CULTIVATED MOWING-LANDS. 115 



QtfESTiON. Do you ever sow grass-seed on the snow ? 



Capt. MooEE. I have sown clover on the snow, and I 

 have sown grass-seed on the snow, very early in the spring. 

 The difference between sowing grass-seed extremely early in 

 the spring and in the fall is this : Sown in the fall, the warm 

 weather will start the seed, and it grows quickly ; if sown in 

 the spring, it does not come up so quick by at least ten days 

 as when sown in the fall, and then you give the weeds a 

 chance to start, and you have to head off the weeds. If the 

 grass-seed is sown in the fall, the weeds do not start until it 

 is a little warmer than is required to start the grass, and 

 you do not have so many weeds. The difficulty in sowing 

 early in the spring, without any grain with the grass-seed, 

 is the trouble with the weeds. Now, if some of you have 

 a very wet piece of ground, and you sow it in the fall, j^ou 

 will have some weeds the next year. I have grown some 

 excellent crops of weeds ; but I figured up those crops of 

 weeds some years ago, and I calculated they were the most 

 unprofitable crops I ever grew. I would not advise you to 

 go into growing crops of weeds. The one great difficulty 

 with young men, when they start in farming, is, that their 

 eyes are so big, they want to plant all the ground in the 

 spring that they can, and they think they are going to hoe 

 it ; but, by the time they get into the middle of July, it is 

 all overrun with weeds. If there is any one thing I would 

 say to them more emphatically than another, it is this : You 

 had better start with a less number of acres, and take care 

 of them. 



In the course that I have undertaken to lay down here, I 

 do not propose to use any compost-manure during the five 

 years. I know that some of you will disagree with that. I 

 mean, I do not propose to use any top-dressing, which is 

 usually done with compost-manure. I do not tliink it is 

 economy to top-dress your grassland. It will not do for me 

 to say here that it is not economy, unless I tell you why I 

 think it is nut. I do not mean to have you understand me 

 to say that top-dressing a piece of grassland will not make 

 more grass, because it will. I can imagine a piece of land 

 so situated that it might be economy to top-dress it, but it 

 is not economy for me to top-dress mine. I have to use a 

 great deal of manure for other crops, and what manure I 



