18 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



thought very well of it. It grows in cluuips, 

 nialtes no swai-d : it springs out of the ground 

 quick after it is cut off. Judge Buel fed his 

 calves upon it, Beturning to It every five days. 



Mr. Colinan noticed Fowl Meadow as a" gras; 

 inferior to herdsgrass. 



Lucerne, au Eurojiean gras.>i, had not yet be 

 come a favorite iu this country. It was formerly 

 extensively cultivated by the late Mr. John Low 

 ell, to whom as the generous patron of agricul 

 ture, and as "one of the most intelligent and 

 best of men," Mr. C. paid a merited tribute 

 Lucerne was first brought to this country about 

 thirty years ago. Mr. Colman had attempted its 

 cultivation, but had not as well succeeded as had 

 some others. This grass resembles clover, and 

 is- used for soiling cattle, a term which is not 

 understood generally by fiu-mers in the country, 

 because it is seldom practised : by soiling is 

 meant feeding with green feed through the sea- 

 son, either in the Iwrn or barn-yard. Lucerne 

 will stand in the ground eight or ten years : it is 

 very useful to those who have small quantities of 

 land, and who are able to feed a large stock upon 

 a few acres. Mr. Phinney, of Lexington, had 

 well succeeded in cultivating this grass the two 

 last yeais. It requires a deep rich soil, and clean 

 cultivation. 



Twitch grass, or Creeping Wheat, is disliked 

 by every body — it has a constant tendency to 

 extend itself, and does not make very good hay : 

 it is not a favorite hay for cattle. 



Sanfoin. Mr. C. Iind never seen this grass 

 growing but once, and he believed it was not 

 adapted to this couuti-y — it grows best in a calca- 

 reous soil. 



Millet was both grass and grain. Mr. C. had 

 himself raised it at the rate of three tons to the 

 acre. It as an annual plant, and is useful when 

 other crops fail. He had known millet sown in 

 August, and a good crop obtained af>er the cro|) 

 of hay had been cut olf with drought. Cattle 

 prefer it to .ilniost any other kind of hay. When 

 ripened it is a valuable grain, weighing from 

 thirty to forty pomids to the bushel. 



Mr. Colman remarked, that of the vulunblo 

 grasses, too many could not be sowed upon pas- 

 ture ground. Tiio best farmers sow the grasses 

 in the fall, with the excejition of clover, vvhich is 

 sowed in the winter or spijny-, iqiun the snow. 

 The mistake of sowinir too uiuch seed is rarely 

 if ever made : even when Ijuinors pay a high 

 price for it, they will rarely regret putting upon 

 the ground too jiuicli. 



As to the application of niamn-e for the benefit 

 of grass, for land kept in sward, toj) dressing is 

 frequently resorted to : the best time for doing 

 this is in the spring. 



Plaster of Paris on some soils has an excellent 

 effect: it is common upon grass groimd to applv 

 from half a bushel to a bushel to the acre. The 

 notion had extensively prevailed that the land 

 became plaster sick. The farmers of Dutchess 

 and Columbia counties, in New York, once 

 thought so; but they had found their mistake 

 since they had doubled the entire production of 

 their lands by continuing the application of plas- 

 ter. They found their ground wanted a stimu- 

 lant — they found plaster operate well alone : — it 

 liad a still better effect when brought to the aid 

 of common manures. 



Saltpetre had been used to great effect as a 

 manure, by Mr. ^VhippIc, of Lowell, and others. 

 Ashes, unleached and leached, when applied ju- 

 diciously upon some soils, are found to be an 

 excellent manure. On «et land, they produce 

 moss, and drive out the grass: on drier land, 

 ashes have a fine effect. 



On the sea-board, maniu-c is found in abun- 

 dance: it is applied to gretit advantage. The 

 seaweed washed each successive storm Vvas taken 

 up with avidity by the farmers of many towns 

 lying upon the seashore. Ell grass was exten- 

 sively used as manure on the south shore of 

 Massachusetts. Salt hay had also been used as 

 manure; and some farmers were of opiiiion th:it 

 five dollars a ton might bo paid for it to be laid 

 over grass lands when I'.nslish hnv would sell in 

 the Boston market for twenty dollars the ton. 



Mr. BucKJiissTEa, (Editor of the Boston Cul- 

 tivator,) is a practical farmer, and woidd give to 

 the meeting such information as he bad derived 

 from his own experience. He knew that the 

 cultivation of different kinds of ground produced 

 different results, »iul oii;;ii!ntpd difli-n'nr opinions, 



He believed herdsgrass to be the most valuable 

 of all our grasses ;'^ it brings the highest price in 

 the market. He considered clover to be scarcely 

 less valuable than herdsgrass. It was more con- 

 venient and sure, to sow herdsgrass, clover, and 

 redtop together. Sometimes when herdsgrass 

 and clover were sowed together in tiie spring, 

 the latter will overtop the former; but clover 

 dies out in two years : herdsgrass continues much 

 longer. To obtain the most value from clover, 

 it should not be suffered to stand until it is fully 

 lipe ; we fiiay have the best of hay from clover 

 by sowing thick and cutting early. Cattle are 

 fond of this hay ; and the manure derived fioiri 

 it looks as if it was made from grain. Mr. B. 

 vvas of opinion that the southern clover was more 

 valuable in pasture grounds than the northern 

 clover — it continued longer before it died out. 



Mr. B. saiil his place of residence as a farmer, 

 {Framingham)was too poor a part of the country 

 to enable most of the farmers to raise cloVef as a 

 green crop. One of his neighbors had sowed 

 rye and ploughed it in as a green cro]) with ad- 

 vantage to the land. But buckwheat was the 

 better kind of green crop on poor land. Two 

 and three sowings may be raised and ploughed 

 in of a season. He said he did not subscribe to 

 the theory of ploughing in dry crops— he believi 

 that green crops turned under would better ligli 

 en and improve the soil than dry crops. Nor did 

 he agree with an. opinion which had been ad- 

 vanced that herdsgrass hay was better for stand- 

 ing late — that hay, when suffered to stand until 

 after the seed is ripe, is no better than rye straw. 

 Clover, when sowed in the mouth of September, 

 IS very liable to winter kill. It is well to sow it 

 imong Indian corn at the last hoeing in July. 

 It is vi-ry louvcuieut to sow grass seed with 

 I llic spring. The young grass is some- 

 ijund liy letting iu the sun in a dry sea- 

 son, alter the grain crop is taken from the gi-oiuid. 

 Grass «ill take the strongest root where grain is 

 sown thin ; and the highest grain crop may not 

 be so nmch regarded where the high prices of 

 hay near the <-ilies make that among the most 

 le and best of crops. One j)eck of herds 

 grass, with six or eight pounds of clover, he 

 considered to be the proper quantity to he sowed 

 upon the acre. 



He had a serious objection to the tall Meadow 



Oat G:-Bss, which had been recently introduced 



IS coiuitry fram Europe : the seed costs 



three doll.-us the bushel, and it required many 



buslicis to the acre. 



;\lillet he believed a great exhauster of the soil: 

 it probably would not exhaust so unicli when cut 

 :\y belbre it was ri|!e. It could not be profit- 

 ably cultivated in this country for any other than 

 a late crop. 



Foul Jlcadow was that peculiar grass that 

 could not be cultivated, but introduced itself^ 

 He had sometimes sown the seed, but had never 

 succeeded iu raising it. 



Mr. PcT.VAM, (Editor of the N. E. Farmer, and 

 representative from Danvers,) sjjoke in relation to 

 the salivating of* horses : he believed it would be 

 found that lobelia bimI not clover had produced 

 the effect. In regard to the vjlue of grasses, he 

 considered clover to be better than red top. It 

 had been fouiul that a cow fell off a full quart of 

 milk in a day, « hen the feed was changed from 

 clover to red top. 



Mr. P. favored the sowing t)f clover among 

 Indian corn at tlie last hoeing. This method had 

 been practised on his father's farm in Danvers, 

 diu'ing the last five years. In cidlivating corn it 

 had been discovered that no hill was necessary 

 — the ground may he kept \ery nearly upon a 

 level. The Cultivator was passed over the ground 

 when the seed was sown at the last lioeing. A 

 tine clean crop of hay is procured the succeeding 

 year: it is entirely free from weeds, and the h.ny 

 is very pure. The fields sown down to grass in 

 this vvay had held out beyond any other laid 

 do«n in a different way : seven and a half tons 

 of excellent hay had been repeatedly taken from 

 three acres. Mr. William Clark, of Northamp- 

 ton, had sticceeded admirably in this method of 

 laying dov>n to hay. Another method of simply 

 turning over the sward with the laying on of 

 manure harrowed in without disturbing the sod 

 had been successfully practised in some places. 



Mr. CoLi.AjioRE, (member of the house from 

 Pemliioke,) said he had applied compost n;anure 

 tn grr:st ground iu the sprint', and found that 



in a dry season it burnt the ground, and did 

 more harm than good : he had been more suc- 

 cessful in applying nianiue to grass ground iu 

 the fall than in the spring. The conmion sea- 

 weed he thought not to be a very valuable ma- 

 nure : the rockweed and kelp from' the salt water 

 were better than the seaweed. Ashes were like- 

 wise highly valuable as a manure : they were 

 best applied to sandy lonm, and were not so good 

 on moist or wet land. He likewise highly valued - 

 lime as a manure, and believed its worth vv'as not 

 duly estimated: it was most valuable when 

 mixed with other materials as a compost. 



nir. Cole, (Editor of the Yankee Farmer, and 

 himself a practical farmer,) was of opinion that 



most kinds of grass should be cut for hay when 

 the seed was perfectly fiill. Orchard grass was 

 the best kind to be produced under trees — it 

 would grow where no other grass grows. The 

 southern clover was not as early as the northern 

 clover, and was perhaps to be preferred on that 

 account, as it better conformed to the time of 

 ripening of herdsgrass and red-toj). 



[At the meeting of Jan. 28, 1841, the Editor of 

 the Visitor was r.ot present. The subject of the 

 Grasses was continued at this meeting without 

 eliciting, as we wore inf()rmed, much new infor- 

 mation.] 



Thtirsday evening, Feb. 4, 1841. Mr. King, 

 President of the Senate, in the chair. 

 Subject for discussion — Rearing of Stock. 

 Mr. Coi.MA.N opened the discussion by giving a 

 short history of the several breeds iu England 

 and Scotland, that had been introduced into this 

 country. He noticed the Yorkshire as a valuable 

 and formerly celebrated stock ; the Holderness, 

 originrted in Holland, and were considered 

 deep milkers, although iheir milk was no wise 

 remarkable lor richness; the Hereford breed, ot 

 which a gentleman in Albany had lately import- 

 ed a number of elegant color and symmetry ot 

 form. The improved Durham Short Horns were 

 however the pet stock in Eiijiland ; this celebra- 

 ted stock had been brought to a high state of per- 

 fection by Blr. Bakewell fifty years ago, whose 

 memory will be long cherished on account ol" the 

 improvements he had effected as well in horned 

 cattle as in sheep. There were two different 

 lines of Durham cattle in England — one kind 

 was valued for its milking properties, and the 

 other for its beauty of form and its meat quali- 

 ties. A Mr. Harley, at Glasgow, had a Durham 

 cow, which gave in a day forty English wine 

 quarts, equal to thirty-two beer quarts, of milk. 

 A few years ago, several animals, pure Durham 

 stock, were presented to the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cidtural Society by Admiral Coffin, of the British 

 navy, who was a native of our own island of 

 Nantucket: Mr. Colman had seen beautiful spec- 

 imens of the Din-ham cattle in various parts of 

 the country. Col. Jaques, of Charlestown, sev- 

 eral years ago in)ported the bulls Bolivar and 

 Ccelebs, of which, as that gentleman was pres- 

 ent, he hop<Ml we should this evening have an 

 account. Mr. Powell hiid a Durham cow that 

 had produced twenty poimds of butter jjcr week. 

 Mr. Colman, in alluding to our own native 

 breeds of cattle, said there was a stock of c^ittle 

 in our ovs-n neighborhood, the offspring of the 

 bull Coelebs, produced from an ordinary cow, 

 which was more remarkable than any other for 

 its milking qualities. A native cow kept ia Dan- 

 vers, by William Oakes, from the milk of a week 

 had made nineteen pounds of butter : a cow he 

 had himself owned made fourteen pounds in a 

 week. One other cow he had known made 3C0 

 poimds of butter in a season — anorher 3.35 pounds; 

 and another in North Adams, of which he had 

 heard, by high feeding, produced 495 pounds in 

 a year. Mr. Prince, of Roxbm-y, had stated to 

 him the fact, that a cow in Massachusetts had 

 given milk from which was made 484 pounds of 

 butter in the year. It remained a matter of doid)t 

 whether there wove not some of our improved 

 native cattle equal to the Durham short horns, 

 the pet English breed. 



Col. Jaques, of Charlestown occujiicd the at- 

 tention of the meeting for nearly an hour, in an 

 interesting and graphic account of his manner of 

 animals, and improving their breed. He 

 thought there was too little :ittention paid by the 

 American farmers to the improvement ol ani- 

 mals. There were many varieties of horned 

 llle, of horses, sheep, and other animals, of 



