290 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



get other grasses and clovers. If for pasture always add 

 2 to 4 pounds of white clover. 



Seeding Grasses in the Spring. If all the seeds are 

 to be sown in the spring one should have the land plowed 

 early as possible so that it may be well settled together. 

 Much grass seed is lost because of too loose a seedbed 

 in spring. Give all the harrowing that you can and 

 work the land down to a thorough seedbed, yet hasten 

 the work so as to get the seeding done as early as there 

 is growing weather. Along the 4Oth parallel I like to 

 sow grass seeds the first week in April; during some 

 years March will be a better time, ,and farther south 

 the work may be best done still earlier. I do not think 

 that in spring the chances are very good of getting a 

 stand of grasses having small seeds, such as bluegrass, 

 unless one seeds quite early and on a good, fine, firm 

 seedbed. Here again it is true that the more seed used 

 the better the chance of success, since by their very mul- 

 tiplicity the seedlings protect one another. Here again 

 comes in the helpful nurse-crop. 



Nurse-Crops in Spring. I advise always the use of 

 a nurse-crop; that is, if the farmer can use one with 

 judgment and discretion ; if he cares only for the nurse- 

 crop he had better seed the grasses alone. If he will sow 

 one bushel to the acre of spring barley, preferably a 

 short-strawed, strong variety that will not lodge, or 3 

 pecks of oats, if he will remorselessly cut the nurse-crop 

 off for hay when in bloom, it will do good and no harm. 

 If, on the other hand, he seeks to get a maximum crop 

 of grain and a seeding of young grasses at the same 

 spring sowing, he will very often get the grain and a 



