MANAGEMENT OF MEADOWS. 253 



Some require or are improved by the tramping of stock. 

 If left to themselves they have a tendency to tuft or spring 

 out of the soil until their roots are exposed, when they fall 

 a prey to the sun or to the freezes. These tufts or tussocks, 

 as they are also called, will leave at least half the ground 

 bare, and thus, also, much oi the hay is lost. But if tramped 

 by stock the grass is pressed back into the soil and a turf is 

 kept up that covers the whole surface. 



Some of the grasses, however, as timothy, do not require 

 and will not bear grazing, for various reasons. These grasses 

 ought not to be mixed with those that are benefited by tim- 

 othy, and should such be disposed to tuft, the use of a heavy 

 roller is the only remedy, and the vacant spaces can easily 

 be reset by sowing seeds of the same or other varieties on 

 them, and then giving them a light coat of manure. 



It may be assumed that in nearly all meadows or pastures 

 olover should be a constituent. It is an easy matter to se- 

 cure a stand of it. The clover will, in the course of two or 

 three years, disappear from the meadow, leaving the grass 

 in possession of the ground. But it has not left without a 

 blessing, for it has reached up into the air with its long 

 arms and drawn down great stores of ammonia, nitrogen, 

 carbonic acid, and other valuable elements that grass re- 

 quires, and has pushed them down into the soil; while on 

 the other hand, it has pumped up immense quantities of 

 potash and other salts that are, in their natural state insolu- 

 ble, and not available to the grasses, and when it dies, it 

 bequeaths these valuable manures to its successors. Nor is 

 this all. Its long roots permeate the ground to a prodigious 

 dopth, for so humble a plant, and when the roots decay the 

 soil is so honey-combed that rains penetrate to the sub- 

 soil easily and the grass roots follows to a much greater 

 depth than they could otherwise attain. And while all 

 these services are being rendered the ciover is giving to its 

 owner large yields of the best of hay. What a faithful ser- 

 vant is this plant ! 



