54 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 
manure on his meadows: ‘‘ The grass-seeds are sown 
on well-prepared land in late summer. ‘The land is 
manured before it is plowed for the grass crop. No 
top-dressing is used the first winter, as ‘the young 
grass will not stand it.’ The next winter the sod is 
top-dressed, as it is again the next. It is then plowed 
up for corn.’’ Manure on this farm contains both the 
liquid and the solid excrement from the stock. 
On farms where manure is not plentiful it is con- 
sidered good practice to plow under a light dressing of 
manure in preparing land for grass. As a rule, no 
further dressing of manure is applied till the. winter 
after the second haying season, when the sod is ma- 
nured before breaking it up for corn. Ten to twelve 
tons of barn-yard manure per acre is generally con- 
sidered a good dressing; four to six tons a light one. 
Sir John Lawes, whose valuable investigations at 
Rothamstead, England, extended over more than half 
a century, in speaking of the application of fertilizers 
to permanent grass-lands, says: ‘‘ A dressing of dung 
once in five years, with two hundredweight of nitrate 
of soda each year for the other four years,’’ was the 
best practice. 
Freer, another English authority, makes the fol- 
lowing recommendations regarding the season of the 
year in which to apply manure and fertilizers to grass- 
lands: Barn-yard manure should be applied during 
winter, and not later than the last of February; phos- 
phates and potash, by the first of March; ammonium 
sulphate, by the first of March; nitrate of soda, by 
April 15. 
Professor Soule, of the Tennessee station, recom- 
