120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



younger man), believe, that, in preparing a piece of land for 

 grass, the first thing to be done is to plant it with corn and 

 potatoes from one to three years, and exhaust it, and then 

 seed it down with the expectation of getting a crop of grass. 

 That is done to a considerable extent yet. I have no objec- 

 tion to raising crops of corn and potatoes, and all that ; but, 

 when you have planted your ground two years, you have 

 largely used up the benefit of the rotting sod that you have 

 turned over in those crops, and you must compensate the 

 soil with something to make that good. You have not prop- 

 erly prepared it for the grass-crop, unless you have put on 

 more manure than your crops have taken off; rather than 

 that, you have used up the sods, which would be a great 

 benefit in growing grass. 



A good way for a farmer to do with his land, who has not 

 grass enough to keep his cattle in the winter, is to take a 

 piece of this grassland, that perhaps has run down so that it 

 will produce only from eight hundred to a thousand pounds 

 to the acre, mow that early (by the 10th of June), plough it, 

 turn it over handsomely, — don't half do it, make a good job 

 of it, — pulverize it in the way I have described, and, if you 

 have not manure to put on it, put on a ton of ground bone, 

 undissolved, to the acre, simply fine ground bone (of course 

 you will say that you are not going to get the benefit of a 

 portion of that bone for some time, and that is true), then 

 sow it with millet. You will get fertilizer enough to raise a 

 big crop of millet (I know, because I have not only done it 

 myself, but I have seen it done by some of my neighbors at 

 my suggestion), — you will get a large crop of millet, perhaps 

 three or four tons to the acre. You will get that crop b}^ 

 the middle of August, or before the 1st of September. Then 

 put on the disk harrow, and stir the ground up (there will 

 be no weeds, the millet Avill keep every thing down), and 

 then sow grass-seed, and you have prepared that land so that 

 it will produce good crops of grass for five years, perhaps not 

 three tons to the acre ; but it will give fair crops of grass. . 



I would like to say one thing further. In my judgment^ 

 there should be no feeding on your grassland. I do not allow 

 a cow to go on to my mowing, or any other animal whatever. 

 If you must take that grass off to give to your cows, mow 

 some of your later rowen, and feed it to them green : but do 



