252 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



clovers are liable to be killed by standing water. Redtop 

 and alsike clover are capable of enduring a wetter soil 

 than timothy and red clover, but fowl meadow grass will 

 thrive best in soil where even redtop and alsike soon 

 kill out. There are many acres in Vermont now occupied 

 by sedges and rushes where fowl meadow grass would 

 grow well if introduced. Seedsmen do not carry good 

 seeds of this grass but it may be easily harvested from 

 the wild grass in almost any town in Vermont, provided 

 one knows the grass when one sees it." 



CARE OF MEADOWS AND PASTURES. 



"Now the blades of grass thrust keenly through the soil, burn- 

 ished and glistening. It is as if spring marched into the land with 

 an army with banners. Grass is the most common and least 

 salient of the phases of nature. It does not lift itself into the vision 

 like the forest. It does not offer an everchanging panorama like 

 the sky. It has no dramatic violence like the sea. Yet nothing 

 gives a deeper sense of the overwhelming power of nature than 

 the silent upgushing of this rich, spreading tide of green. The 

 power that swings the suns in a leash is not mightier than this 

 which slowly and secretly urges the grass into the upper air. 

 Indeed, is it not the same power? There is not a nobler symbol 

 in nature of the mystery of renewal, the mystery of life, than 

 the coming of the grass. To find a nobler we must look into the 

 soul of man. Only there in its struggle, through failure and un- 

 conquerable aspiration, toward perfection does the great mystery 

 take on a loftier beauty." 



TREATMENT OF MEADOWS AND PASTURES. 



Adequately to treat the subject of making a soil right 

 and seeding it to clovers and grasses, then caring for the 

 plants after I had them, would fill a farm library, so one 

 can do little at getting it all into the space left in this 



