264 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



will produce, as we are careful to avoid tliose which are un- 

 suitable. 



In regard to the preparation of the soil for grass, the common 

 practice is much more faulty. Indeed, I am persuaded that 

 herein lies our chief defect. Our rotation hardly ever com- 

 prises more than two cultivated crops; unless an exception is 

 made in favor of the meadows, which are often kept up for a 

 much longer time. These two crops are, generally, corn or 

 potatoes, followed by rye, oats or wheat, with grass seeds. 

 Now, if the object is, as it should be, to induce a good growth 

 of grass, I contend that the means are inadequate to the end. 

 Grass seeds, in order to take well, require a finely pulverized 

 surface, made light and warm with manure, and the old sod 

 should be entirely decomposed or buried. This it is quite im- 

 possible to do on ordinary soils in one year and with only 

 two ploughiugs. The second ploughing brings up the old turf — 

 an inert, sour mass ; which, at that particular stage of decom- 

 position, of all others, is the most unfit to afford the nourish- 

 ment that the plants need. "Without making any pretence to 

 actual knowledge, never having had analyzed a piece of sod in 

 this half-rotted condition, I have adopted the following theory, 

 which has at least the merit of agreeing with the facts in the 

 case. All vegetable matter goes through three stages of 

 fermentation, similar to what in liquids are called the vinous, 

 the acetous and the putrid. When a sod is inverted, as by the 

 plough in the first season, it passes through the vinous fermen- 

 tation. During this period it throws off some gases, which are 

 beneficial to the growing crop. Cold weather arrests the 

 progress of decomposition and it passes into the acetous state. 

 It now very much resembles, in its general character, the muck 

 fresh from the swamp. It will grow most luxuriant crops of 

 sorrel, wild wormwood or smart-weed; but, as for grass, you 

 might about as well expect to raise it upon an African desert 

 as upon land in such a condition. Our cultivated grasses are 

 remarkably sweet. How, then, can we expect these to grow 

 upon a sour or bitter soil ? No wonder that we are doomed 

 to disappointment, if we will thus persist in our attempts to 

 contravene the laws of nature. If you ask what is the remedy 

 for the evil, I answer, prolong the course of your rotation until 



