THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



A MONTHLY NEWSPAPER. IS PUBLISHED BY 



JOHN 31. HILL, 

 Hill's Brick Block, CoMord, JST. H. 



GENERAriGENTS, 



B. COOKE. lOm,', N. H. 



TH. R. H.'VMPTON. Wasldngton City , 1>. C. 

 JOHN M-\RSH, \imhinglon SI. Boston. 

 CH \RI.ES WAltKKN, Brijiley Roto, IVorcester. Mass. 

 A. H. STILLWELL, No. 1, iUnrJr«< Sqttare,Prov. R.I. 

 b. W. HALL & Co. SprinifieUI, Mass. 



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THE VISITOR 



What shall we do with onr exhausted Pastures 1 



Shall we jilotigh tliem again and try to get an- 

 other crop of rye, of ei^ht bushels per acre ; or 

 shall we so manage as to recruit them and make 

 them worth fencing.' In some of the southern 

 counties of this State, a large portion of the pas- 

 ture lands are running up to wood. We prefer 

 ibis to seeing the bush scj the swinging over these 

 acres, or the plough in qiie.<t of a rye harvest that 

 will scarcely repay the expense of cultivation, 

 though it will inevitably leme the soil poorer. 



It is evident that too niiicli of our land was 

 cleared up and to much lime was spent by 

 the early settlers to destroy the young growth 

 which would have been far more profitable for 

 timber and wood than grain. A great proportion 

 of the cleared land was quite too rocky and rough 

 for any thing but wood ; and if a proper .system 

 had been early established, we should now see 

 all our ledgy and rocky land covered with a for- 

 est growth, and all our cleared fields in such good 

 heart as to be worth cultivaliug. 



But what do we now see within twenty or 

 thirty miles of the old capital of New England ? 

 Thousands of acres of laud reduced so low by 

 eternal cropping, that ten acres are not suffi- 

 cient to feod one cow tlu-ougl) the summer; and 

 instead of any attempts to bring these acres to 

 their pristine fatness and vigor, we see the own- 

 ers folding their hands and saying they can buy 

 no manure and can therefore do nothing to im- 

 prove these acres ; that they have not manure 

 enough for their tilled crops or for their mowing 

 lands, much less for old pastures or for old bogs. 



But we are much pleased to see that a belter 

 spirit is prevailing in nearly every town within 

 the limits named, and vvc have hopes that the 

 "New Husbandry" will \n: as contagious as any 

 fever of the limes, and will spread as rapidly 

 over the land. 



A few short years only have elapsed since we 

 commenced urging farmers to use their ploughs 

 on their pasture grounds and to endeavor to 

 make them gradually richer than to exhaust 

 them by snatching away every spear of grain 

 thai could be grown. Many have tried our plan, 

 and many are pleased with the results. 



Deacon Levi Parkes, of Wilmington, tells us he 

 has sown two bushels of rye per acre in his pas- 

 tin-e grounds in Septendier, for the purjiose of 

 feeding it iji the spring ; thai this gives him a fine 

 early bite for his cows lung lielbre they could ob- 

 tain any thing green in any other part of his pas- 

 tures — that liL -iiw.s on his ;:i- ss seed in the lat- 

 ter pari of M::icti, on the sun. i-, if there is any, 

 and that he has not yet failod of its taking well 

 and yielding fine feed before the summer was 



gone, the rye giving him a great abundance ear- 

 ly, while the clover, redtop, &c., would be ready 

 later in the season. 



The expense of this mode of renovating olil pas- 

 tm-es is quite trifling compared with that of fenc- 

 ing off and planting for a year or two — buyinji 

 manures or robbing the fields of the share tlia 

 has been usually dealt nut to them. And ai;y 

 man who has a itan^ niay bring back all his old 

 pastures, gradually, to produce a^ much as on the 

 first clearing. If any fiirmer is really afraid that 

 he could not keep his sickle off a good looking 

 field ; or that it is sinful to let cows eat any thing 

 but grass, let him sow grass seed alone. He will 

 have better feed than before ; and though his 

 pasture will not grow rich so fast ns if he sowed 

 rye to be fed, for he cannot have so nuich stock 

 on it to manure it, still it will improve, and no 

 doubt will keep pace with his own ideas of iin- 

 provements in farming. 



Our readers will bear in mind that the new 

 modes of renovating pasture groimds here rec- 

 ommended, admit of ploughing at the most leisure 

 season of the year ; when the team is strong ; 

 when it can be kept at the cheapest rate ; when 

 the pasture can be best spared ; and when it is 

 neither too dry nor too wet. For we may plough 

 pastures at any leisure time from August to No- 

 vember ; taking care not to sow seed late in the 

 fall, but to harrow and prepare for sowing on the 

 light snows of the next spring. Grass seed will 

 then bury itself sufficiently without human aid. 

 When rye is gown for feeding, it is advisable to 

 sow it early in September. 



Another important advantage is gained by ren- 

 ovating pastures in this way. We avoid all ne- 

 cessity of fencing off that portion of the land 

 which is to be" ploughed — we can choose onr 

 ground and take up one, two, or more acres out 

 of a dozen and leave other parts untouched, let- 

 ting the cattle run over the whole as freely as if 

 no seed was sown. 



This is a great saving of labor in fencing ; and 

 people who have but one single pasture and no 

 fencing materials can have no excuse for suffer- 

 ing their old pastures to lie fifty years without an 

 altem[)t to make them profitable. — Mass. Plough- 

 Remarks. — There can be little doubt that many 

 thousand acres now producing little or nothing 

 may be made good pasture ground by pursuing 

 the course suggested by the editor of the fl'Iassa- 

 chusetts Ploughman. Lauds that can he easily 

 ploughed may be brought up by the siiuple sow- 

 ing of rye to be eaten off by cattle or sheep— 

 they will be still more improved by adding grass 

 seed — clover is to be [)rererred — and sowing a 

 bushel of plaster to the acre. But perhaps the 

 most eflTectual mode of renovating worn out pas- 

 ture is the summer tilling with clover and plas- 

 ter ploughed in and renewed the same season. 

 There cannot be a doubt that all land without 

 other a|)plicalion of manures may be made by 

 the clover and plaster process as good as when 

 it was first cleared from the forest. Land easily 

 ploughed may be brought into production by 

 this process much cheaper than new lands can 

 be cleared. 



The rocky pastures which cannot be touched 

 by the jilough ought not to be abandoned. Much 

 of these lands, if properly treated, will continue 

 witliout exhaustion a hundred years. We know 

 of excelleni pastures in the liard soil of New 

 England which have been used a hundred years 

 where the plough has never touched. The 

 mischief is usnaliy done to these rocky |)astures 

 by over-feeding them. The sheep and cattle, 

 finding no growth of feed, gnaw upon the roots 

 of all the valuable grasses imlil they arc destroy- 

 ed : they kill out tliese, wliose place is supplied 

 by moss and useless grass, so 1!; .• tlic ci;iir.- siir- 

 tace of the pasture is little lutior llian ban-en. 

 Where these barrens abound there is wanting 

 nothing in the capacity of the soil to produce; 



the fault lies in the killing out of the grasses by 

 over-feeding. All such pastures, if there be no 

 chance to renew the clover, red-top or other 

 grass, by hacking in the seed in the fall or 

 spring while the ground is moist, may as well 

 be suffered at once to grow to bushes or even to 

 forest until the crop shall be sufficient when cut 

 down 10 burn over the whole surface. It will 

 be found that a second clearing of this land will 

 with much less labor generally bring back much 

 if not all tl; ; original fertility of the first clear- 

 ing. Many hundreds of acres of our rocky 

 mountain lands overrun with a second growth 

 have within the last few years been cleared anew 

 and furnish excellent grazing land. 



A pasture over-fed will lose much of the next 

 year's crop : continually over-fed, in a few years 

 it will produce little or nothing. A pasture in 

 which the feed is suffered to go ahead so that 

 the cattle may satisfy their appetite with feeding 

 only a part of the day will never wear out. In 

 a time of sununer drought, the pasture growth 

 upon common highlands is little or nothing: it 

 is then there is danger from over- feeding. Bet- 

 ter perha))s would it be to keep up cattle upon 

 hay or other feed in the yard, than that they 

 should be suffered at such periods to eat out the 

 very life of pastures. 



We might go on to show how feed for cattle 

 may be supplied in times of summer and fall 

 drought. On land with little manure corn sowed 

 broadcast or in close drills may be m.ide to yield 

 from ten to twenty tons of green feed to the 

 acre. This acre would sustain a dozen cows 

 through a two months drought. If cattle should 

 be fed on this green feed, or on clover or other 

 grasses cut down with the scythe — instead of 

 bi !,ig t(!rnp<l into the mowing fields after the 

 crop of hay has been taken off- vhe farmer 

 would gain on the next year's crop double pay 

 for his labor and retain his mowing grounds in 

 the condition to give an increased amount of hay 

 in the subsequent seasons. — Ed. Visitor. 



Seeding Grass Laud. 



The hay crop, in this vicinity, being the most 

 profitable one, it certainly should be the aim of 

 the fluiner to adopt that method in seeding his 

 land, which will be the most likely to insure him 

 the earliest and the largest quantity of hay. We 

 have bestowed some considerable attention to 

 this subject, the last two or three years, and have 

 come to the conclusion that the old method of 

 .seeding down to grass in the spring or fall with 

 the grain crop, is not the best. For the last two 

 or three seasons, this method, owing perhaps in 

 a measure to the extreme dry weather in the 

 fall, has entirely failed in many instances — the 

 consequence of which is, our hay crop this sea- 

 son is very tniicli diminished. In seeding down 

 with the grain, either in the spring or fiill, the 

 grain starting first, the grass must necessarily 

 grow in the shade, and of course slender and 

 i'eehle ; then ns the grain crop is taken off, the 

 grass is exposed to the parching sun of dog 

 days, and unless the weather is wet, ten chances 

 to one it is not entirely killed, which, as we be 

 fore said, has been the case for two or three of 

 the Inst seasons. 



Our method is this :— after the grain is taken 

 off in the fall, plough in the stubble, harrow the 

 ground, sow your grass seed, harrow again, and 

 pass the roller over the field to leave it smooth 

 and even, and you will be pretty sure of a good 

 crop of hay the next season— allowing the land 

 is rich. 



Another method to increase the grass crop, 

 which we have tried, is to plough such mowings 

 as are too wet to plant and hoe, in the fall, as 

 soon as can conveniently be done after the hay 

 is off, and give them a top-dressing of manure 

 and s.iud ; sow the grass seed, iinrrow and level 

 the field smooth, and a good cro)) will be the 

 result. We tried a piece of ground in tins way 



