1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



377 



the land is worth double what it was at the 

 start, independent of the rise on land. 



From this I conclude that land can be en- 

 riched by keeping sheep on it exclusively. 



Now the question arises, is it practicable to 

 apply this method to the whole farm ? Unless 

 the owner has capital sufficient to carry on the 

 farm for four or five years and to subsist upon, 

 it is hardly so ; but the man that has this cap- 

 ital can enrich his farm in this manner as 

 cheaply as in any other way, and it will be a 

 very lasting improvement, as land once made 

 fertile in this manner, will bear a vast amount 

 of cropping afterwards, if reasonably taken 

 care of. The low price of sheep and wool at 

 present would probably affect the result some- 

 what ; but it is reasonable to expect both to 

 command better prices within two or three 

 years. 



Still I would advise those intending to im- 

 prove their land by keeping stock, to keep 

 some of all kinds ; that is, some sheep and 

 some cattle. Every farmer must have, in the 

 first place a team ; next, cows enough to sup- 

 ply his family with milk, butter, cheese, &c. 

 Then let him make up the rest as he likes, 

 more cows or more sheep. 



One thing he must do if he would enrich 

 his land in this way, and that is, keep all the 

 stock that the farm will carry through the 

 summer and winter, and do it in good condition. 



Plough only just enough to raise what you 

 consume on the farm, and raise that on just as 

 little land as possible with high culture and 

 high manuring. Make all the man-re possi- 

 ble, by mixing muck, if to be had, with the 

 animal manure, and saving all refuse and 

 leaves, bones and everything that can be 

 turned into manure, and put it on the land to 

 make more grass, hay, &c., which will enable 

 you to keep more stock, which will make more 

 manure. In this way these old worn out 

 farms, of which there are so many, may be 

 brought to their former state of fertility. 

 And, as old preacher Dow used to say, so mote 

 it be! J. 



Oak Hill, N. Y., 1869. 



Remarks. — The thirty acres alluded to in 

 the first paragraph of this article were im- 

 proved, as will be remembered by most of our 

 readers, by ploughing in clover with plaster. 

 In this case a like improvement by keeping 

 sheep is detailed. Both experiments were 

 made by a practical farmer, who at first ob- 

 jected to giving us a statement of them, be- 

 cause he was not accustomed to writing, and 

 because they were only such experiments as 

 any body could make, and which he should 

 fear would hardly be worth printing. We 

 hope his success in improving his "worn-out" 

 fields will encourage other farmers who have 

 similar lands, to follow his example. 



For the Xew England Farmer. 

 EXPERIMENTS IN CUTTINQ GKASS 

 EARLY. 



For several years past I have cut my hay 

 earlier than most of my neighbors. I have 

 had so much said to me by some of them 

 against early cutting that I have sometimes 

 felt that I was experimenting, and perhaps 1 

 was wrong and they right. When I was a 

 boy, I remember we generally commenced 

 haying the first Monday after the "Fourth," 

 and finished our English by the first of Au- 

 gust, if the weather and every thing else were 

 favorable. If the weather proved unfavorable, 

 we had to finish sometime in August. 



Last year I intended to experiment. I com- 

 menced cutting twenty-five acres of English 

 early enough to have it all done by the fourth 

 of July. 



I cut my orchard grass first, I think about 

 the middle of June. The weather was wet, or 

 I should have cut it a week earlier. As it 

 was, it was overripe, and the cattle refused to 

 eat it up clean. This is the earliest grass I 

 have, and may be cut by the fifth to the tenth 

 of June every year, or ten days before clover. 



I next cut my best grass, on land where I 

 expected to cut a second crop. This was 

 clover and timothy. 



I cut the redtop last, on fields that had 

 partly run out, and would not cut but one 

 crop. All but one acre was cut by the fourth 

 of July. That acre was left as an experi- 

 ment, till the third week in July. When cut, 

 it was so much older than what I had cut 

 earlier, that the stems were hard and stiff, and 

 when it was put up in cocks it did reallj' look 

 as though the crop was twice as large as if it 

 had been cut in June. And it made a large 

 bulky load, but we all noticed that we did not 

 have to lift very hard to put up a large fork- 

 ful ; whereas, of that cut in June, we did no- 

 tice that a small forkful made a heavy lift. 

 And the diflFerence was noticed all through the 

 winter. 



The mows and scaffolds cf hay held out as 

 they never did before. Visitors remarked that 

 the hay in the barn seemed like pressed hay, it 

 was so solid in the mows. It was fed to milch 

 cows and young stock. Very little gsain was 

 needed to ..eepthem all in excellent condition. 

 I fed some grain for the sake of a variety. 



I shall not cut early this year as an experi- 

 ment, but because I am fully satisfied that an 

 acre of grass is worth more, cut as soon as it 

 is in blossom, or even a little before, than it 

 will be any time afterwards ; although it will 

 sometimes thicken up at the bottom. But the 

 main part of the crop is growing poorer every 

 day after it is in full bloom. 



A. W. ClTEEVER. 



Sheldonville, Mass., June 6, 18G9. 



— A California wool circular estimates the next 

 clip of that State at 18,000,000 pounds. 



