GRASSES IN NEW YORK 387 



However, its market qualities are poor. It is never sown for hay, 

 but it comes into the old fields which have not been plowed for a 

 long time. On my own farm I cut 70 acres the past season of this 

 grass. It yielded about one-half ton of hay per acre. This is worth 

 on the market $10 per ton, while timothy is worth $13. We use 

 red clover, either medium or mammoth, and alsike clover in 

 meadows. No others are used. Usually about 10 quarts of timothy 

 to 6 or 8 quarts of red clover are sown per acre. 



Regarding the system of management and fertilization of meadows 

 and pastures, I have but little to offer apart from the general 

 practice of other sections. We consider that timothy should not 

 be left down as a meadow longer than two or three years. The 

 first year we cut a crop of clover, and the second and third years 

 the hay is practically all timothy. We have been carrying on a 

 series of experiments with farmers in connection with co-operative 

 experiments which go to indicate that 100 pounds or so of nitrate 

 of soda per acre will increase the yield of timothy hay more than 

 enough to pay for the fertilizer and labor. This, however, we 

 do not recommend to be applied to timothy meadows which are not 

 at the present time producing more than a ton of timothy hay. 



Under ordinary conditions I always recommend sowing timothy, 

 Kentucky bluegrass and white clover. These are found growing 

 naturally in all parts of this state, and on practically all kinds 

 of soil. They may not be the principal plants occupying each type 

 of soil, but they are there in greater or less numbers for permanent 

 pasture. I think that Kentucky bluegrass should always be included 

 in a new seeding because it will increase from year to year. White 

 clover is a pasture plant which eventually appears in nearly all types 

 of soil, but it should be sown occasionally. It is in and out and 

 adds materially to the forage of pastures. I often recommend to 

 farmers that they sow on their old pastures a light mixture of some 

 of the principal grasses and clovers. I think from $1 to $3 worth of 

 seed at a time will pay for itself and more in the course of a 

 year or two. Prof. Samuel Fraser, manager of the Wadsworth 

 Estate at Geneseo, sows from 60 cents to $1 worth of seed per acre. 

 About 500 acres, he tells me, were thus reseeded last year. He states 

 that he would prefer a light seeding to a heavy one. In case the 

 seeding fails he can try again another year. If, however, heavy 

 seeding had been applied the loss would be great. Without doubt 

 the application of stable manure to our run-down pastures is of vast 



