Seeding down and retaining Stands in Grass, 
17 
afterwards yielding its annual and abundant 
crop of either hay or pasturage. On all soils 
where vegetable decomposition is abundant, no 
cause but the uneven condition of the surface 
owing to the decay of stumps, displacing of 
stones, &c., should demand breaking up mead¬ 
ows or pastures, unless for grain or root crop¬ 
ping ; for it is considered doubtful among many 
of our best stock farmers, whether vegetable 
loams ever produce better, if so well, without 
frequent manuring, after the top soil left at their 
first clearing be disturbed; and they do in num¬ 
berless instances submit to the inconvenience of 
mowing their meadows with a very rough 
surface year after year, rather than risk the 
replacing them with a sward after being plough¬ 
ed and smoothed down. Undoubtedly there is 
much prejudice in this, but when intelligent 
farmers persevere for a long series of years in 
a usage sanctioned by their own experience as 
satisfactory, their opinions are entitled to con¬ 
sideration. 
As before observed, we consider the tenacious 
moist soils the natural land for grasses. In 
these, if properly treated, they will grow for 
centuries. A top dressing of stable manure, 
compost, ashes, gypsum, or any fertilizing 
matter, either in spring or autumn, will keep 
them in abundant fertility if in meadow; and 
if in pasturage, the droppings of the animals 
depastured, will amply recompense for the 
herbage consumed. Properly treated, grass 
lands will rarely become bound, or mossy; but 
should they ever become so, a thorough scari¬ 
fying with the harrow, a sprinkling of seed, and 
a good top dressing of manure or ashes, will 
always bring the grass into an abundant crop. 
All standing surface water should be removed 
by draining, and the wild grass which it pro¬ 
duces will be immediately expelled by the 
timothy and clover, and become equally pro¬ 
ductive with the other portions of the field. If 
running water can in any instance be directed 
upon meadows in the spring and summer 
months, properly graduated and controlled, the 
crop of grass can be greatly augmented, as it 
supplies no inconsiderable portion of the food 
of grass, and in many instances meadows have 
produced for a long series of years heavy crops 
without other applications than artificial water¬ 
ings. In England, this method of treatment is 
now obtaining great practice, wherever avail¬ 
able, and oftentimes enormous expense is in¬ 
curred to carry streams by canals to distant 
meadows. 
Old mowing and pasture lands are sweeter 
and more nutritious in their grasses than those 
freshly laid. The grass is finer and thicker ; 
and the produce is more steady and abundant, 
fn some of the fine stock and cattle regions of 
England and Scotland, old pastures and mowing 
lands rent for twenty to twenty-five dollars the 
season per acre, when those newly laid will 
earn only half the sum; always being preferred 
to the newly laid grounds—and their experience 
is well worth our consideration on this side the 
Atlantic. Many meadows in this country can 
be found which yield two to three tons, and 
sometimes more per acre, which have not been 
ploughed for an hundred years, with occasional 
top dressing, and sometimes with or without 
flowing them with water. In the interior, 
gypsum is annually used in great quantities by 
many of the stock and dairy farmers, upon both 
mowing and pasture lands, at the rate of one to 
two bushels per acre, and is found a great pro¬ 
moter of the growth of grass. The dairymen 
and graziers of New York, and the western 
counties of New England, are adopting the use 
of this valuable material with great benefit to 
their interests, and the constant improvement of 
their farms; and it is now well ascertained 
among the best of our stock farmers, that per¬ 
manent grass lands are not only the cheapest, 
but the best for their purposes. 
We have spoken of timothy and red clover. 
For all feeding purposes, we consider these as 
yielding the best hay and the most productive 
for meadows. On soils that are very wet, they 
dwindle, and in some instances refuse to grow. 
Such, if practicable, should be drained; or if 
not, the red top, or foul meadow, and coarser 
grasses should be cultivated. In pastures, the 
more kinds of valuable grasses that can be in¬ 
troduced the better. White clover (Trifolium 
repens) and blue grass* (Poa Compressa ) are 
indigenous to most of our soils, and produce 
sweet succulent feed; but as they are neither 
so rapid in growth, nor so easy to feed as tim¬ 
othy and red clover, the latter should predomi¬ 
nate where friendly to the soil. For sheep, 
and close feeding animals, however, perhaps no 
grasses are sweeter and more nutritious than the 
white clover and blue grasses. 
There is also another great advantage in 
cultivating timothy, principally as a hay crop. 
It dries away less, or loses less weight in curing 
than most other grasses, and if not cut too early, 
yields great quantities of seed, sometimes as 
high as twenty-five or thirty bushels to the 
acre, and the straw makes a very tolerable hay. 
It suffers less from long standing in the field 
after fit for the scythe than other grasses, and 
taken altogether, cattle, horses, and sheep are 
fonder of it than any other hay. It should 
* Judge Buel asserts this to be the common spear 
grass of the Northern and Midd-e States; and the 
Hon. Henry Clay pointed it out to me as identical 
with the blue grass of Kentucky and the Western 
States. 
