(80) 



wet cloth folded several times to retain moisture, and covering 

 them over with a single thickness of the same. Keep the cloth 

 damp a few days and the good ones will swell up and sprout, while 

 the defective ones will be covered over with mould. Count the 

 sprouts, and, by an easy computation, one can then ascertain the 

 proportion of good seeds. Then sow in the proportion and there 

 will be no difficulty in securing a stand. The wisdom of this pre- 

 caution may be known when it is stated that nearly all the gras& 

 seeds are worthless at the end of three years, only a small propor- 

 tion of them germinating. Even clover seeds, that will keep their 

 vitality when in the ground and covered up, will lose this vitality 

 in four or five years, if exposed to the atmosphere. The millets are 

 scarcely worth sowing after the second year. 



No pasture, however luxuriant, is found to consist of one grass 

 alone. In all meadows sown alone, there will be found naked 

 spots, and these seem to depend upon some incompatibility of the 

 soil, at that point, with the grass sown. These spots would be oc- 

 cupied possibly by other species if sown, and thus the whole surface 

 would be covered. Some grasses are disposed to turf the ground, 

 while others form tussocks, therefore it is best to mix, if sowing a 

 tussock grass, a grass that will turf well. Some grasses have a 

 heavy undergrowth of surface foliage, while others have this 

 sparingly. These two peculiarities would be done away with if the 

 two were combined. 



It is not, however, proper to combine the pasture grasses with 

 the meadow grasses. As a rule the former have creeping roots and 

 are more vigorous than the latter, and they would soon overpower 

 them and destroy the meadow. This, of course, is spoken in refer- 

 ence to the perennial pasture grasses. 



Another condition of mixing the number to be combined. As a 

 rule, it is beyond question that a meadow sown with a variety of 

 seeds will do better and make more hay than when one kind is 

 used. It is no easy matter to explain why, but nature does it, and 

 she rarely errs in her primitive growth. 



A custom prevails among the grass farmers of the North and Eastta 

 mix a great number together some having as many as a dozen differ- 

 ent kinds on one meadow. In this way those vacant spots we have 

 spoken of will be filled up with selected seeds instead of seeds of an in- 

 ferior or noxious sort. The ground will be covered, and it is better to 



