1868. 



NEW ENGLAOT) FARMER. 



403 



raw. A little protection from early frost will 

 add some weeks to the season. 



Grapes. — Early varieties will ripen this 

 month. Pick them with care, using shears or 

 a shai'p knife to cut the stem ; handle with 

 care, and do not rub off the bloom, if to be 

 kept for some days, or marketed. 



Blackbewiies and Raspberries, after 

 yielding their crop of fruit, should have the 

 old canes cut out and all superfluous shoots 

 removed, leaving only one or two for next 

 year's fruiting. Wm. H. White. 



South Windsor, Conn., 1868. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 SUMMER FALLOWING. 



Where a field which was originally good 

 soil, is so much reduced, or where the soil is 

 naturally so light, sandy, and poor as to pro- 

 duce hardly grass enough to be worth mowing, 

 and you have no dressing to spare for it, and 

 you do not wish to turn it into pasturage, what 

 should be done with the field ? 



This important question remains unsolved. 

 It has occupied the minds of farmers since I 

 was a boy. Every year all the agricultural 

 papers in the land are beset with the inquiry : 

 How shall I make my land productive without 

 barn-} ard manure, which I have not got, or 

 without artificial dressing, which I cannot 

 afford to buy ? The cost of artificial dress- 

 ing, when carried back into the interior of the 

 country, with the freight added to first cost, 

 is, nearly all farmers say, too expensive. We 

 can buy gold too dear. 



I propose, then, that farmers in New Eng- 

 land should raise less grain, and more grass. 

 Grass should be the chief crop. Grass is the 

 great source of manure, — of dressing which 

 never fails to agree with any and all kinds of 

 soil. Grass is milk, butter, cheese, beef, mut- 

 ton. It is the fuel that generates the power 

 which drives the plough, the reaper and 

 mower, and carries us along the highway, for 

 profit or pleasure. 



The South and West may get along with 

 grain and corn fodder ; but here in New Eng- 

 gland, grass is power, is life, and the cultiva- 

 tion of it is imperative. Grass should be as 

 much a specialty here, as grain is at the West. 

 If this is so, let us see what should be done 

 with the worn-out mowing fields, which are so 

 common in the east. 



Almost every farmer in New England has a 

 larger or smaller patch in his mowing field, 

 which, if allowed to lay fallow one, two, or 

 three years, and ploughed every year, would 

 improve by the operation enough to pay for 

 the labor and loss of use ; but 1 never yet saw 

 a farmer that could resist the temptation to 

 put oats or some kind of grain on to land thus 

 lying unproductive. Such a crop of course 

 takes the cream of the land, and leaves for the 

 grass seed only the skim milk of the soil. 'J'he 

 seed to be sown upon such fallow should be 



grass seed alone ; and then the grass would 

 pay all the bills. A good crop of grass can 

 be grown from the seed the first year, if sowed 

 alone in April or May. Then, why should 

 farmers persist in the bad practice of sowing 

 grain with grass seed ? It is an errtfr, If not 

 something worse. 



The flirmers in Maryland and Virginia gen- 

 erally leave one portion of their fields turned 

 out to rest every year, and rotate their crops 

 of tobacco, corn, wheat or oats. They say 

 that the action of the rain and air adds fer- 

 tility to the soil. Some may object that two 

 or three years thus required to bring such 

 fields into productiveness, is a long time. 

 But how can it be done quicker without ma- 

 nures ? Hoed land is always improving, while 

 swarded land remains the same from year to 

 year ; or, if mowed, there will be at least no 

 improvement. Clover might be sowed and 

 plowed in to hasten productiveness. So might 

 manure be bought for the same purpose. But 

 my object in writing this is not to show what 

 will enrich ground the fastest, but to decide ' 

 what shall be done with worn out fields, to 

 bring them to fertility in the cheapest way. 



I believe a three years' rest for such poor, 

 worn-out lands in our old mowing fields, to be 

 ploughed once each year, in August, would 

 show a profit on our ledger account the fourth 

 year, if put in grass alone. Who will try the 

 experiment on some portion of his field that 

 is now so poor as to be worthless for mow- 

 ing? I question if there be five farmers 

 in New England who would hold out to fallow 

 his ground three years, while there are proba- 

 bly hundreds who will agree with me that ihe 

 theory is sound. Farmers are content to pay 

 taxes on a large, smooth, worn-out, mowing 

 field all their lives, but hesitate to try long 

 exneriments to find a better mode of farming. 



C. S. Weld. 



Olamon, Penobscot Co., Me., 

 August 1, 1868. 



Remarks. — In England, Summer fallowing 

 is much more generally practiced than in "this 

 country, and even there it is seldom applied 

 to any soil but the heaviest clay land, and we 

 understand that "green fallowing," that is,* 

 hoed crops, are rapidly gaining on the old 

 plan of "bare-fallow." Land is seldom sum- 

 mer-fallowed more than one season. The ob- 

 ject of both systems is to destroy the weeds 

 and prepare the soil for the ensuing season's 

 crop. To effect this, frequent cultivation is 

 necessary. One ploughing in the season would 

 hardly suffice to keep down the weeds. If 

 our correspondent had illustrated his theory 

 by some practical results of the benefit of a 

 three years' fallow, he would have added 

 greatly to the value of his communication. 



