40 The Grasses. [Jan., 



into pasture when the thnothy begins to head out, and not removed 

 until lall, when in a good condition lor the butcher, they are driven 

 to New York or Philadelphia. He says he has olten had men ap- 

 ply to him to mow his timothy pastures on shares, but no, he will 

 not suffer any thing in the shape of hay to be removed from them. 

 This may appear to militate against the doctrine that cattle do best 

 on a variety; but no, these cattle are brought from different sections 

 where they have been used to living on various kinds of food, they 

 get little if any green food in the spring until they are turned into 

 the timothy, which has attained sulhcient age and strength to not 

 scour the cattle, and hence they rejoice in an abundance of that 

 which is a variety to them, and at the end of two or three months 

 are fit for the market. Timothy is a great exhauster of the soil, 

 especially when repeated crops of hay are gathered; this is said 

 to be one reason why it is so little cultivated in England, the 

 English farmers preferring to cultivate many other grasses. There 

 ii no doubt but that soorer or later this or any other grass will 

 exhaust a soil when taken from it, unless a suitable return is made 

 to that soil. 



The soil most congenial to timothy seems to be a low moist 

 black vegetable mould, though it thrives remarkably well on dry 

 rich uplands, olten affording in such situations in western New 

 York two or more tons of hay per acre. Many farmers think it 

 best to SOW" timothy seed with wheat in the fall or rather immedi- 

 ately after the wheat, before the giound receives its last harrow- 

 ing, but most farmers in this section sow in the spring; if on 

 wheat or rye it should be sown during a light snow in March or 

 about the last of that month, or first of April, in the morning 

 after a frost of the preceding night, which places the ground in 

 a honeycomb state. It is often sowed with oats or barley. We 

 would recommend from a peck to twelve quarts of seed to the 

 acre, though some only sow from four to six quarts. In western 

 New Y'ork it ripens its seeds from the first to the fifteenth of Au- 

 gust, and will often yield from ten to fifteen bushels of seed per 

 acre, the price of which varies from one dollar to one dollar and 

 fifty cents per bushel. The manner of saving the seed practised 

 here is to draw the ripe giass into the barn and thrash it out with 

 a flail, as the hay is wanted for fodder during the winter; but here 

 there is not more than sufficient for home use saved. We may 

 ackl that most of our farmers juefer timothy hay for their horses. 



Jllopecmui pratensis, meadow fox tail grass. (See plate ], 

 fig. 2.) This grass ranks among the best in England, but has re- 

 ceived little attention in the United States, small patches of it 

 being occasionally found in New England, the Micklle States, 

 Ohio, and Maryland. It is a native of Britain, and is also in- 

 digenous to nearly every country of Europe. Eor permanent 



