SALT AND FRESH WATER MARSH HAY. 



By a. B. Allen, 0/ New York. 



There are doubtless some millions of acres of salt and fresh water 

 marsh lands bordering the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, 

 and, in addition, large areas of fresh-water marsh on the borders of 

 lakes and rivers in the interior. 



The grasses of salt marshes were soon found by settlers near them to 

 be valuable for both pasture and hay, and they have constantly been 

 pretty generally utilized for these purposes; but the taller and coarser 

 grasses, and particularly the sedges of the fresh-water marshes, so far as 

 I can learn, have hitherto been almost entirely neglected. This herb- 

 age, while green and growing, is so unpalatable to horses and cattle, they 

 will not graze it unless in a state of half-starvation, and the idea of cut- 

 ting and curing it for hay has been usually considered preposterous by 

 our farmers. 



Having come into the possession, a few years since, of some marshes 

 of the above kinds near the Jersey sea-shore, and, soon after this, owing 

 to an excessive drought prevailing mostly through the months of May 

 and June, I found that I should be short the coming winter in upland 

 hay for my stock — moreover, it rose, directly after harvesting, to the 

 high price of 840 per ton and salt-marsh hay to $20 per ton, about 

 double the prices they usually command here — under these circumstan- 

 ces I made up my mind to experiment the coming winter for fodder with 

 what was considered the most worthless of all the various kinds of herb- 

 age growing on the fresh-water marshes of this region, which I had hith- 

 erto cut and cured only for stable-bedding and the mulching of fruit- 

 trees, shrubs, and strawberries. 



I should remark here that this kind of herbage which I made use of 

 is not a grass, but one of the Cyperacece, (sedge family,) called Scirpus 

 pungens, and containing, as it is said, very little of either starch or 

 sugar. 



In order to keep my stock in fine condition, I have always been in the 

 habit of feeding more or less bran and meal of various sorts even with 

 the best of upland hay, and I knew it would be still more necessary to 

 do this with the coarse sedge 1 had selected for my experiment. More- 

 over, in order that domestic animals digest and make available all 

 possible nutriment contained in hay, straw, sedge, or cornstalks fed to 

 them, it is necessary that they should have other food mixed with these, 

 abounding largely in nitrogenous substances. Cottonseed, linseed, and 

 Indian meal are, perhaps, the most suitable for this purpose. 



I had been in the habit of giving my horses and cattle from seven to 

 twenty pounds of good upland hay per day, according to their size and 

 kind, together with two to twelve quarts of ground feed. The propor- 

 tions generally of this ground feed were in measure as follows : 3 parts 

 Indian meal, 1 part cotton or linseed meal, 4 parts wheat-bran. Thus, 



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