GRASSES. 1167 



The main things to be done are to give suitable protection, avoid 

 too close cutting, and provide a"reasonable quantity of plant-food, 



Both mowing-lots and pastures should be occasionally manured. 

 If the latter can be plowed and occasionally seeded, it will be a great 

 benefit except in cases of the fields, which are occasionally seen, in 

 which the best qualities of grass are productive and permanent, and 

 which would be injured instead of improved by reseeding. On all 

 pastures which it is not desirable to plow, manure of some, kind, such 

 as guano, plaster, and ashes or other commercial fertilizer, should 

 be occasionally used. 



Upon mowing-lots the manure can be applied late in the fall or 

 early in the spring. 



Hay Making. 



It is always a matter of great importance that the hay-crop be 

 well secured, free from rain, and Well made. In the Northern States, 

 farmers depend to a large extent on the hay-crop for the wintering 

 of stock, and some depend wholly on it ; hence it is very desirable 

 that the crop he harvested in good condition. Hay that is well 

 harvested, cut at the proper time, and neither under nor over dried, 

 is very nearly-as valuable as its equivalent of green and succulent 

 grass ; while badly-harvested hay, cut much too young or too old, 

 sunburnt with too much exposure, or badly weathered by showers, 

 of rain, is so much reduced in value as to be no better, and some- 

 times worse, than so much straw. 



There is ground, therefore, for the anxiety and energy that are 

 brought into play on a farm at the time of hay-harvest. There is 

 plenty of excuse for the laying aside, for the time being, of all other 

 farm operations that can possibly afford to wait, and for directing 

 all the available force toward saving the all-important hay-crop in 

 the best possible condition. When this is done, the farmer, always 

 feels as if a weight had been removed from his mind. There is 

 some difference of opinion as to whether or not well-made hay is 

 equal in nutritious properties and in general usefulness to stock to 

 the grass from which it was made 1 . The grass must, as a matter of 

 course, be preserved in some way for use in winter ; it cannot in 

 this climate be left on the land and consumed iti situ through the 

 whole of the year. If it were so left, it would not only becqme 

 faded and weather-beaten, the nutritive properties haying mostly 

 gone back to the roots, but the cattle could not safely remain out- 

 of-doors to eat it. Green grass is, of course, the most nearly per- 

 fect food for dairy cows, and it becomes a matter of importance that 



