Sowing Clover, Timothy and Hungarian Grass Seed. 239 



but offered to hire the land for cash and put it in and have the 

 crop. He rented it to me. And I worked it until he found fault. 

 Said I would wear the land all out. Well, I got a tremendous crop. 

 I cannot say exactly now, but I think it brought me some $70 

 an acre. Hay was high that winter. I have no doubt I got 

 double what he would with the tillage he was in the habit of 

 giving. Mr. Charles Harlow, another neighbor, wanted me to 

 put in a piece on his farm on shares once, some twenty years ago. 



1 wanted two-thirds of crop if I did all the work and furnished 

 seed and put his in barn. He said he could get it put in for half, 

 but one-third of what I grew would be more than half of what he 

 would get if he let anyone else put it in. So I got the job. 

 Thorough preparation was the entire secret of my success. 



When the land was ready to sow, I would harrow last with 

 smoothing harrow, thus leaving little drill marks for the seed to 

 fall into. Then I would sow three pecks or rather less per acre, 

 and if ground was reasonably moist, simply passing over with 

 roller was all that was needed to cover it. I have, when dry, har- 

 rowed before rolling with Thomas smoothing harrow. But the 

 soil must, and should be, packed very firm or this will put 

 seeds too deep. Now comes a critical time. If the weather is 

 warm and soil moist, and it comes up and gets started nicely 

 before a heavy rain, all right. If there comes a heavy rain on 

 this fine, firm, rolled seed bed, and soil is at all heavy, it may bake 

 so it will not come up good. In an extreme case of this kind I 

 would harrow up and sow over. This is one reason why I said 

 do not sow till late. You want warm weather to bring it right 

 up. . It is a warm weather plant, anyway. Sown early it would 

 be slower coming and more risk. After it once gets started it will 

 stand dry, hot weather well, or rain either, on drained land. 

 Possibly on clay soil it might be better to cover with harrow and 

 not roll, unless one was quite sure of dry weather. 



Many cure Hungarian too much. I have had best success to 

 do about as follows: Cut in the afternoon, let it lie until, say, 



2 P. M. next day, if light, or until 9 or 10 second day, if very 

 heavy; then rake and cock up, about 100 pounds in a cock. 

 These may be drawn in the next day or day after without opening, 

 if cocked up warm with no dew or rain on, and it is warm when 

 it is drawn in. I generally cut in the afternoon, and did nothing 

 to it next day, and cocked up the third and drew in the fourth. 

 Have put up twenty large, solid loads from the cock in this way 

 in a day, with two teams and drivers, one pitcher and two on 

 stack (before we got a big barn) . A word about curing timothy 

 and clover when raised together. If there is a good proportion of 

 clover, as I should try to have if growing hay to feed out myself, 

 I would cut when the clover was in full bloom, or very soon 

 afterwards, taking what timothy there was. The timothy would 

 gain by standing a little longer, but the clover would lose. Cut 



