40 



GENESEE FARMER. 



Fefv 



Grasses. 



It is often necessary that one should go away 

 from home to appreciate, at their true value, 

 things with v/hich he has been most familiar all 

 his life. Raised in one of the best grazing coun- 

 ties in the State of New York, the writer has had 

 to live over forty years and spend a winter in 

 the Southern States, to learn how greatly Provi- 

 dence has favored all the northern portion of the 

 Union, fi-om Maine to the western bounds of 

 Iowa, in the production of grasses. Their value 

 is far above all computation. By skilful cidture, 

 and judicious feeding, they can easily be trans- 

 formed into the best food and clothing consumed 

 by civilized man. Once, we regarded the labor 

 of seeding, n>anuring, mowing, curing, housing, 

 and foddering out grass, as a great tax on north- 

 ern husbandry. This wag a serious mistake, the 

 extent of which our friends at the North would 

 soon learn, did the earth for one season only, 

 refuse to bear any of the cultivated grasses. A 

 very intelligent correspondent of the Southern 

 Cultivator truly remarks .that, " the great secret 

 of the astonishing resources of the frozen regions 

 of the North, lies in its grasses, of which clover 

 is the chief." 



Much can yet be done to increase the products 

 of pastures and meadows of the farmers who read 

 this journal. There are thousands of acres 

 which need draining to root out wild plants, 

 sweeten the soil, and enable timothy, red top, 

 and clover to flourish in their places. An excess 

 of water, particularly standing water, is most 

 deleterious to all grazing lands. No standing 

 water should rise to within three feet of the sur- 

 face of the earth, if you would have it yield sweet 

 nutritious hay, or pasturage. There are many 

 old meadows and pastures which will be greatly 

 improved by sov/ing more grass seed, and scari- 

 fying them with a light, sharp harrow. We 

 have seen good meadows of tame grass formed 

 in Illinois by burning the prairie, sowing seed on 

 the black turf, and harrowing the ground, with- 

 out any previous breaking of the sod. Make it 

 a point to raise more grass seed and to sow more 

 every year. All the southern cities are supplied 

 with northern hay ; and mo-t of the producers of 

 hay on the Hudson river and along the Atlantic 

 coast make great use of leached ashes, lime, and 

 salt, to fertilize their annually cropped meadows. 



Kind reader, would you not rejoice to add .50 

 per cent, to tlie grass that now annually grows 

 on your pastures and meadows ? If so, the thing 

 is quite attainable at a trifling cost. Perhaps it 

 may be advisable to break them up first. If so, 

 plow deep, and cultivate the earth most thorougli- 

 iy to obtain one or two first rate preliminary 

 crops. Use a plenty of gi-ass seed and manure, 

 so far as you have it. If it is possible to irrigaic, 

 by all means give your grass lands the benefit of 

 running surface water several times during a 



season — shifting the little streams every week or 

 so. Irrigation might be far more practiced both 

 north and south than is no'vv done. Pro-bably a 

 mixture of equal parts of slaked lime and leached 

 ashes will do more to augment the growth ot 

 grass than any other application of equal cost. 



Care should be taken not to turn cattle, sheep,- 

 or horses, on fi.elds too early in the spring. We 

 have seen great injury done in this way. Bet- 

 ter keep cattle on dry, clean cotton, as m-any do- 

 in this city j i. e., let their cows steal it to keep 

 them from starving. Cotton is about as nutri- 

 tious as clean pine wood saw dust, being nearly 

 pure woody fibre. Yet, strange to say, we have 

 seen many a bale where the sack was open with 

 a hole eaten into it by cows. They pick up 

 every scattered lock they can find. 



Undoubtedly, many of the native grasses of 

 this region might be mown and cured for hay. 

 But who has a scythe, and who can use it 1 An 

 intelligent planter told me yesterday that he- 

 made some hay in his corn fields, but he cut it 

 all with the hoe. 



When the mowing machine, invented by Mr. 

 Ketchum, of Buffalo, shall be generally intro- 

 duced, the cost of cutting and curing hay will be 

 much diminished. We saw this machine in 

 New York and regarded it as a valuable affair. 

 So long ago as 1840, the hay crop of the Empire 

 State was estimated by those that gave in the 

 census, at thirty 'millions of dollars. This pro- 

 duct may be doubled, without materially lessen- 

 ing any other. Very few acres in pasture or 

 meadow in any State have reached the maximun* 

 return. 



Augusta, Ga., Jan., 1848. 



Manuring and Stimulating Seeds. 



A GOOD deal was said, a few years since, oiii 

 the subject of causing the seed to absorb and be- 

 come impregnated with some soluble salt, where- 

 by its productiveness was greatly increased. It 

 orio-inated in Germany, and so sanguine was its 

 discoverer, that he often said the time would 

 come when a man would carry the manure for 

 an acre of land in his breeches pocket. 



We observe in the London Mark Lane Ex- 

 press the advertisement of Biche & Co., wha 

 have obtained a patent, and offered to prepare 

 seeds of every description, warranting it to save 

 (\\Q pounds sterling per annum in the cost of 

 manuring an acre. Their notice is accompanied 

 by many certificates of celebrated farmers, bear- 

 ing testimony of its efficacy ; also with a tariff" 

 of prices per bushel for preparing the seeds, 

 which varies from one to two dollars. For 

 clover seed fifteen cents per pound, or nine dol- 

 lars per bushel, for preparing only. 



One of the certificates states that the turnips 

 produced a much larger leaf, almost lost their 

 indentations, and become round, with a great in- 



