SALT AND 'FRESH WATER MARSH HAY. 297 



if the ration happened to be four quarts, three pints would be Indian 

 meal, one pint cotton or linseed meal, and four pints brau. For horses 

 these rations were of an equal quantity morning, noon, and night; for 

 cows, morning and night only. 



Enough of the sedge was passed through a hay-cutter to fill a peck 

 measure, and every time an animal was fed this was sprinkled with 

 water, the ration of meal and bran added to it, and all then well mixed 

 up together. During the day each animal had as much of the loose 

 sedge as it would eat up clean, which was not more in quantity than 

 they had usually consumed of upland hay. All were stabled and boun- 

 tifully bedded. Each animal had a lump of Liverpool rock-salt con- 

 stantly in its feed-box to lick at pleasure. In addition to this, each was 

 given, once a week, a gill of wood-ashes and a tablespoonful of sulphur. 

 I never had stock winter better or come out in finer condition in the 

 spring than my animals then did, and the same has been the case every 

 subsequent season when thus fed. The horses traveled at the same pace 

 as before and did the same amount of work, and the cows gave just as 

 much milk, which made as much and as fine a quality of butter as 

 when fed on an equal quantity of upland hay. 



Another lot of stock I have since tried with salt-marsh hay alongside 

 of those on sedge ; both in other respects were treated in the same man- 

 ner, and they came out in the spring in like condition. One farrow 

 cow in the sedge lot averaged within a fraction of seven pounds per 

 week of best quality of family butter from the time she was taken 

 up from pasture in autumn till turned out again the following spring. 

 The only difference I made in the quantity of gTound feed when salt 

 hay and sedge were foddered was to add one more measure of linseed 

 or cotton-seed meal to the ration per day. For example, if the ration 

 was one pint or one quart per day with upland hay, then I doubled this 

 with the sedge, but did not increase either the Indian meal or bran. The 

 reason I did not make this addition with Indian meal was because the 

 former contains a greater i>roportion of nitrogenous substance than the 

 latter. 



Eeckoning 8 per cent, for interest and taxes on the value of the marsh, 

 together with the labor of cutting, curing, and storing the sedge in the 

 barn, it cost only $5 per ton. The additional cost of the extra linseed 

 or cotton-seed meal taken to feed with the sedge over that of upland 

 hay was about $1 per ton, making the whole cost, say, $G. This proved 

 a saving that winter of $34 per ton in the cost of hay. As upland hay 

 has since been worth on an average here only $20 per ton, the gain 

 between feeding that and sedge during the latter time was only $14 per 

 ton. Every one now, from the above data, can make his own calculations 

 as to the economy of feeding coarse marsh hay or sedge, as it will depend 

 entirely on the relative value with him between this and upland hay 

 and the cost of meal and bran. Straw of all kinds, and corn-stalks, 

 may be utilized in the same economical manner, and thus feeding them 

 would considerably increase the percentage on the income of all grain- 

 growing farmers. 



My marshes are so low as to be overflowed whenever an easterly 

 wind blows strong enough to bring in a sufficiently high tide from the 

 ocean or bays to cast the fresh water back from the mouths of rivers 

 emptying into them. The sediment of this fresh river-water is more or 

 less fertilizing, and adds to the annual growth of the various kinds of 

 herbage natural to them. 



It would be an injury to dike and drain these meadows I am now speak- 

 ing of, as the soil is a poor hungry sea sand or gravel, with a thin coat of 



