294 TIME OF SOWING GRASSES. 



made, in the hope of obtaining such information as 

 would settle the question as to the best time of sowing 

 grass-seed, and the practice of seeding down in the fall 

 was then commenced by a few individuals. At and 

 before that time, the practice of sowing in the spring 

 was universal, and the same custom has very generally 

 prevailed till within a very few years. Both the prac- 

 tice and the opinion of the best practical farmers in the 

 northern and eastern states have changed to a consid- 

 erable extent, and it is now commonly thought best to 

 sow grass-seed in the fall, early in September, if possi- 

 ble, mixing no grain or anything else with it, though 

 there are, and always will be, some cases where the 

 practice of sowing in the spring with grain is conve- 

 nient and judicious. 



There can be no doubt that it is, in most cases, an 

 injury to both crops to sow grain and grass-seed to- 

 gether. The following statement of an experienced 

 and successful farmer will enable us to comprehend 

 how the change was brought about, though others had 

 tried the same experiment long before him. "More 

 than twenty years ago, we had several dry summers, in 

 the springs of which I had sown grass-seed with rye, 

 barley, and sometimes wheat, and lost most of my seed 

 by the drought. I could scrape it up, the plants being 

 dead and dry, when small. Since that time I have uni- 

 versally ploughed after haying, and sowed Timothy 

 grass and redtop." 



Other farmers probably experienced the same diffi- 

 culty, and came to the same conclusion. Our seasons 

 differ greatly, it is true, but it is now well understood 

 that we must calculate on a drought in some part of 

 the summer, and grass will suffer more from drought 

 than from frost. Hence the propriety of fall sowing. 

 There are some localities, undoubtedly, where spring 



