1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



283 



to be sufficiently permanent in its influence to be 

 relied on as a sole fertilizer. It may, however, 

 be used beneficially for some special purposes. 

 For instance, on a loose, dry, sandy or gravelly 

 soil, loath to take grass well, even though well 

 manured for a previous crop, or on other land 

 which for any reason is shy and uncertain in this 

 regard, a superb catch of grass may generally be 

 obtained by sowing 200 to 300 lbs. of guano per 

 acre, and harrowing it in with the grain sowed at 

 the time of stocking to grass. The crop of grain 

 and of straw may also be considerably increased 

 thereby. I have thought in my own practice that 

 such application of guano paid as well as any other 

 of like cost that could have been made. I have 

 already stated that guano may in some cases 

 be profitably applied to stimulate poor land to 

 throw up a bulky green crop, to be turned back 

 into the soil. Instances might be named where 

 its application for this purpose has been attended 

 with satisfactory results. 



6. "I have a lowland meadow of 15 or 20 acres, sub- 

 ject to overflow by freshets setting back from the riv- 

 er. Though the flooding usually occurs m spring, yet 

 it sometimes happens in summer or fall, and there- 

 fore grass is the only safe crop to raise. The surface 

 of the meadow is nearly level, but in places there are 

 certain slight depressions, and on these portions the 

 water remains so long after the subsidence of the 

 flood that it stagnates upon and chills and poisons the 

 land. Coarse water grasses are therefore the only pro- 

 duct. The soil is a deep stiff loam. It appears to me 

 that the flooding of the meadow, together with the sed- 

 iment brought on, would be beneficial, provided the 

 surface water could be disposed of quickly, or made 

 to pass off with the falling of the stream. Now if I 

 have succeeded in conveying an intelligent impression 

 of the lay and condition of this tract of lowland, will 

 you please advise me how to proceed to make it good 

 sweet mowing land ?" 



Meadows of this kind usually have more or 

 less descent towards the stream, or in some di- 

 rection so that the water can be drained off into 

 the stream, though it may not be perceptible to 

 the eye alone. From your description, I judge 

 tbat the land is made too wet by surface water, 

 remaining to stagnate and pass off only by evap- 

 oration. The first step is to take an accurate 

 survey of the meadow with levelling instruments, 

 and ascertain where one or two main open 

 ditches can be cut and have a suitable regularity 

 of fall or draught to carry off the flood waters 

 "with the falling of the stream." The fewer 

 ditches you can have, and yet get rid of the wa- 

 ter, the more convenient will be the after tillage 

 of the land. Do not depend at all upon the eye 

 alone, but take your measurements by the aid of 

 levelling instruments, and then you will know ac- 

 curately the lay of the surface and where to 

 locate ditches so as to be able at once to se- 

 cure successful drainage. To get the water off to 

 the river, the ditches may perhaps have to pass 

 through a swell or portion of land somewhere 

 higher than the general level of the meadow ; but 

 do not let that discourage or foil you in the at- 

 tempt to drain the land, for you have only to cut 

 the ditches deeper there, and correspondingly 

 wider on top, so as to give the proper slant to 

 the sides to prevent them from caving in. A 

 slant of forty-five degrees will be best. You might 

 have a few models made of lath or light scantling, 

 the models being of the right width for the bot- 

 tom of the ditch, and the sides of them slanting 



or flaring out at an angle of forty-five degrees, 

 and set occasionally into the ditch ; they will 

 guide the workman in giving the right shape to 

 their work. The earth taken out in making the 

 ditches would well pay for hauling off to compost 

 with manure for some upland field of a dry, open 

 soil. Perhaps portions of it will came handy for 

 levelling up some depressed places in the meadow. 



After completing the ditches, and the land has 

 dried off sufficiently to permit of plowing it, you 

 can any time in the season previous to about the 

 first week in September, plow as much of it as 

 you can at one time manage. I should think it 

 had better be plowed certainly as much as nine 

 or ten inches deep, so as to bury the old sod 

 thoroughly, and kill its roots. Perhaps it would 

 be still better to plow a foot deep. Possibly at 

 some time previous to seeding the land to grass, 

 you can fill some of the worst depressions handi- 

 ly by plowing off the nearest knolls or crowning 

 places, and moving the earth thus loosened into 

 the sunken spots with the ox scraper. That, how- 

 ever, depends upon circumstances of which you 

 can best judge. The sod and subsoil plow will 

 make the best tillage, provided the sod is not too 

 rooty and stubborn to allow of the use of the lit- 

 tle skim or leading plow. If the sod is too much 

 for the skim plow to contend with successfully, 

 then a large powerful breaking-up plow of the flat 

 furrow sod kind, drawn by four or six oxen, will 

 be best. Be particular in plowing to get the old 

 swampy vegetation all under, lest otherwise it 

 should grow up again, to the injury of the new 

 seeding. Spread fifteen or twenty loads of com- 

 post per acre, made of manure and good upland 

 loam, and harrow it in. Then sow a half bushel 

 of herds grass and a bushel of redtop seeds per 

 acre, and pass a bush or light roller over the land. 

 It will be desirable to seed the meadow as early 

 as the first half of August, or even in July, if it 

 can then be attended to, for that will give the 

 young grass time to get firmly rooted before the 

 winter or spring floods come on, so that it will 

 not be likely to be killed by the overflow. 



If you can procure seed of the fowl meadow 

 grass to sow, that would be the very best grass 

 you could raise on this meadow, judging from 

 your description of the land. It yields a very 

 thick and heavy swath, and superb quality of hay, 

 and is very lasting in the land, provided it is not 

 cut too early. The occasional flooding of the land 

 would be highly beneficial to this grass, as it de- 

 lights in a moist, but not wet soil. As yet the 

 seed can be obtained in market only in limited 

 quantity ; but it is to be hoped our seedsmen will 

 be able to secure larger supplies ere long. It is 

 one of the anomalies in farming, that fowl mea- 

 dow grass is so little cultivated. I am informed 

 that the seed comes to market more or less at 

 Portland, Me., and that there are meadows in the 

 vicinity of Dedham, and in other portions of east- 

 ern Massachusetts, where the grass grows in con- 

 siderable quantities, spontaneously, I often see it 

 in the intervales bordering our streams in Ver- 

 mont. The seed can usually be procured in small 

 quantities of the Boston seedsmen. It closely 

 resembles redtop in the form of its head, and 

 shape of the seed, but the color of the head is 

 paler than redtop, while the bottom foliage is of 

 a deeper green hue, and yields a much finer qual- 

 ity, and thicker and heavier burden. 



