THE GENESEE FARMER. 



209 



SEEDING COKN FIELDS TO GRASS. 



Editohs Genesee Farmer : — Perhaps an account 

 of the method of seeding corn fields to grass, as 

 practised in New England, may be of interest to 

 your readers. I find the first mentioned instance 

 in the statement of Mr. "Wood, of Middlesex, to 

 the Oo. Agricultural Society, as given in the "Ag- 

 riculture of Massachusetts," for 1854. 



The soil is principally light pine plain land, and 

 had been "cropped to death with rye." To get 

 pasturage that should be productive, Mr. Wood 

 plowed field. after field, planting to corn for one or 

 two years, with manure, and then seeding to grass 

 while the corn was still growing on the ground. — 

 He plowed from seven to eleven inches, according 

 to the nature of the ground, wishing gradually to 

 deepen the soil. To enrich it, he gave from twenty- 

 five to thu-ty loads of compost manure per acre, 

 plowing it in with a shallow furrow on inverted 

 sod, and hill-manuring with a small quantity of 

 guano and plaster, or hen manure, ashes and loam. 

 The crop was hoed level twice, and then six quarts 

 of herdsgrass, one peck of redtop, and five pounds 

 of clover seed were sown per acre. It was again 

 hoed to cover the seed, and then "laid by" for the 

 season. In this way, for five years, he has aver- 

 aged forty bushels of sound corn per acre. If the 

 grass fails in part, he scatters more seed in spring 

 and brushes it in, and has laid down nearly all his 

 high land in this way, because of the saving of 

 labor. His meadows are on his low land, and keep- 

 ing cows for selling milk is the principal business of 

 the fttrm. 



Another farmer, whose statement we find in the 

 New England Farmer for May, followed the above 

 plan, nearly, — though, perhaps, taking more pains 

 in tlie preparation of his ground, — but the season 

 being hot and dry, the grass seed was an entire 

 failure. His ground being clean and smooth, he did 

 not like to plow up again without another\rial, so 

 when the ground froze enough to hold the stumps 

 of the corn-stalks firmly, he took a sharp hoe and 

 cut them off even with the surface of the ground, 

 raked off the rubbish, and sowed half a bushel of 

 herdsgrass and a bushel of redtop seed on the acre. 

 " The next spring," he says, " as soon as the weather 

 became warm enough, the grass came up beautifully 

 over the whole piece. The summer was wet and 

 warm, and I cut more than a ton and a half, per 

 acre, for the first crop. In 1856 and 1857, 1 had 

 three tons per acre, each year, and rowen enough 

 to make the whole amount, in the two years, not 

 much short of seven and a half tons." 



This, and several other experiments, convinced 

 the writer last mentioned, that late fall seeding — so 

 late that the seed would have no chance to vegetate 

 till sirring — was the best method of getting land to 

 grass for meadow or pasture. Equally important 

 to successful culture is thorough preparation by till- 

 age and manuring, plenty of grass seed, and oppor- 

 tunity to grow without feeding or mowing too se- 

 verely. A YOUNG FARMER. 



COSN GSUBS. 



Editors Genesee Farmer: — Our weafher con- 

 tinues very wet here, and in all other places I hear 

 from. Corn, I think, is all i:)lanted hereabout, and 

 what the grubs have left is growing ; but they are 

 making sad havoc in some fields. A neighbor who 

 had nearly thirty acres planted, has been planting 

 it over for some days past. Grubs (grey) are in 

 immense numbers. He left three bags in the field, 

 night before last, with a little soaked corn in each, 

 and yesterday morning 200 grubs were found in 

 the three bags, among the corn. This beats all I 

 ever heard of about grubs. Seventy-two of the 

 largest grubs I ever saw, were taken out of one 

 bag. What is very singular, they don't cut off the 

 corn above the ground, like the grubs we have 

 been accustomed to, but cut the roots below the 

 seed. Can it be a new kind? Do you know of 

 anything that resembles it? The old-fashioned 

 grub has cut off a little of mine above groimd, but 

 the like of those which destroy my neighbor's, I 

 never saw. If the agricultural papers don't inform 

 us how to destroy grubs and worms, we must stop 

 them ; for if we ai-e to have all our crops destroyed 

 in this way, we will have nothing to pay with. One 

 of my neighbor's fields was old pasture land, the 

 other had been only one year in clover, and both 

 were damaged about alike. Mine was old pasture, 

 and only a little, so far, has been cut off above the 

 ground. My neighbor's grubs (if grubs they are) 

 are much larger than mine, but otherwise appar- 

 ently alike. I advised him to take all the bags he 

 had, put soaked corn in them, and lay them over 

 his fields, and possibly he might have a few thou- 

 sand bagged this morning. 



Our wheat harvest will not be so early as we ex- 

 pected. Should the weather set in dry, we may 

 have wheat hardest about the 14th of next month; 

 stUl, we may not till 18th or 20th. 

 Near Geneva, N. Y., June 10, 1858. JOHN JOHNSTON. 



Harrowing Turnips. — Where turnips are sown 

 broadcast, they may be safely harrowed when the 

 seed leaf is coming out. This will check the 

 weeds, thin the turnips, and yet leave plenty in 

 the ground for a crop. J. N. — Nassywega^ G. W. 



Cure for Bots in Horses. — Take a tablespoon 

 full and a little heaped of alum and the same quan- 

 tity of copperas, pulverise them fine and put them 

 into a pint of vinegar. Pour it down the horse's 

 throat. It wUl generally afford relief in five or ten 

 minutes. In 1813, 1 had a horse very badly afflicted 

 for three days, with bots — lying down, rolling, re- 

 fusing to eat, biting his sides, and giving all similar 

 proofs of bots. I tried turpentine, beef brine, 

 sweetened warm milk, and many other prescrip- 

 tions of neighbors, for three days, to no purpose. 

 At length, an Englishman coming along gave me 

 the above prescription, saying he had seen it used 

 in England with perfect success. In ten minutes 

 after the dose was administered, the horse got up 

 and was well, showing no more symptoms of bots. 

 I have used the same medicine ever since, for my- 

 self and neighbors — propably in fifty cases in all — 

 and it has always afforded as quick relief. A trav- 

 eler once had his horse fall in the snow, near my 

 house, and refuse to get up — evidently afflicted 

 with bots. In about five minutes after administer- 

 ing the above medicine he got up of his own accord, 

 appeared to be perfectly weU, and cheerfully pur^- 

 sued his journey. It is said one. drop of this pre- 

 paration placed upon a bot, will kill it at once. 

 J. F. Bliss. — Churchville, K Y. 



