34 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



any time after the hay is taken off, manure may be spread 

 evenly over the meadow. Care should be taken to break 

 up large masses so that the grass may not be smothered, 

 and it should be spread so evenly that while all will be 

 covered, yet the grasses will be seen peering through. If 

 now this manure has been reinforced with something car- 

 rying phosphorus, say with acid phosphate, using about 

 40 pounds to the ton of manure, or with "floats," (finely- 

 ground phosphatic rock) using 100 pounds or more to 

 the ton of manure, the fertilization will be quite complete 

 and very effective. No fear need be felt that the manure 

 will damage the next year's hay crop. The rains of fall 

 and winter will have so decayed it that it will practically 

 have melted into the soil before another year. Eight to 

 12 tons to the acre make a good fertilization, though 

 much less will serve and give marked results in the suc- 

 ceeding hay crop. I have taken more than 3 tons of tim- 

 othy from an acre of land top-dressed with manure. The 

 same land untreated would hardly have yielded one ton, 

 and with hay worth $12 per ton it is plain that the 8 tons 

 of manure applied brought return of $24 or $3 per ton. 

 Furthermore, there was left considerable residual fertility 

 in the soil which subsequent crops of hay and corn recov- 

 ered. Where manure is not available timothy meadows 

 are very responsive to artificial fertilization. 



'Fertilisers on Timothy Meadows. Quite a large num- 

 ber of field experiments with fertilizers on timothy are 

 recorded. The grass seems unusually responsive to good 

 fertilization. Wheeler and Adams working at the Rhode 

 Island Experiment Station reported* in 1902 experiments 



* Bulletin 82, Rhode Island Experiment Station. 



