1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FAKMER. 



337 



found in the more ample room which the roots 

 found under these stones and logs for expan- 

 sion. An old field will produce fine grass be- 

 cause the plants have not room to grow large. 

 If we spill grass seed upon the ground we ex- 

 pect fine straw and a feeble growth, and he 

 thought that more hay is sometimes produced 

 per acre from thin than from too heavy seed- 

 ing. Farmers are generally of the opinion 

 that the poaching of meadows by cattle is in- 

 jurious, but one man told him this spring that 

 he should expect his hay crop to be improved 

 if the whole surface were covered with tracks 

 not more than a hand's breadth apart. 



E. P. Church said thick seeding makes short 

 grass. His best piece last year was a thin 

 growth. The amount of produce depends 

 on the fertility of the ground. 



J. B. Fasset inquired if two fine stalks are 

 not better than one coarse one. His pasture 

 had been referred to. It is the best pasture 

 he ever saw ; being all clover and timothy, 

 with no foul grass. If you want good grass 

 you must sow the seed. I sow half a bushel, 

 but perhaps one bushel would be better. 



G. B. Brewster thought coarse hay was poor 

 stuff. When ripe, cattle won't eat it, as it is 

 like clear wood. Put on more seed. One 

 bushel, a mixture of clover and timothy, is 

 little enough. Don't put it too deep. One- 

 eighth of an inch on rich soil is deep enough. 

 It will then branch out on top of the ground ; 

 but if buried an inch it comes up a feeble 

 stalk. Grass in well-manured land will live, 

 but in poor soil it will die. 



One of the members of the club has several 

 acres of low meadow, that is covered over 

 with a pretty firm turf that produces a flat 

 grass about eighteen inches high. He wishes 

 to get it into English grass. How can it be 

 done ? The turf is so full of roots that it 

 would be very hard to plough, and in some 

 places it is so mucky that the team would mire ? 



Remarks. — It will be noticed that in the 

 above discussion none of the gentlemen ex- 

 cept Mr. Fassett state the proportions of clo- 

 ver and timothy seed which they use. Are we 

 to infer that they all recommend three pounds 

 of clover with sixteen quarts of timothy ? 



The question of the member of the club 

 who wishes to reclaim a wild meadow we hope 

 will be answered by some one who has had 

 pradical experience in this work. We have 

 tried it on a small scale in two ways. First by 

 covering the whole surface wilh earth from the 

 adjoining banks, to which compost was applied 

 with the grass seed. This Is apt to form a 

 hard, tough sod, difficult to plough, and in 

 other respects rather unsatisfactory in its oper- 

 ation. Our other plan was to dig ditches 

 through the land sufficiently large and near I 



enough together to cover the land with a good 

 layer of muck, &c., thrown from the ditches. 

 Then fill the ditches with stone, if handy, or 

 gravel sand or earth, to within tight or ten 

 inches of the surface, and finish off by filling 

 up with the surface soil or muck. This raises 

 the surface of the whole field, furnishes drains 

 and operates well. How can such land be re- 

 claimed with less labor ? 



COMBINATION OF WOOL BUYEKS. 



The absurdities of fashion and the force of 

 habit are often cited as illustrations of the 

 weakness of human reason. Precedents in 

 legal proceedings and custom In commercial 

 transactions must be observed, though the 

 reasons for their establishment and the justice 

 of their operation may in some cases be more 

 than questionable. When coal is bought by 

 the quantity, the dealers expect 2240 pounds 

 for a ton ; but when these same dealers dis- 

 tribute It to their customers a ton weighs only 

 2000 pounds. The advantages which accrue 

 to the dealers from such "laws of trade" are 

 very obvious, and are perhaps sufficient to en- 

 title the efforts of wool buyers to establish and 

 confirm their one-third shrinkage rule to more 

 serious consideration than we have been dis- 

 posed to believe they deserved. 



We, therefore, ask the attention of our 

 readers to the following remarks by Dr. Ran- 

 dall, suggested by a late article of ours upon 

 this subject, a portion of which he copies Into 

 the Eural New Yorker, and then says : — 



Our contemporary seems to suppose that the 

 resolutions of the Woolen Manufacturers' As- 

 sociation of the Northwest, at Chicago, last 

 February, and those passed at the New York 

 State Convention of Buyers, at Rochester, last 

 year, comprise all the public and combined 

 action taken by the dealers to enforce their 

 shrinkage rules. This is an error. The Ohio 

 State Buyers' Association passed similar re- 

 solves last year, and has recently, in a State 

 Convention, reaffirmed them. Various other 

 State and local Associations have taken the 

 same action, — but we have not preserved 

 records of their places and times of meeting. 

 The movement is general In the principal wool 

 growing States, — nor has It been confined to 

 mere words — "puffs of empty air," as the 

 New England Farmer elsewhere terms ^ 



them. It Is notorious that buyers, in all parts " 



of the country, are attempting practically to 

 carry out these "rules," and that they are 

 rapidly becoming more fixed and peremp- 

 tory in this — alleging them to he the established 



