396 . THE FARMER'S AND 







a sward for itself in less than two years ; hence it should 

 be sown with other grasses, such as timothy or clover, or 

 both. Were I to set ten acres in blue grass, I should 

 pursue the following method. Prepare the ground lor 

 wheat and make it smooth ; take 1 peck of timothy, 4 

 quarts of clover, and 4 quarts of blue grass seed, and 

 mix them ; sow one peck of the mixture about the 1st of 

 September, or later. If sowed without fall grain, and 

 the season be at all favorable, a fine crop of timothy and 

 clover may be cut the succeeding summer. Some prefer 

 to omit the clover until spring ; in which case it escapes 

 danger from the winter. The blue grass, will hardly show 

 itself the first season, and those unacquainted with it 

 will be apt to suppose that their seed was bad, or that it 

 had not come up. The secood season, I would pasture 

 it with cattle or horses. This mode will have a tendency 

 to kill out the clover and timothy, and in the fall of that 

 season the blue grass will show itself. The lealha (as 

 the English call it,) of cattle, seems to be necessary to 

 bring them forth thriftily, or it may be that the mere tram- 

 ping the ground has a beneficial effect upon it. 



Seed. What is called stripped seed, is the kind com- 

 monly found in market. Some sell what is commonly 

 called cleaned seed, but it has all the chaff in it, and is only 

 separated from the seed stems. The stripped seed is 

 preferred, as its elasticity prevents its suffering with damp- 

 ness, as the clean seed sometimes does. Great care is 

 requisite in obtaining the seed, as it frequently loses its 

 vital qualities by storage in clamp warehouses. Before 

 using the stripped seed, rub it through a common wire 

 meal sieve. This comminuates it, and permits its distri- 

 bution among other seeds with which you sow it. 



Blue grass will grow on the unbroken prairie, but will 

 not show itself until the prairie grass has been killed out 

 by pasturing. I presume in point of fact, that bluo grass 



