FEEDING THE AFTER-MATH. 87 



from our experience, of the system of feeding our meadows. 

 If the meadow is kept in good heart by suitable top-dressing, 

 we consider that a fair degree of pasturing in the autumn im- 

 proves the chances of a good crop the next year. It is almost 

 the universal practice with us to pasture ; and wherever, in 

 exceptional cases, we have neglected to do so, or have removed 

 only a portion of the rowen crop, we have failed to observe any 

 advantage the next season. In two orchards of young trees I 

 mowed a strip between the trees with my mowing-machine, 

 leaving six or eight feet unmowed and unpastured, except by a 

 small flock of sheep. There was a large growth of after-math 

 upon it. The succeeding season I watched closely to see if 

 there was any difference where the mowing-machine had run in 

 taking off the after-math. One of the fields was orchard grass 

 and clover principally ; the other was old turf of the finer 

 grasses. I was unable to discover, in either case, any advantage 

 in favor of the part on which the rowen was left. So I have 

 left some fields without feeding entirely, and the smothering of 

 the grass from the fine grass left upon the surface has led me to 

 the conclusion that it is not a wrong principle, in our section, to 

 feed our meadows during the months of September and 

 November. 



Mr. Goodman. I rise, gentlemen, because I could not help 

 rising after hearing my friend Dr. Loring. The doctor's gun 

 always goes off so easily, that I feel a good deal as the man did 

 out West, who, on entering a town, heard half a dozen bullets 

 whistling around his head. He turned round, and the man 

 who was firing at him, recognizing his face, said : " I beg par- 

 don ; I thought it was another man." When I am in company 

 with my friends Dr. Loring and Mr. Birnie, and these other 

 Ayrshire men around me, I feel that I am in danger of being 

 annihilated ; and their doctrines come so near the truth, that 

 unless a man is very radical he is in danger of being converted ; 

 and I do not know but a great many people would be better off 

 to be converted to the Ayrshire doctrine, than to continue in the 

 belief of the doctrines they now cherish. But I am engaged in 

 a very different business from that of breeding Ayrshires. I 

 am engaged in the breeding of Shorthorns and Jerseys. When 

 I look around upon the dairy stock of the country, as a mere 

 matter of profit, I do not see any better class of cows than the 



