124 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



On all plow lands the farmer should strive to so manage as to 

 grow a heavy sward as soon as possible. This will often prove 

 as valuable for manure as the crop will for food. If the farmer 

 oan accomplish this in two years he may be said to have grown 

 three crops in this time, two of grass, for pasture or hay, and 

 one (beneath the soil) of plant food for succeeding crops. To 

 secure this sward the land must be thoroughly prepared and 

 heavily seeded. When fine, delicate seed like that of most of 

 our grasses is sown on a rough, clayey surface, a large part of 

 it never comes up at all, as it is covered so deeply that the 

 germs perish before reaching the surface. It is of the greatest 

 importance that the land be made fine and mellow, and, fortu- 

 nately, this also gives the best seed-bed for the small grains with 

 which our grasses are usually sown. It is of much greater 

 importance that two or three inches of the surface soil be fine 

 .and mellow than that the land be deeply plowed. One is not 

 likely to err by using the plank-drag too much. 



I think, as a rule, that farmers are too sparing of seed, and 

 that the best results will follow heavy seeding. I have often 

 known farmers sow a bushel of timothy seed on ten acres, and 

 think they were seeding liberally. I recommend, when timothy 

 is sown alone for meadows, that a bushel be sown to three acres, 

 ^,nd when seeding land for permanent pasture I would seed 

 heavily with a mixture of as many valuable varieties as I could 

 command that were suited to the soil. In seeding a pasture 

 which is to remain permanently in grass, I would recommend as 

 a, suitable quantity for an acre : 



Timothy, 10 Ibs. 



Orchard-grass, . . . . . . . 6 " 



Red-top, 2 " 



Blue-grass, . . . . . . . . 7 " 



Clover, 4 " 



There is no economy in stinting the seed for grass land. 

 Most of our grasses do best when sown with small grain, and, 

 as this saves the labor of preparing a seed-bod specially for the 

 grass, it is economical to do so. It occasionally becomes neces- 

 sary, however, in order that we may have pasture or meadow, 

 that grass be sown so as to give a crop the first year. When 



