16 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



constantly anticipated, that my own grandfather, as I have 

 heard from unquestionable authority, was once very near 

 turning off a good overseer because cattle enough had not 

 died on the farm of which he had the supervision to furnish 

 leather for the above purpose. AThen any cattle were 

 fattened for beef, almost the only process was to turn them 

 into the corijfields to feed themselves. Sheep and hogs were 

 equally neglected." 



BEGINNING OF GRASS CULTURE. 



In order to realize still more fully the condition of the early 

 settlers, so far as the treatment of their stock is concerned, 

 we are to consider that no attention was paid to the culture of 

 the grasses, even in England, in the early part of the seven- 

 teenth century, and that very few of the roots now exten- 

 sively cultivated and used as food for stock had been 

 introduced there. The introduction of red clover into 

 England did not take place till 1633 ; that of sainfoin, not 

 till 1651 ; that of yellow clover, not till 1659 ; that of white 

 or Dutch clover, not till 1700. Of the natural grasses, our 

 well-known timothy was first brought into cultivation in this 

 country, and it was not cultivated in England until the year 

 1760. The culture of orchard grass was first introduced into 

 England from Virginia in 1764. There is no evidence of any 

 systematic or artificial cultivation of grasses there until the 

 introduction of the perennial rye grass in 1677, and no other 

 variety of grass-seed appears to have been sown for many 

 years ; not, indeed, till toward the close of the last century, 

 upon the introduction of timothy and orcli|ird grass. The 

 Edinburgh Quarterly Journal of AgricuUu7'e, the highest 

 authority in such matters, says the practice of sowing grass- 

 seed was never known in Scotland previous to the year 1792. 

 Such being the case, in a climate so severe as that of Scot- 

 land, it is not at all surprising that the custom in this country 

 dates back only little more than a hundred years. 



It is a somewhat curious fact that the modern improvenients 

 in cattle in England did not begin till after the systematic 

 culture of the higher qualities of natural grass. It is not 

 strange, therefore, that the colonists here, who had vastly 

 greater hardships to encounter in the practical operations of 



