FALL GRAZING MOWING LOTS. 219 



may not need a top-dressing. The rivers often supply all the 

 top-dressing necessary, and would wash away a good share of 

 what we might apply. These river meadows form our most 

 natural and productive mowing fields, where redtop, one of 

 our best grasses, luxuriates. All other grass lands need and 

 should receive aid from the compost heap. "We have found 

 autumn the best time to apply this compost. It is a season 

 of comparative leisure, the meadows are less cut up by the 

 cartage than they are in the spring, the fields receive some 

 protection by the compost from the rigors of the winter, and 

 the grasses receive the stimulus and take an early start in the 

 spring. It is objected to autumn top-dressing, by some, that 

 the rains and winds will waste much of the fertilizing matter. 

 If the compost is fine, as it should be, and the meadows are 

 covered with a decent growth of after-math, as they should be, 

 there is little danger of waste. It takes a great rain to wash 

 manure from a meadow where the spires of grass are thick and 

 of some length. If cattle are allowed to graze the mowing lots 

 till they are bare as a bald head, then the objection of washing 

 off the manure might have some force ; but no good farmer that 

 takes pride enough in his meadows to top-dress them will allow 

 them to be thus overgrazed. Compost cannot repair the dam- 

 age done by overgrazing. Grasses, like all other vegetation, 

 demand an elaboration of sap in the leaves, and a return of 

 some of this elaborated sap to the roots ; and a man that shaves 

 too closely with his mowing-machine, or allows his cattle to 

 graze too closely, will find in his penny saved a pound lost. 

 One of the most observing of farmers remarked to us recently 

 that " the close grazing of meadows was the easily-besetting sin 

 of the farming community." Top-dressing may remedy in a 

 measure the evil effects consequent upon too close cropping, 

 but cannot compensate for the want of that vitality in the roots 

 which is derived from the normal breathing of the plant through 

 its leaves. It is curious to notice how lawns that are frequently 

 mowed manage to secure this breathing apparatus. The grasses 

 send out numerous leaflets close to the surface of the ground, 

 which escape the scythe of the mower, mow he ever so closely, 

 and thus the plants are sufficiently vitalized by the action of the 

 air to maintain a stunted growth. 



