EARLY CUT CLOVER, 199 



as to meet the boy at the tail of the cart with his 

 scatterings, instead of keeping him constantly at a 

 distance from the cart. We thus met him every time 

 before we started the team. 



Before we had finished loading, the owner came into 

 the field, and he was so much pleased with our man- 

 agement he said we might put down his name for our 

 paper for one year, though he already took four papers, 

 and more by half than he could read. 



EARLY CUT CLOVER. 



In 1818, when living on the banks of the Kennebec, 

 in Maine, we had a fine piece of clover that we feared 

 would grow too rank to be relished by our cattle. We 

 therefore mowed it on the twenty-fifth of June when 

 not one half the heads had blown fully out. 



We suflered it to lie in the sun for three days, turn- 

 ing it over just at night, to bring the greenest side up 

 to take the dews. On the third day it was raked and 

 carted. W^e never had better hay. We cannot say we 

 saved all the heads and the leaves, but we looked to 

 the main chance ; we saved the stalks — the substance 

 — and our cattle would insist on eating them all. 



In feeding out this hay, we could not but note the 

 difi'erence between a forkful of it and a forkful, of hay 

 cut late. It was apparently one third heavier. Our 

 cattle never throve better on any hay, and their manure, 

 not black as when their keeping is poor, on late cut 

 hay, looked precisely as if they had been kept partially 

 on Indian meal. 



In 1807, when travelling in the State of New York, 

 we paid the utmost attention to the keeping of our 

 horse. We did not like the appearance of the hay at 

 one of the inns where we stopped on the eastern banks 

 of the Hudson. We called for some of their early cut 



