No. 4.] GRASS AND CLOVER. 147 



whole world is the man who tries to economize on seed. 

 You can't get too good seed. 



As to the question of a second crop for seed, it seems to 

 me it wasn't answered fully. I hap})en to think of another 

 point. The bumblebees are responsible for the setting of 

 clover seed, and there are very few bumblebees in the early 

 part of the summer, and not very much seed sets. It would 

 be a great mistake to try and get clover seed from the first 

 crop. 



Something was said about the impossiljility of raising 

 good grass crops in permanent mowings. Permanent mow- 

 ings arc not to be indiscriminately recommended. Rotation 

 is better than continuous planting, as a rule, although many 

 have proved, as we have at the college, that you can raise 

 very profitable crops of hay continuously. On the grounds 

 of the college there are about 30 acres lying in the midst of 

 our buildings, most of which I know have not been ploAved 

 for twenty years ; but the average crop is very good, this 

 year l)eing between 3 and 4 tons to the acre. I was a little 

 surprised to hear the speaker refer to a decline in the stock 

 of humus in the soil kept permanently in grass. I happen 

 to remember an old saying, common among English farmers, 

 which impressed me strongly: " To make a pasture" (per- 

 manent grass land in the English sense) "will break a man ; 

 to break a pasture will make a man." In other words, when 

 land is kept permanently in grass under suitable conditions, 

 I think it generally improves ; and I was not much surprised 

 to hear of the big crops that my friend got when he gave the 

 fertility which had been accunuilating in that soil for sixty- 

 live years or more a chance to become available. I think 

 land improves when kept constantly in grass, although the 

 practice of so doing is not, in my judgment, always to be 

 recommended. We keep this land continuously in grass 

 chiefly because it is managed in part as a park, and we like 

 the looks of it better in that condition. 



I Avas interested in what the speaker said concerning the 

 quantity of fertilizers used on the college farm in Maine. 

 From my point of view they are very small. He evidently 

 has a soil which has a great deal of potential fertility, and 



