1860. 



KEW ENGLAND FAR:MEII. 



355 



For the New England Farmer. 

 HONEY BLADE— HUJSrGABIAIT GRASS. 



I write for further information than what the 

 New England Farmer has yet given, respecting 

 the Hungarian grass. Something over one year 

 ago I received several copies of a small pamphlet 

 of sixteen pages, (one copy of which I now send 

 you.) which magnified the good qualities of the 

 Hungarian grass, called in the pamphlet i\w 

 "Ploney Blade." The book cxtoUs the good qual- 

 ities of this grass beyond all belief. It says : 

 quoting an article from a writer from the Valley 

 Farmer of 1S>37, that "it is a crop that never fails. 

 Wet or dry, cold or hot, it has been a good heavy 

 crop." * * * "As hay, it is superior to Timothy, 

 that old and substantial favorite of every farmer. 

 Horses, changed from Timothy and corn to Hun- 

 garian, begin to thrive on half the usual allowance 

 of corn, and put on that fine glossy coat so much 

 admired by stock-grovt-ers. 



"It is not the hay alone which gives value to 

 this crop ; it prodnces seed at the rate of twenty 

 or thirty bushels to the acre, which in nutritive 

 properties is much superior to oats ; it is heavier, 

 and contains a larger amount of oil. We know of 

 a fainner in this section, last season, who from 

 five acres threshed out one hundred and fifty 

 bushels of seed, which is sold at four dollars a 

 bushel, making six hundred dollars. A fiirmer in 

 Illinois sowed some land with this seed after tak- 

 ing a crop of spring wheat from the same land, 

 and produced three tons of good hay per acre." 



A correspondent of the Albanij CuUivator, in 

 answer to an inquiry for the best substitute for 

 ^ay, gives preference to the Hungarian grass 

 over every thing else. He says : "It grows at the 

 rate of six or seven tons per acre. The seed is of 

 K\\ oily nature, and horses or cattle will eat the 

 ceed before corn or oats, and the hay before Tim- 

 pthy, or clover. Horses having been fed on grain, 

 end good Timothy hay, began to improve imme- 

 iiately in flesh, and their coats more sleek and 

 Bhiny. Cattle will do very well on this hay after 

 the seed is threshed out. The grass has good 

 roots, grows deep in the ground, and will stand 

 dry seasons much better than any other kind of 

 §rass. After the grass is mown, it will sprout or 

 tucker very thick, and will make much more pas- 

 ture than Timothy and clover, after being mown, 

 iuring the summer and fall. In some sections 

 vhere Timothy sells for ten dollars per ton, the 

 -\ay of the Hungarian grass brings from twelve to 

 ffteen dollars per ton." 



The New York Tribune quotes from a corres- 

 Dondentin Vermont, who is jubilant over his suc- 

 :;ess in growing the Hungarian grass. He pro- 

 duced two tons of dry grass, and twenty-five bush- 

 els of seed from four quarts sown. He claims for 

 ft an average yield of over six tons of dry grass, 

 and thirty bushels of seed per acre." 



Au Iowa farmer, located in a section where this 

 iirodust has been well tested, states that the "usu- 

 il yield of the Hungarian grass, in that section, is 

 about six tons per acre ; but the premium crop 

 of this county, as returned to our late fairs, was 

 eight tons and some hundred pounds to the meas- 

 ured acre, of good dry hay, suitable to be put in 

 stacks, duly sworn to by disinterested parties, to 

 the satisfaction of the committee, in order to re- 

 ceive the premiums." 



The above pamphlet states that the manner of 

 sowing is the same as for oats or v/heat. It says : 

 "An acre sown about the last of May, would, at 

 the first cutting in July, yield, at a fair average, 

 four tons, and at the second cutting, about one 

 month later, would yield two tons more, making 

 six tons to the acre. The amount for seeding an 

 acre should be about sixteen pounds." As one 

 bushel of the seed weighs forty-eight pounds, it 

 would be one-third of a bushel to sow an acre. It 

 is stated that it can be sown as late as August, 

 and insure a crop. 



I will now state that after receiving the pamph- 

 let from which I have made the above extracts, I 

 sent three dollars by a Mr. Chase, whom I came 

 across in Mansfield, (his wife residing in the town 

 at her father's,) who said that all the seed which 

 was to be had in New York, came through his 

 hands as an agent, and off"cred to send me, as he 

 was returning to New York, a bag of the genuine 

 seed. But he never sent it. His wife, however, 

 jiaid me back the three dollars, but I got no seed. 

 This Mr. Chase said that the true geniune Honey 

 Blade Hungarian grass seed was black, or of a 

 very dark color, and that the light colored was 

 not. I have sent to the agricultural warehouse 

 connected with your office for some of the seed, 

 but have not yet sown it. I find that a small part 

 of that seed is black ; say one-tenth part. I in- 

 tend to pick out a small quantity of the black 

 seed, and sow it alone in a drill in my garden, 

 in order to ascertain if its product, when it ri- 

 pens, will be all black seed, and find out its differ- 

 ence from the other seed, which is of a yellow 

 cast. 



I think if it is of half the value as represented 

 in the above pamphlet, it ought to be more gen- 

 erally known and cultivated. Will not some of 

 your readers furnish more information upon the 

 subject? 



Thinking it possible that you have not seen 

 Mr. Felix H. Benton's pamphlet, I hereby for- 

 ward it to you, for your inspection. 



Mansfield, June il, 18G0. Isaac Steakns. 



Remarks. — We have seen the pamphlet re- 

 ferred to, and examined it with some care, and do 

 not believe one-half of the results which it states 

 can be realized in New England. We sowed the 

 Hungarian grass seed on land that would have 

 brought us fifty bushels of corn to the acre, and 

 got about one ton per acre, of what is called Hun- 

 garian grass, when made into hay. It is a variety 

 of millet, and will undoubtedly produce a large 

 crop when all things are favorable ; but it is an 

 annual plant, must be sown every spring, and 

 subjects the farmer to the cost of plowing and re- 

 seeding annually. Hope you will give it a thor- 

 ough trial, and give us the results. 



Worth Knowing. — The great difficulty of 

 getting horses from a stable where surrounding 

 buildings are in a state of conflagration is well 

 known, and that, in consequence of such difficul- 

 ty, arising from the animal's dread of stirring 

 from the scene of destruction, many horses have 

 perished in the flames. A gentleman, whose 



