1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



393 



to cover hay with caps. Experience and care- 

 ful observation for twenty years has established 

 this belief in my mind. I have often made 

 experiments on the same lot of grass, cover- 

 ing a portion and leaving a portion uncovered. 

 This has been done when the weather has con- 

 tinued fair and when showers and storms have 

 succeeded ; in the latter cases, no one doubts, 

 I believe, the utility and the economy of their 

 use. But in fair weather, many persons are 

 of the opinion that they are of little or no 

 benefit. 



If the cap were employed merely to keep 

 the hay from getting wet, this reasoning would 

 be correct ; but this is only a small part of 

 the good effect which it performs. It not only 

 keeps off the dews and rain water, but pre- 

 vents the evaporation of the aroma of the hay 

 while in cock ; keeping it moist with its own 

 juices, and inducing a sweating process, which 

 improves its quality by keeping the woody 

 fibre softer and more palatable and nutritious. 

 It undergoes a cooking process, which cures 

 the hay so that it requires but very little ex- 

 posure to the sun afterwards. 



Cut Grass Early. 



In connection with this, I desire to suggest 

 again the cutting of grass early. In the blades 

 and stems of the young grasses there is much 

 sugar and starch, which as they grow up are 

 gradually changed into woody fibre. Thg 

 riper the stem of the plant becomes the less 

 sugar and starch it contains. These are what 

 we ought to retain — the sugar, starch, gum 

 and oil ; and by cutting the grass soon after it 

 has attained its greatest height, a large quan- 

 tity, as well as a better quality of hay, will be 

 obtained. 



All grass that has been partially wilted, 

 should be placed in cock over night. I have 

 just been spreading some that was left in win- 

 row, and found that on the surface slightly 

 bleached. Better cock it, if it takes until after 

 sundown. 



But the haymakers want me, so I close. 

 Truly yours, Simon Brown. 



Messrs. R. P. Eaton & Co., Boston. 



A LARGE DAIRY. 



A gentleman by the name of Ross Winans 



owns 760 acres of land near Baltimore. He 



keeps cows for milk in city stables, and feeds 



them the year round on hay, with some bran 



or shorts, Indian corn, &c. The editor of the 

 Country Oentleman who recently visited his 

 establishment says, that he sold milk in one 

 year, at 30 cents per gallon, to the amount of 

 $37,630.71 ; cows and calves $11,986.08— al- 

 most fifty thousand dollars ! He mows about 

 650 acres, filling forty-five barns, rated at 

 forty tons each, — some eighteen hundred tons, 

 — averaging over two and a half tons per 

 acre ! His city stables contain stalls for 

 220 cows, and he actually keeps 300 head 

 of cattle and 30 horses. From a somewhat 

 imperfect record, it is estimated that his cows 

 make an average yearly yield of 2637 quarts 

 of milk per cow. Sixteen cows which dropped 

 their calves at intervals during January and 

 February averaged over 16 quarts per day, up 

 to March 13th. Such crops of hay are evi- 

 dence of liberal manuring, and such yields 

 of milk of good stock and of judicious manage- 

 ment. 



Yankee Plows and Plowmen. — The 

 Paris correspondent of the Mural Neio Yorker 

 compounds the following bitter pill for our 

 "crack"' plowmen and plowmakers, and ad- 

 vises them to swallow it like men, for it will do 

 them a vast deal of good. After describing 

 the trial of mowing machines on the Emperor's 

 farm near St. Cloud, in which the Americans 

 swept every thing clean, he alludes to the 

 plowing match, in which the English had every 

 thing their own way. He says : — 



We cannot compete with them cither in plows, 

 teams or plowmen — all necessary elements in a 

 plowing match. This will l)c perfectly understood 

 and acknowledged by all who have seen England 

 and taken the least notice of plowing there, but 

 will not be by those who have not. I do not con- 

 tend that the time and force expended l)y the Eng- 

 lish plowman is any more renunierative than with 

 us, but when you come to the doing of a nice job, 

 such as is expected at a plowing match, we cannot 

 come up to their ordinary work. 



Root Pruning of Pear Trees. — The fol- 

 lowing directions for summer root pruning, to 

 induce fruitfulness, are given by the New York 

 Horticulturist : "As soon as the terminal buds 

 of this season's growth have formed or are 

 forming, dig a trench around the tree, two 

 thirds in circumference the diameter of the 

 branches. Dig down deep, so deep that you 

 can, by opening a trench toward the body of 

 the tree, get in a position to cut the tap root 

 off about eighteen inches under ground, then 

 with a sharp knife trim each end of the roots 



