MEADOWS AND PASTURES 91 



The latter are supposed to indicate a lack of lime, but 

 they often remain in spite of liming. 



At the Massachusetts Experiment Station it was found 

 that the yield on certain plots was greatly increased by 

 replowing and reseeding without changing the amount 

 of fertilizer applied. Thus on a plot fertilized annually 

 with 5805 pounds of wood ashes to the acre the portion 

 plowed and reseeded yielded 8546 pounds hay to the acre 

 while that portion not replowed nor reseeded yielded but 

 6243 pounds. On a plot fertilized annually with 8 tons of 

 barnyard manure the part plowed and reseeded produced 

 10,002 pounds hay to the acre in comparison with 5642 

 pounds on the portion not reseeded. The only difference 

 in the fertilizer application was that the manure was har- 

 rowed in the plowed portion and top-dressed in the undis- 

 turbed part. 



Another method is sometimes used by farmers, especially 

 on land difficult to plow; namely, that of scattering a 

 little new seed over the meadow each year, especially 

 of such grasses and clovers which tend to disappear. 



87. Fertilizers for hay crops. Most of the hay grown 

 in the northeastern fourth of the United States and 

 adjacent Canada is timothy and red clover, with a much 

 smaller proportion of redtop, alsike and other plants. 

 At least three-fourths of the total yield in this region is 

 produced from a two years' lay grown in the five-course 

 rotation of corn, oats, wheat, clover, timothy or some 

 essentially similar rotation. In this rotation fertilizer is 

 rarely applied to the hay crop, which can therefore obtain 

 only the residues of fertilizers applied to the grain crops. 

 With this system of agriculture the average yield of hay 

 an acre for the region mentioned is according to census 

 figures about 1.3 tons an acre. In this area a yield to be 



H 



