454 [Assembly 



Mr. Townsend, of Astoria • I never let my clover or grass lay long 

 exposed to the heat of the sun, and I make good hay. I do not believe 

 that clover enriches land by a long succession of crops. No, I turn 

 in green clover with the plow, and always find my wheat and my 

 garden vegetables thrive after it. I harrow my wheat well, and I 

 think this helps to destroy the fly. One day my horses ran away 

 with my harrow across a wheat field, I supposed they had done 

 mischief, but when the crop grew up, the road the horses had made 

 over the field was the finest growth on it, I prefer to cut timothy on 

 the day the blow drops off. I cut and cure it as soon as possible. I 

 find that blue grass does well on strong soil, gives a great burthen, 

 never wants replenishing, never wears oat. It is our natural blue 

 grass, perhaps not exactly like the Kentucky sort. I began many 

 years ago to manure my farm on Long Island. I paid freely for barn 

 and stable manure. After a while I found out that by taking off the 

 peat or muck from the surface of my meadows, underneath it a smooth, 

 fine earth which I put on my land, and have continually made it better 

 and better. Most farms contain their own materials for manure. I 

 let my hogs tfample the manure well. 



Judge Van Wyck. — I have read a passage in the Genesee Farmer, 

 stating absolutely, that it was best not to cut till the seeds of the 

 grasses were ripe, perbilps excepting clover, and all other late cutting, 

 and especially timothy ; that the weight of hay is increased by it and 

 the land left in better condition after the crop, and the young grass 

 growing up sooner and richer for it. This is contrary to reason, for 

 when the seeds ripen, soil is proportionally impoverished, and the 

 stems dry when cut, must delay the circulating of the sap and the 

 starting of the young grass. 



Mr. Pell, of Pelham. — ^My plan for the past fire years, with regard to 

 cutting grass for hay, has been to commence cutting down clover when 

 about two-thirds of the tops have turned brown, and timothy when 

 the bloom begins to fall, and only cut so much in the morning as may 

 be taken in before night. It is then salted with about one bushel of 

 fine salt to the ton ; the effect of the salt is to draw out the mois- 

 ture which goes off by evaporation, and the pores take in the salt, the 

 hay thus becomes cured with all its chemical ingredients, as well as 



