THE GENESEE FARMER. 



237 



favorites in some parts of England ; the hop-like tre- 

 foil, Medicago lupulina, under the misnomer of yellow 

 clover, has, somewhat absurdly, become a favorite in 

 some parts of the lowlands of Scotland ; and when 

 only one year's forage is wanted, the main or the sole 

 ■'reliance is very commonly on annual rye grass and 

 annual red clover. But of late years, other plants, 

 both of the gi-asses, and of other orders, have, with 

 various degree of success, come into use with very 

 many enterprising farmers. The Italian rye grass, on 

 account of the rapidity of its growth, the sweetness 

 of its taste, and the bulk of its produce, seemed to 

 claim chief and enthusiastic favor; but it so speedily 

 overtops almost every thing else with which it is 

 sown, as, after fciir trial, to be generally pronounced 

 unsuitable. Such of the plants as arc of slower 

 growth and longer duration, however, abundantly 

 deserve attention in all cases in which forage for two 

 or three years is required. Farmers have, on the 

 whole, paid good and praiseworthy attention to the 

 improved sowing of permanent pastures ; but they 

 are unaccountably and miserably inadvertant to the 

 improved sowing of the temporaiy grass lands of the 

 alternate husbandry. ' For three years' pasturage on 

 good soils,' says Mr. Lawsox, ' the substitution of 2 

 lbs. of Daclylis glomcrata, the common rough cock's- 

 foot, for about 3 lbs. of the perennial rye grass, will 

 be found advantageous ; while in sheep pastures the 

 addition of 1 lb. per acre of jiarsley seed, Petrose- 

 tinmn sativum, would also be attended with good re- 

 salts ; and in certain upland districts, established 

 practice will point out the introduction of 2 lbs. or 

 3 lbs. of rib-grass, Plantago lanceolata. In pro- 

 portion to the retentiveness of heavy soils, as well as 

 for those of a peaty nature, Phleum pratense, the 

 meadow cat's-tail, should be added, to the extent of 

 2^ lbs. to 3 J lbs. per acre.' Parsley may perhaps 

 appear to some persons a strange ingredient in sheep 

 pasture ; but, in addition to its own nourishing pro- 

 perties, it serves as a condiment to all the other 

 herbage, and it is highly relished by sheep, and never 

 allowed by them to run to seed." 



FARMING IN MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASS. 



We are indebted to Simon Brow.v, Esq., editor of 

 the JVew England Farmer, for a copy of the Trans- 

 actions of the Middlesex County Agricultural So- 

 ciety, for 1853, from which we extract Mr. Elijah 

 Wood, Jr.'s, statement of his farm management, he 

 being an applicant for a premium on the same : 



"The farm, in part, which I offer for premium, I 

 purchased in 1840, it being in a low state of culti- 

 vation, with a large proportion of pine plain land, 

 ■which had been cropped to death with rye. The 

 buildings were very poor and inconvenient. The 

 main house had been thoroughly repaired, new put 

 up, making a convenient tenement for my father and 

 myself The barn has been built anew. The first 

 year after the purchase, all the stock that could be 

 kept in the winter on English hay, was five cows and 

 a horse, and that, a share of it, was cut -where the 

 cows are pastured now. Since that time I have 

 added some 140 acres; about equal proportions of 

 meadow, woodland, and light pasturing.. The pas- 



turing has all been plowed and manured, except the 

 la^t, purcha.«ed in 1849, and that comes in turn next 

 year. I plant with corn one or two years, as the case 

 may be, plowing from seven to eleven inches, accord- 

 ing to the depth it was turned before, and the nature 

 of the soil, endeavoring to run a little deeper every 

 year, spreading on from 25 to 32 loads of compo.st 

 manure to the acre, and plow again fif sod land) Jis 

 low as can be without disturbing the sod, (if not) 

 make one turning answer the purpose. I have this 

 j-ear used the swivel plow to avoid the dead furrow. 

 I prepared a compost for the corn-hills, never more 

 than 300 lbs., of guano for the six acres (this year 

 only 150 Itjs.), with about four proportions of plaster. 

 All the ashes made in the house, and excrements from 

 20 hens, are mixed with two loads of loam, and 

 thrown over every day till used, when but a small 

 handful is put in each hill. The crop is hoed level 

 three times, sowing before the last hoeing six quarta ■ 

 of herds-grass, one peck of red-top, and five pounds 

 clover. If exclusively for pasturing, I sow three or 

 four pounds of white clover. In that way I have 

 raised for five years, an average of not less than forty 

 bushels of sound corn to the acre. If the grass 

 fails, in part, I scatter more seed in the spring and 

 bush it in. When it is to be grazed the cows are 

 kept from it till it gets a good start, sometimes a foot 

 high. Nearly all my high land has been laid down 

 in that way for twelve years, because of the saving 

 of labor. My pasturing is in four lots, and 1 am con- 

 vinced of many advantages in the division. More 

 stock can be kept, by one-eighth, on a given number 

 of acres ; and by keeping on each, one week at a 

 time, when you come to the fourth the gi'ass must be 

 fresh and large, and the cattle are quiet and peace- 

 able, which is not the ca^^e when in one lot ; I am a 

 believer in the old saying, that a ' change of pasture 

 makes fat calv&s.' 



" Of stock, I made a small beginning, keeping hvt 

 four cows the first summer, and hired part of the pas- 

 turing at that; and in the winter kept seven, partly 

 on meadow hay. Now I keep twenty-five head in 

 the winter on the same number of acres mowed over, 

 and what land I have bought helps to increase the 

 number from tliirty-seven to forty with the additional 

 purchase of .^30 worth of meadow gi-ass standing. 

 In the summer, I keep from fifteen to twenty cow^ 

 varying as my customer wants milk, knowing that he 

 must be supplied in August when the feed is short, 

 as well as in June when it is gi-een and sweet. 



" Moist land I depend upon entirely for grass, hav- 

 ing turned nearly all my high land to pasture except 

 a few acres, an orchard, where I raise all kinds of 

 vegetables, southern corn, &c. I am fully satisfied of 

 one fact, that the more laud a person has (if he 

 undertakes to cultivate and manure it sparsely) the 

 poorer he is. I have about thirty-five acres of the 

 moist land, twenty of which have been reclaimed, the 

 rest is on the river, and liable to be covered with 

 water one-third of the year; experience has taught 

 me to let that alone. My great desire was to improve 

 the land — never being satisfied to raise only my own 

 corn and potatoes ; some four acres have been 

 graveled by my father, but improvements on mead- 

 ows in those days were hardly known. The meadow 

 was uneven, and not sufficiently drained, all the ditches 



