40 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



whitetop (Erigeronannuus) appears and threatens greatly 

 to injure the market quality of the timothy hay. If sheep 

 are put in for a time (before the timothy is jointed) they 

 will eat out most of the whitetop and leave the meadow 

 clean. Care must be taken not to let the sheep remain 

 long enough to eat down the timothy, or the cure will be 

 as bad as the disease, unless the season proves very moist 

 and favoring. Sheep on timothy in winter will nearly 

 destroy it by eating the bulbs, which are tender and nour- 

 ishing. 



Mice in Timothy Meadows. The common short-tailed 

 meadow mouse is a great pest in timothy. It lives on the 

 bulbs which are sweet and nutritious. I have found the 

 underground burrows of these mice packed full of tim- 

 othy bulbs. The remedy for mice is to have many cats 

 about the farm, feeding them milk at the barns, to pro- 

 tect sparrow and other small hawks, and to scatter poi- 

 soned grain about in the meadows where their runs 

 abound, doing this so far as possible in such manner as 

 not to destroy innocent wild birds and domestic animals. 

 Quail seldom if ever eat shelled corn which mice greedily 

 devour. 



Do not Clip Timothy too Close. Close-cutting of tim- 

 othy meadows is most injurious to them. I have tested 

 this thing well and have nearly destroyed meadows by 

 very close cutting. At least two of the lower joints of 

 the stem should be left if the future good of the meadow 

 is considered. 



The Life of a Timothy Meadow. There are soils so 

 well suited naturally to timothy grass that meadows of 

 it may endure thereon for many years. Ordinarily, in 



