84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



showing very fresh and green, and more than doubling the feed 

 in the early part of the season, but it did not seem to hold out. 

 The plaster gave a great increase during the middle and latter 

 part of the season, and late in the autumn looked green and 

 fresh. Clover also sprang up, and the quality of the grass was 

 much improved. The ashes did not apparently produce much 

 effect in the early part of the season, but after June the grass 

 and clover came in thick and fresh, and continued so all the 

 season ; late in the year the grass improved most, and the cattle 

 seemed to prefer the grass on that piece. The conclusion is, 

 that plaster and ashes are valuable renovators of pasture-lands, 

 guano at the cost less so. 



But perhaps there is no readier and more profitable way to 

 remedy this waste of pastures than by turning sheep upon them. 

 In reply to the inquiry in .the circulars issued by the Board 

 two years ago — Whether pasture-lands were improved by sheep 

 — there was a unanimous affirmative. We cannot on this sub- 

 ject do so well as to quote from the article of Mr. Fay before 

 mentioned. " Our own observation and experience has fully 

 confirmed the correctness of the returns in this respect. We 

 have constantly under our eye an hundred acre lot, upon which 

 cattle a few years ago could not live, that now maintains in 

 good condition a large flock of sheep ; and the improvement of 

 the pastures has been so great, that a dozen head of cattle 

 besides the sheep do well on it. The reasons for this are 

 obvious to any one who has observed the habits of sheep : they 

 are more indiscriminate feeders than cattle ; they nip the shoots 

 of almost every shrub as well as weed, extirpating many kinds 

 in the course of two or three years ; they make room in this 

 way for the grasses to come in where they have been shadowed 

 out or otherwise displaced ; the white weed, the broom, or wood 

 waxen, as it is commonly termed, the golden rod, the black- 

 berry vine, the blueberry, with many other similar plants, dis- 

 appear before them, and the finer grasses and white clover take 

 their place. This, however, is only one of the advantages 

 which sheep possess upon pastures which arc impoverished ; 

 they scatter their manure in the way to produce the largest 

 benefits ; beside which, it possesses in the highest degree the 

 requisites essential for restoring to the land the phosphates 

 which it loses by long depasturing with cattle. The manure of 



