IMPROVEMENT OF GRASS-LANDS. 159 



tinual cropping without occasional, nourishment, 

 with impunity ; but when once well seeded, by the 

 application of various manures, among which that 

 of the barnyard is the best, and in the absence of 

 close after- feeding, they will yield grass, as the com 

 mon saying is, "almost for ever." 



In many sections of our country, where vegetable 

 loam preponderates upon a clayey or a hardpan sub- 

 soil, the ploughing up of meadows and pasture-lands 

 for many years is almost destructive to their future 

 production of grass ; and it is only by long and regu- 

 lar applications of mixed and rich manures that they 

 can be brought back to their primitive luxuriance 

 In proof of this remark, your committee need only 

 refer to some of the most celebrated and productive 

 grazing districts of the state, where the staple grass- 

 es of our country have been always successfully cul- 

 tivated. In frequent instances, perhaps in a large 

 majority of cases, lands of this description, which 

 have been cleared within the last fifty years, and are 

 now occupied as pasture and meadow, have never 

 been ploughed, but remain in the same uneven con- 

 dition of surface as they were left when the harrow 

 followed the first grain and grass-seed which were 

 deposited in them after clearing. Great reluctance 

 is usually manifested in disturbing these fields, al- 

 though somewhat inconvenient to the mower, their 

 proprietors being so well satisfied with their annual 

 crops as to prefer the old adage, and "let well 

 enough alone." Your committee have witnessed 

 instances of this description of soil, which have been 

 for thirty years in grass, and but slightly manured, 

 and, under very ordinary cultivation, producing in a 

 common season two or three tons of the finest hay 

 per acre. Such, however, are extraordinary cases 

 in favourable positions. An ordinary crop may be 

 one to two tons per acre, according to the care and 

 attention of the farmer. 

 It is true that these lands may become exhausted. 



