THE GEireSEE FARMER. 



215 



of R. S. Fay, Esq., at Lynn. In a late conversa- 

 tion with that gentlemen, he mentioned a plan 

 which he had in view for improving a rough pas- 

 ture, lying at a distance from his homestead. lie 

 said he intended to put on so many sheep that they 

 would eat everything that was eatable on the land, 

 and should give tiiem oil-cake enough to tatten 

 tliem. Thus he would have the wild vegetation 

 killed and the land made rich by the oil-cake man- 

 ure, which would insure a good growth of the right 

 kind (if herbage. The idea strikes us favorably ; 

 we can not see why something like^ this may not 

 be done extensively. It might be well to confine 

 the sheep at night by hurdles on the spots whicli 

 most need manure — shifting from place to place as 

 the requisite dressing had been applied. 



It would be well, also, to make some experiments 

 in the application of. substances as top-dressings. 

 We have already spoken of plaster. '\Vood-ashe.<<, 

 leached and unleaehed, may be tried, but it should 

 be remembered that they will not do much good 

 on wet laud. Superphosphate of lime may prove 

 to be a cheap fertilizer on some pastures. Any of 

 these things may be sown at first in narrow breadths 

 across the fields. A dollar's worth used in this 

 way will afford a pretty fair indication of the profit 

 or loss. — Boston Cultivator. 



HAY-MAKING, 



As the season for making hay is approaching, we 

 will give a few words of caution in advance. JJonH 

 dry your hay too much. Hay may be dried till it 

 is as worthless as straw. As a good coffte-maker 

 would say, "don't burn your coftee, but brown it;" 

 so we say, " don't dry your hay, but cure it." Our 

 good old mothers, who relied upon herb tea, instead 

 of "'potecary medicine," gatbered their herbs when 

 in btbssom, and cured them in the shade. This is 

 the philosophy of making good hay. Cut in the 

 blossom, and cure in the shade. The sugar of the 

 plant, when it is in bloom, is in the etalk ready to 

 form the seeds. If the plant is cut earlier, the su- 

 gar is not there; if later, the sugar has become 

 converted to woody matter. 



Hay should be well wilted in the sun, but cured 

 in the cock. Better to be a little too green, than 

 too dry. If, on putting it into the barn, there is 

 danger of "heating in the mow," put on some salt. 

 Cattle will like it none the less. 



Heat, light, and dry winds, will soon take the 

 starch and sugar, which constitute the goodness of 

 hay, out of it; and, with the addition of a shower, 

 render it almost worthless. Grass cured with the 

 least exposure to the drying winds and searching 

 sunshine, is more nutritious than if longer exposed, 

 however good the weather may be. If ever cured, 

 it contains more woody fibre, and less nutritive 

 matter. 



The true art of liay-making, then, consists in cut- 

 ting the grass when the starch and sugar are most 

 fully developed, and before they are converted into 

 seed and woody fibre ; and curing it up to the point 

 when it will answer to put in the barn without heat- 

 ing, and no more. — Ohio Cultivator. 



We do not exactly see how the " heat, light, and 

 dry winds " can take the starch and sugar out of 

 the hay ; but the above remarks are, on the whole, 

 correct and valuable. eds. 



WHAT I HAVE SEEN. 



I HAVE seen, since 18-41, land selling in the vicin- 

 ity of Washington City, D. C, for from $8 to $12 

 dollars per acre, which cannot now be purchased 

 for less than from forty to one hund'-ed dollars per 

 acre, 



I have seen tens of thousands of acres of land in 

 the vicinity, say witinu fifteen miles, of said city, 

 which, since the period mentioned, could not be 

 coaxed or forced, witliout the use of manure, or 

 other unusual means, to grow ten bushels of corn 

 to the acre, and not a spear of clover or timothy, 

 made to produce from year to year, as nmch o<jnj, 

 rye, oats, pototoes, clover and timothy to the acre 

 as is the ordinary product of lands in the western 

 part of New York, 



I have seen northern men coming here, purchas- 

 ing these worn-out lands for a mere song, and by 

 pursuing a system of culture altogetiier unknown 

 by the farmers around them betore they came, re- 

 suscitate their lands, and make fine, productive 

 farms out of what seemed to be irreclaimable, bar- 

 ren waste, 



I have seen a northern fjxrmer put a team — not a 

 poor rat of a horse — to a plow, go into an "old 

 field," which had not, for a jieriod of tune whereof 

 the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, 

 produced above ten, perhaps not five, bushels of corn 

 to the acre, turn up tlie soil ten or twelve inches 

 deep — the virgin soil, because never before dis- 

 turbed by the plow — and without the aid of a 

 spoonful of manure, or guano, or any other fertili- 

 zer, gather from twenty-five to thirty bushels of 

 corn to the acre; persisting in thus jilowing his 

 Jand, though assured by those wiio ought to know, 

 because they had lived all their lives upon and cul- 

 tivated the same kind of soil — that they would 

 spoil their laud by turning under, so deeply, the 

 little good soil there was on it. 



I have seen tlie time wiieu the manure thrown 

 out of livery and otiier stables in that city, was 

 considered of so little worth as to be given to any 

 one who would haul it away ; and I have seen it, 

 as it now is, selling for fiom sixty-two cents to a 

 dollar a load, and eagerly sought for at that, to be 

 hauled from one to six or seven miles over execia- 

 bly bad roads — there being in this vicinity very 

 few pieces of good road over a mile or two in 

 length, 



1 have seen "old residenters" hereabouts, ti-ying 

 to cultivate, as they call it, some two or three, 

 perhaps five, hundred acres; nnd I have seen new 

 comers sitting down along side of them, cultivating 

 and obtaining more from fifty acres than could be 

 got from the two or three hundred; while each 

 year the soil of the small farm was inqiroved and 

 rendered more ])roductive, and that of the large 

 one was rendered less so. 



I have seen many of these "old residesters" 

 occupying from three to eight hundred acres, living 

 a distance of from half a mile to a mile and a half 

 from any public road, surrounded by hogs, dogs 

 and negroes, but not a sheep upon the place. I 

 have seen neighbors living within half a mile of 

 each other, who could not go to each other's dwell- 

 ings without going, by the road, from three to five 

 miles, I have seen men living within a mile of the 

 mill, yet could not take a bushel of corn to it to 

 get ground without going a distance of four mUes. 



