MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



15 



nial. In reality it is a perennial, capable of remain- 

 ing productive for many years, but it is subject to so 

 many insect enemies and fungous diseases that it usu- 

 ally ceases to be productive in one or two years. On 

 the Pacific Coast, where these enemies have not yet be- 

 come established, productive fields of clover ten or fif- 

 teen years old are not uncommon. As stated above, 

 timothy becomes much less productive after the first 

 crop-year. The American farmer has, therefore, come 

 to regard a meadow as a temporary thing, and there 

 has not been much attempt to maintain such perma- 

 nent grass-lands as are found in England and the Con- 

 tinent of Europe. 



Among our farmers the usual method of procedure 

 is to sow timothy in the fall with wheat, adding clover 

 in February or March. On account of the presence of 

 the wheat, no grass crop is produced the first year. 

 The next year two crops of hay are cut, the first con- 

 sisting of mixed clover and timothy, the second almost 

 entirely of clover. A few of our best farmers get 

 three crops, though many others get only one. The 

 next year one or two smaller crops are cut. When 

 timothy is sown alone, as it frequently is, there is only 

 one cutting a year. After the second crop-year any 

 one of three courses is followed. A good many farm- 

 ers spread the available supply of barn-yard manure on 

 the meadow during the winter after the second crop- 

 year, and in the spring plow up the sod for corn. Some 

 continue to cut it for hay till weeds compel them to 

 plow it up. Others use it for pasture one, two, or 

 three }~ears before plowing it up for corn. Sometimes 

 blue-grass is sown with the clover when the meadow is 



