136 GRASSES AND FOEAGE PLANTS. 



season. And another of Worcester county: " Hay grown in a 

 dry season contains more nutriment. Tliis is particularly 

 noticeable in the condition of cattle in the spring following a 

 dry season. I do not consider grass grown in a dense shade 

 worth over half price ;" while a farmer of great observation, in 

 Middlesex county, says : " From an experience of fifty years in 

 making hay, and thirty-five in feeding it out and selling it, I 

 should say that in a wet season I never found any thing like so 

 much heart or nutriment in hay as in a dry one. Grass grown 

 under a tliick, shady tree is not worth one-half as much as that 

 grown in the sun. The grass this year in this town was well 

 set in the spring and grew very quick when the warm weather 

 came on, l)ut still avc had much good, warm sun to bring it to 

 maturity, and I think it will spend pretty well, but probably 

 not quite as well as the same bulk last year. Since the fifth of 

 September we cut our salt hay in this town and never found it 

 cleaner or better, and I think it will spend well." And another 

 practical farmer remarks : " I think grass and hay are not so 

 good in a wet season. We lose about one-third in the quality 

 of what we gain in the quantity. Grass grown in the shade is 

 not worth more than tAvo-thirds as much as that grown in the 

 sun." 



It is not necessary to multiply the authorities of practical 

 farmers on this point, since they uniformly coincide with the 

 testimony given above, and it may be regarded as fully estab- 

 lished as the result both of scicntiPx investigations and of prac- 

 tical experience, that both the quantity and the quality of grass 

 are in proportion to the heat or sunlight and the moisture in 

 which it is grown. 



What has been said will explain the suggestion in the last 

 section with respect to the allowance which it may be proper to 

 make in the analyses of grass grown in a climate of less heat 

 and less sunshine than oiir own. It v/ill also lead to the conclu- 

 sion that our own grasses grown on lov/, moist lands, are neither 

 so sweet nor so nutritious as the same species grown on higher 

 and dryer soils ; and it is a fact whicli has fallen under the 

 observation of i)ractical farmers, that the grasses on low lands 

 do not produce so much nor so good a quality of milk, nor so 

 much fat in animals as the same species of grass grown on up- 

 land soils. 



