SECRETARY'S REPORT. 83 



employed in some way. In looking back through the ten years 

 of the published Transactions of tlie Board, we find but few 

 experiments in this branch of farming, and those mostly are of 

 breaking up and reclaiming pasture-land. Now we believe that 

 through the Commonwealth, as a general thing, ploughing up 

 and seeding pasture-lands would be impracticable and inju- 

 dicious : impracticable, because the best pasture-lands would 

 to a very great extent be unassailable by the plough ; and 

 injudicious, because old pastures, if well kept, are decidedly 

 more nutritious, more fattening, more permanent, and, in com- 

 mon phrase, " sweeter feed." After a pasture is made clean of 

 brush and foul stuff, it will for some time, if lightly stocked, 

 remain in good condition ; but if reduced by ill usage, it must, 

 we think, be restored by fertilizers applied on the surface. 

 Top-dressing with manure is genei-ally out of the question ; 

 there is none to spare from the mowing and tillage, and tlie 

 expense of hauling it on to pastures, even if there were a 

 sufficiency, would make it impracticable. We believe from our 

 own experience and observations and from that of others, that 

 plaster, ashes, and in some cases guano, may be used with suc- 

 cess ; three to five hundred pounds of plaster alone, or a less 

 quantity mixed with ashes in the proportion of two bushels of 

 ashes to one of plaster, or of perhaps twenty bushels of ashes 

 alone to the acre, will in most cases revive and renew the pas- 

 ture, bringing in the white and red clover, and the finer and 

 more fattening grasses. It may be necessary to continue this 

 for two or three years, but we believe that it will be a good 

 investment, doubling the capacity of the pasture for cattle. 



Tlie Hon. Henry W. Cushman, of Bernardston, a most care- 

 ful and methodical man, and earnest in promoting the agricul- 

 ture of his county, reported to the Franklin County Agricultural 

 Society in 1858 the results of certain experiments on pasture- 

 lands, for which he received the Society's premium. The land 

 was an old worn out pasture, on argillaceous slate, sloping to 

 the east at about twenty degrees, covered with a very light 

 shading of poor grass and pennyroyal. Upon equal plots were 

 sown guano at the rate of 160 pounds, $4.80 per acre ; plaster 

 at the rate of 320 pounds or four bushels, 81.60 per acre ; 

 unlcached ashes at the rate of ten bushels, costing ^2 to the 

 acre, May 16, 1858. Tlie effect of the guano was the quickest, 



