190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



grass land, it is all right to top-dress with it, if you want to 

 grow hay to feed the stock. If you have only enough stable 

 manure for hoed crops, and you want to sell hay, use the 

 stable manure for the hoed crops and top-dress with fertilizers, 

 and you will get a higher price for your hay in the market. 

 Ex-Secretary Sessions. I want to com])liment the speaker. 

 He said he was going to give us a dry lecture, and it has 

 been very interesting and instructive. About top-dressing, 

 the importance of the matter all rests on what the land is, 

 and where it is situated. When you are talking about Barre 

 and New Braintree, you are talking about nine-tenths of what 

 the State of Massachusetts has to deal with. Those farms 

 as a rule do very little raising of hoed crops, and their grass 

 land is exceedingly fine, and will respond to what Mr. Allen 

 has said about top-dressing. But we want to remember what 

 sort of land we are talking about. I remember a communi- 

 cation in the old " New England Farmer," where a gentleman 

 was telling about when to plow. He said it was suicidal to 

 plow when it was wet ; you could not do anything with the 

 ground, and got no crop, and it was useless. I was brought 

 up on a gravelly farm, and what on earth the man meant I 

 could not imagine. I read it through, l)ut before I got through 

 there was an incidental allusion to his land being clayey soil. 

 It gave me the key to what he was saying, but he was giving 

 a rule for all to go by. Before we criticise the advice of our 

 speaker or an3^body else, we want to know what kind of land 

 we are talking about. 



Mr. Thayer. I seed my land with nothing but clear timo- 

 thy, about a bushel to the acre. It is kind of a rocky soil. 

 You dig down 2 feet and strike hard pan, blue clay, and I 

 seed that with nothing but timothy. I get clear timothy ha}^ 

 the next season, seed in August. The next year it is about 

 one-half red-top and clover, and the next year there is 

 scarcely any timothy there, more red-top and clover. I 

 would like to ask what is the reason. 



Dr. Wheeler. Do you top-dress at all? 



Mr. Thayer. No, sir. I believe in putting the manure 

 into the soil, and working it in, and I think you get better 

 results. 



