336 Percy Wells Bidwell 



Meadows and Pastureland. 



The New England region was by nature better fitted for grazing 

 and pasturage than for agriculture in the strict sense of the word. 

 Its soil, although of a good quality, was thin and the fields were much 

 encumbered by stones and boulders, varying in size from small 

 pebbles to huge rocks and ledges.^ Hence the farmer's meadows 

 and pasture lands tended to assume more importance than his tilled 

 fields. The natural grass, which sprang up and grew abundantly 

 as soon as the land was cleared, was of excellent quality. ^ On the 

 uplands it furnished good pasturage and from the meadows, which 

 were almost always watered by a small stream, fair crops of hay 

 could be secured with the labor only of harvesting. Grass was also 

 cut on the tilled lands in the years in which they were lying fallow. 

 Occasionally these fields were seeded down with clover or with 

 timothy, sown in with a previous grain crop. This occurred only 

 at long intervals, however, and the seed used was not only full of 

 impurities but was insufficient in quantity.^ For the most part, in 

 the intervals between its years of tillage the land was left to "seed 

 itself." Just at the end of the period under consideration the sow- 

 ing of clover seems to have spread quite rapidly. Livingston, writ- 

 ing in 1813, says: "The introduction of clover, . . . has within 

 the last 10 years made a very sensible improvement in the agricul- 

 ture of the country .... Indeed it is only within the last 

 twenty years that any grass seed has been sown; and it will be no 

 exaggeration to say, that more clover seed has been put in, within 

 the last eight years, than has ever been sown since the country was 

 inhabited. "4 



The pasturage furnished subsistence for the farmer's cattle, sheep, 



^ President Butterfield of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, has written : 

 "It is sometimes asserted that the soil of New England is a drawback. On the 

 contrary it is an asset. True there are many square miles .... consist- 

 ing of ledges, others almost plastered with boulders; but wherever there is clear 

 soil it is good soil — the very best." Art. N. E. Agriculture. In New England — 

 What It Is and What It Is To Be. (George French, ed.) Boston. 1911. p. 115. 



'D wight wrote: "Grass is undoubtedly the most valuable object of culture 

 itt New England." Travels, I. 22. The excellence of the natural grass was 

 commented upon in American Husbandry, I. 57. It was this grass which was 

 j later introduced into England, receiving the name timothy. After its re-intro- 

 duction into New England it was known as English grass or spear grass. 



3 Clover was sown at the rate of about six pounds to the acre; of grass seed 

 six quarts were used on the same area, Mass. Agric. Soc. Papers, II. 1807, 29. 



* American Agriculture, p. 335. 



