs are pastured ; and these animals maintain a 

 high degree of fertility at the same time that a profitable 

 husbandry is carried on. 



We are not accustomed to pasture pigs ; and many would, 

 without thought, deny that the pig is a grazing animal. 

 Pigs can be very profitably grown in pasture ; and when 

 herds of them are kept in small compass, and fed with grain, 

 wonderful results in the way of fertilization can be achieved 

 upon worn-out soils. 



Sheep-husbandry is a sure means of restoring and main- 

 taining fertility ; but the present relation of sheep and dogs 

 renders it useless for our benefit. 



If the matter is brought to the cold light of figures, it 

 would probably appear that the greater part of our pasture- 

 land is really not worth renovating. Much of it is poor, 

 stony, and distant. Fencing is a great expense. The land 

 is in use only three or four months in the year. Our best 

 arable fields are not well tilled ; the fault of our farming- 

 being in spreading over a wide expanse of land, instead of 

 concentrating labor upon fewer acres. Progressive farmers 

 incline less to pastures, and more to cultivation. Instead of 

 wandering over barren tracts of inhospitable pasture, their 

 cows are kept in convenient yards at home, and fed from 

 green crops raised, in rotation, upon land that is never idle, 

 and not run to waste. Important information in regard to 

 this method of feeding will be found in subsequent pages. 



