336 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
[COPYRIGHT SECURED.] 
AMONG THE SALT MEADOW S.— Drawn by Granville Perkins.— Engraved . for the American Agricuitu 
Among the Salt Meadows. 
The sea and the land are in constant warfare. 
In some places the sea encroaches upon the 
land, while at the mouths of our large rivers 
the land generally gains upon the sea. These 
rivers bring down large quantities of earthy 
matter, organic and inorganic, which is de- 
posited in what geologists call alluvial deposits. 
Within a short distance of New York we have 
abundant instances of this fact. Thousands 
upon thousands of acres, as the rivers approach 
the sea, are made up of this deposit. These 
salt-water meadows are more level thanaWest- 
ern prairie, and were it not that the salt water 
allows the growth of only certain plants, they 
would be most valuable for cultivation, for they 
are rich in organic matter. These meadows 
are penetrated by creeks which generally have 
a most tortuous course, and as the surface of 
the land is but very little above that of the 
water, one finds that what appears to be a 
broad and unbroken meadow is impassable on 
account of the numerous water courses. One 
of our artists has been down on the const of 
New Jersey, and has sketched one of these 
inlets, in which he and the engraver have suc- 
ceeded in giving us a sunrise effect, rarely pro- 
duced in a wood engraving. The rude boat, 
with its patched sails, is loaded with " punk," 
which is much employed as a fertilizer by the 
farmers in that neighborhood. This we under- 
stand to be a kind of submerged peat, which is, 
in some localities, collected in large quantities. 
The specimens which were forwarded have 
failed to reach us. Those who live near the 
sea are able to avail themselves of some of the 
vast treasures that are cast into it. The waste 
of a large city is something fearful to contem- 
plate. Every day there is thrown out and borne 
seaward that which the laud is starving for. 
The waters for hundreds of miles inland bear 
in their turbid streams the richest fertilizing ma- 
terials. The farmers near the sea get it back in 
the form of sea-weed, salt muck, punk, fish, etc. 
Those who live farther inland buy it in the 
form of the different guanos. How to stop this 
great waste "is one of the problems of the day. 
In England, the best agricultural chemists and 
the most skilled engineers are at work at it. 
Let us take a lesson from the Chinese and Ja- 
panese, who, in this particular, are far in ad- 
vance of us, and stop this impoverishing waste. 
They utilize everything which can fertilize. 
Pasturing: Meadows. 
It is a bad thing for all meadows to feed them 
after mowing, except that rare class where the 
vegetation is too rank to make good hay. If a 
field cuts four tons of hay to the acre, feeding a 
few days might not harm it. But for ordinary 
mowing land cutting only half as much, grazing 
cannot fail to reduce the next year's crop, and 
to shorten the period during which the land can 
be kept in grass. "We noticed this summer in 
an old meadow the great difference in the yield 
of hay inside of an old stock-yard, and upon the 
adjoining land. The circle where the fence had 
stood was very distinctly marked by the ranker 
growth of grass. Outside, there had been graz- 
ing all through the fall. Inside, the fence had 
protected the grass. Though the outside had 
the droppings of the cattle, yet the yield upon 
the inside was at least a third more, and there 
was no other noticeable cause than the differ- 
ence in grazing. It is true that by pursuing this 
plan there is more old fog upon ungrazed land, 
but that is just what the roots of grasses need 
for their winter protection. The ground does 
not freeze so deep, and the grass starts earlier 
in the spring and makes a larger crop of hay. 
