HINDRANCES TO SUCCESSFUL FARMING. 83 



ture. The land usually appropriated to grazing purposes 

 has been that which, from its location or its soil, or from the 

 combined causes, is considered the least available for culti- 

 vation. Hilly ground, ditiicult to work, swamps not easily 

 drained, and soils encumbered with rocks, comprise a large 

 portion of the permanent pastures of New England ; beside 

 this, many farmers have been in the habit of cultivating 

 their smoother land as long as it would bear a remunerating 

 crop, applying as little manure as would possibly serve, and 

 then laying it down to grass, under rye, oats or barley, so as 

 to ffct the last ounce of nutriment from the soil. This havinsj 

 been pretty thoroughly accomplished, a crop or two of hay 

 is taken from it, and the land is then abandoned in an ex- 

 hausted condition for a number of years to pasture, and from 

 land thus treated cattle are expected to derive their sui)port 

 for four or five months ; they go on it in lean condition in 

 May, and come from it in Novembgr as poor as they went 

 out. How to increase the productiveness of these pastures 

 so that they shall not only hold their own, but carry more 

 stock, is the question. 



In a pasture there is a constant tendency to deterioration 

 from the increasing growth of bushes, weeds and foul stufl*, 

 that deform the land and destroy the feed. The best lands 

 are subject to these evils, and there they will make the great- 

 est encroachments. The first step should be to attack the 

 bushes, briers, sweet ferns, brakes and all sorts of worthless 

 growth with the brush-scythe and bog-hoe or mattock. These 

 pests, we hardly need to say, destroy the nutritious qualities 

 of the grasses ; they shade and sour the feed and exhaust the 

 land. Coarse herbage will gradually displace the finer and 

 more nutritive kinds. 



The farmer has, therefore, a constant struggle against this 

 natural law of vegetation unless he wishes his land to return 

 to its primal condition. The work of extermination is to be 

 continued annually till the work is finished ; after a few years 

 these pests will disappear. But this is not enough ; some 

 further means for improving must be applied, about which a 

 diversity of opinion and practice exists. Now I believe that 

 generally through the Commonwealth ploughing and seeding 

 pasture lands would be impracticable and injudicious ; im- 



