282 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



scale, and the whole running through several oc- 

 taves. A visitor to this farm is charmed by the 

 music, as well as by the sleek sides of the cattle. 

 Sometimes he hears several notes in unison, then 

 a slight discord, and then a sweet harmony, and 

 all varied by distance and by the rising and fall- 

 ing of the breeze. 



JFor the New England Farmer. 



FAHMINQ OPERATIONS MADE P'ROFI- 

 TABLE--NO. III. 

 To , 



Dkau Sir : — In this third conrmunication I 

 shall endeavor to reply to the remaining inquiries 

 of your letter. 



4. "I hiivc 30 or 40 acres of land near tLc buildings 

 wliicli I desire to convert into productive pasture, 

 principally for milch cows. The land is somewhat 

 uneven, but sufiicicntly level for plowing. It has 

 been iuipoverishcd by occasional grain crops, and in 

 the intervals l)ctwccn them by overfeeding with stock- 

 The soil has never been stirred more than four or five 

 inches deep, but the subsoil appears to be pretty good, 

 and tolerably free from stone. How shall I manage 

 to make a good pasture of this tract of land ?" 



As your land admits of the use of the plow, you 

 can improve it in various ways. In the month 

 of August plow up such a portion of it as jou 

 can manage conveniently, turning it about eight 

 inches deep, so as to stir in a portion of the fresh 

 subsoil with the old surface soil. Then sow 

 broadcast -500 lbs. of bone dust per acre, harrow it 

 in, and seed at once to grass alone. By this first- 

 named method the land plowed and seeded anew 

 will not need to be fenced from the remainder 

 not then plowed. Sow only herds grass and red- 

 top in August, but the following spring, as soon 

 as the ground is sufficiently bare of the old snow, 

 and while the surface is filled with little cracks, 

 sow liberally red and white clover seeds. Herds 

 grass, however, is not a very lasting pasture- 

 grass, because when closely fed off" the roots soon 

 kill out. Sow but little of it, therefore, and stock 

 more largely with the other grasses. Orchard 

 grass is an excellent pasture grass, bearing any 

 amount of close clipping, and springing up with 

 remarkable quickness and vigor after it has been 

 bitten down. Of late years I have invariably 

 sown this grass when laying land down to perma- 

 nent pasture. The seed being quite bulky, a 

 bushel and a half is none too much to sow with 

 the other grasses, if you would secure a thick fine 

 sward. It may be sown in August, or at any 

 time of year. Let me remark, by the way, that 

 redtop should not be mixed with the other grass 

 seeds to sow, but should be jjut on separately, 

 and with a much narrower cast, because the seed 

 is so very light and chafi"y that it will not cast off" 

 more than about two feet each side of the sower's 

 track, even in the most favorable time for sow- 

 ing. Kit is mixed with other seeds and sown 

 with the usual breadth of cast, you will afterwards 

 see it growing in strips across the field, with 

 spaces between about as wide as the strips, where 

 there is little or no redtop. After plowing in 

 August, you can, if you please, put on a heavier 

 dressing of bone, say 300 lbs., per acre, and sow 

 winter wheat or rye with the grass seeds — the ex- 

 tra dressing of bone in that case compensating 

 the land for a grain crop taken off". If the sea- 

 son is favorable for winter grain, you can get 



from twenty to thirty bushels per acre and several 

 dollars' worth of straw, besides decidedly improv- 

 ing the land. Bone dust is a sure and quite last- 

 ing fertilizer of pasture land, supplying precisely 

 the elements most largely abstracted from the 

 soil by the feeding of it with stock, and especially 

 with milch cows. I know this to be so by per- 

 sonal observation of the efi"ects of bone on my 

 own land. I was much interested in a recent ex- 

 tract in the Country Gentleman, on the use of 

 bones as a fertili;ier, and having requested my 

 friend, Mr. Brown, to republish it in another col- 

 umn of the New England Farmer, I would call 

 your attention to the article. 



Another way to improve your land would be to 

 plow it nine oi* ten inches deep, late in the fall, 

 and in spring manure liberally with compost, 

 broadcast, and then plant it with corn or pota- 

 toes, If you have time after harvest in the fall, 

 plow, harrow and prepare the land all ready for 

 stocking down, and very early in the spring sow 

 on grass seed alone. Or, you can plow in the 

 spring and stock to grass with grain. It would 

 of course be better for the land to omit a grain 

 crop ; but if present profits must be considered, 

 then take the crop of grain, and you have still an 

 improved pasture. Or another way would be to 

 manure the land one or two years in the hill, as it 

 is called, planting it with potatoes. Then lay it 

 down to grass in the spring, without grain, sow- 

 ing 500 lbs. of bone dust per acre and harrowing 

 it in before sowing the grass seeds. Or after 

 planting the land a year, to rot the sod, sow 300 

 lbs. of guano per acre, with a thick seeding of 

 clover, to be the next year turned under as a 

 green crop, and the land in August or first part 

 of September seeded <Jown to pasture. If the 

 land is quite foul with any species of vegetation 

 that it is difficult to kill by simply the smother- 

 ing process of plowing, then it would be well to 

 plant and cultivate it in hoed crops one year be- 

 fore laying it to permanent pasture. But as a 

 general thing, nicely executed plowing will pretty 

 much kill out the old vegetation. Thorough 

 plowing should be the rule, and if a baulk per- 

 chance is made, the team should be at once 

 backed into it and the defective furrow mended. 

 Nothing at all can be gained by the "cut and 

 cover" style of plowing. All these various modes 

 of improving old pastures imply the investment 

 of some capital "in the improvement of the soil 

 itself;" but such investment is indispensable if 

 you would have good land, and is usually more 

 profitable than the purchase of more land to 

 meet the requirements of the stock you wish to 

 keep. The improvement of impoverished pas- 

 tures is an important part of farming at this day, 

 and it is to be hoped that you will try various ex- 

 pedients yourself for the renovation of such 

 lands, and let us know hereafter, through the 

 Neio England Farmer, the results of your eff"ort8. 

 You can do no more useful service than this to 

 the i arming interest of New England. 



5 "Can I make profitable use of Pcmvian guano, 

 cith cr as a sole fertilizer of land, or as an assistant to 

 i'crt lity on land otherwise well manured, .ami if so, to 

 what crop or crops can it best be applied, and in what 

 quantity ?" 



Guano stimulates land in some cases wonder- 

 fully, for one or two years after its application, 

 but it does not seem to add staple to the soil, nor 



