14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sometimes stock which have the range of both high and low 

 lands will feed on the latter and lie on the drier places, leav- 

 ing their droppings there to enrich the poorer hills. Farmers 

 too often apply all their barn yard manure to their grain 

 crops, while the permanent pasture lot is expected to yield its 

 produce year after year without care or manure, to give and 

 keep giving but never receive. The indignant soil will resent 

 such treatment, we can no more expect to forever feed from 

 a pasture without manure than we can expect to forever crop 

 the soil with grain without manure and not impoverish it. 



I have seen some pastures greatly benefited by wood ashes, 

 others by gypsum, others by lime, others (especially very old 

 ones), by pulverised bones, and many by rotted barn yard 

 manure. The resources of the farmer must decide what is 

 most profitable to use. On the Swiss pastures I spoke of, 

 barn yard manure is composted during the summer, and ap- 

 plied in the fall. You will see the manure carefully piled up 

 during the summer into a cubical pile, its sides kept in shape 

 by straw being laid in, much as we see the " cheese " laid up 

 in a cider press, then a foot of earth thrown over the top to 

 absorb any escaping gases, -and during the summer the refuse 

 house slops are added to the pile, often a few squashes or 

 other vines are grown in the soil on the top of this manure 

 heap, it answering as a sort of hot bed in the higher and 

 cooler places of the upper Alps. This manure is applied, as 

 stated, in the fall, and in the early spring the hay seed that 

 accumulates in the mangers during the winter, is strewed on 

 to keep up the seeding, and take the place of any plants that 

 may have been killed by the rigorous winter. These means 

 prevent the exhaustion of the soil, keep the surface well 

 seeded, and ensure a good turf. Their very nutritious char- 

 acter, I have sufficiently spoken of. The various kinds of soil, 

 the varieties of climate which are produced by differences of 

 exposure or elevation of course modify the character of the 

 pastures, and we have as a result a variety of product. There 

 are many varieties of Swiss cheese depending perhaps more 

 upon these conditions of the pastures than on the different 

 modes of manufacture. 



