No. 199.] 141 



tion. The milk or a good deal of it is made into butter and cheese, 

 and all or uiost of these generally carried off tlie farm and sold. In 

 consequence the grass does not get its usual supply of this essential 

 article, it fails, and all the other products from it, including hay, fail 

 in due proportion. This has been found to have actually happened in 

 practice. A few years since many dairy farms in Cheshire, and 

 other districts in the vicinity of London, gradually declined in produce; 

 those who occupied them could not tell the cause, they thought they 

 manured as high as ever and a little higher, all would not do. These 

 occupants were advised to employ a competent chemist to analyse 

 the soils of a few farms ; it was done, and they were found deficient 

 in bone earth. The article was immediately procured and applied, 

 and the lands in due time restored to their former value. It is more 

 expensive at first than ordinary manure, but a little of it serves; it 

 is durable too, and its iiifluence is felt for years. A great evil to be 

 avoided by the farmer in the culture of grass is, never to let his stock 

 be too heavy for his pasture, or his means generally of keeping them 

 in the best condition both summer and winter. The greatest judg- 

 ment must be exercised in proportioning the one to the other ; if the 

 farmer errs, let it be on the right side : let his grass be too heavy for 

 his stock, let the former be more than the latter can consume. Here 

 he cannot suffer ; the surplus grass falls down, decays and makes 

 manure ; the roots are not so liable to injury. The grass is much 

 better the ensuing year, the cattle are in belter condition in the spring, 

 they have not been stinted or pinched for hay and feed during the 

 winter, the grass has not been fed close in the fall, nor is it necessary 

 to put them on it so early in the spring. Let the heaviness of a far- 

 mer's stock show in their appearance and flesh rather than in numbers. 

 All will ultimately show more loeight by this system: the cattle, grass, 

 hay, grain and the farmer's pocket. 



After showing the best luannei of cultivating the grasses generally, 

 it is proposed to look into the character and habits of some of the 

 principal ones individually. First, Timothy Grass: This, it is pietty 

 well settled and generally believed is a native of our country, although 

 a few Englishmen have questioned it. It is one of the most valuable 

 of our grasses, especially for the northern and middle states. It does 

 not grow well south of North Carolina, and here perhaps not as well 



