288 
AMERICAS' AGRICULTURIST, 
[July, 
tions composed of the hulls of the oats were 
of common occurrence, but as greater care 
is now exercised in preparing the grain for 
human food, these peculiar intestinal concre¬ 
tions are becoming comparatively rare. 
A Bush-Roller. 
Mr. “ E. D. W.,” Plumas, Co., Cal. sends us 
a sketch of a device which he has made for 
clearing sage-bush land. It consists of a 
roller 8 feet long, and 2‘/ 2 feet in diameter, 
coupled by a short tongue—6 feet is long 
enough, to the forward wheels of a wagon. 
A standard at each end of the roller-frame 
supports a cross-piece just clear of the roller. 
Upon this cross-piece, about 4 feet apart, and 
extending to the bolster of the wagon, are 
bolted two pieces of l‘/ 4 by 6-inch spruce 
boards. A board is placed across the center 
for a seat, thus making a complete and easy 
inclining “buck-board.” Mr. W. writes : 
“ With a span of good horses and this ‘ ma¬ 
chine,’ one can roll from eight to ten acres 
of sage-bush in a day; and it is so easily 
killed, that in two or three weeks after such 
treatment, it will burn off like a prairie on 
fire. I also use the same for eveiy purpose 
requiring the use of a roller on the farm, 
finding it much easier on the horses in 
turning than the common roller.” 
Permanent Pasture. 
BY PROF. G. C. CALDWELL, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
One might suppose, after searching in vain 
through the pages of many of the smaller 
works on agriculture for some information 
about pastures, that they are of small ac¬ 
count to the farmer; and yet no one will 
deny that, under suitable conditions of soil 
and climate, they have a very important 
place in the farm economy. Many pastures 
are taxed beyond their powers for carrying 
the stock of the farm, and in too many in¬ 
stances are crowded off into parts of the 
farm where the soil is too poor for tillage, 
and even then treated with the utmost nig¬ 
gardliness as regards care or manuring. 
With this as the common idea of a pasture, 
making it little better than wild land, it is 
no wonder that it escapes mention in so 
many books, that treat of nearly everything 
else pertaining to the farm. 
On a rich Leicestershire (England) pasture, 
it was estimated by Dr. Lawes that an in¬ 
crease of 500 lbs. in live weight of fattening 
oxen was produced on each acre in six 
months’ grazing. In experiments at Wo¬ 
burn, 3,500 lbs. of clover hay, 1,600 lbs. of 
corn or oil-cake, and 5 tons of Swedes were 
required to give the same amount of in¬ 
crease ; these quantities of fodder were esti¬ 
mated to be equivalent to 3‘/ 2 tons of English 
hay. Boussingault states that on some of 
the rich pastures of Holland, an area of a 
little more than two acres has been found 
sufficient to fatten an ox in 5 to 6 months’ 
grazing, and that on the most fertile bot¬ 
toms near Dusseldorf, about 3 / 8 of an acre 
is sufficient to keep a milch cow. When a 
fattening animal is started in fair condition 
on a good pasture in spring, many results in 
England have shown that a gain of from 1 
to l'/ 4 lb. a day may be counted upon. 
These estimates of the productive power of 
pastures differ not a little, but nevertheless 
they combine to show what can be done 
with grazing land if it is decently treated. 
What is good treat¬ 
ment of a pasture? 
Good pasture cannot 
be made on poor 
land. Such parts of 
the farm as are too 
poor for tillage, are 
also too poor for pas¬ 
ture; better encour¬ 
age the growth of 
wood there, than to 
starve cattle and 
make the land only 
less and less valuable 
every year, if indeed 
it can be made any 
poorer. It should 
be clean land; if 
charged with the 
seeds of weeds by previous neglect, these 
must be cleaned out as completely as possi¬ 
ble by culture of hoed crops, before laying 
down to grass. Thistle and dock pasture 
may be good for donkeys, but not for cows. 
If the weed seeds have an even chance with 
the grass seed, the grass will have but little 
hope of getting the upper hand, even though 
it has such a wonderful power of taking 
possession of the land where it once secures 
a good foothold. 
The land should be seeded with a large 
variety of nutritious grasses. An English 
farmer, in the Journal of the Royal Agricul¬ 
tural Society, mentions sowing 228 lbs. of 
seed on six acres, comprising 16 different 
kinds of grass. With such a variety the sod 
becomes more perfect, and the yield is larger, 
more uniform through the season, and more 
nutritious. Mr. Geddes prescribes 24 lbs. of 
seed per acre, comprising 6 kinds of grass— 
red clover, timothy, red-top, orchard grass, 
alsike, and white clover. It is not unlikely 
that, by following the English custom, and 
sowing a still greater variety of such grasses 
as will thrive in our drier climate, we would 
get a better and more durable sward, and a 
better pasture. The work of making a pas¬ 
ture does not end here; the English saying, 
that “ to make a pasture, breaks a man,” may 
be taken as showing that even in that coun¬ 
try, where, with a cooler and more moist 
climate, it is easier to get and keep a sod 
than here; it is not a light matter of a year 
or two to establish a good and durable pas¬ 
ture. Dr. Lawes says that it took him 15 
years to make a really good permanent pas¬ 
ture for fattening animals, on a portion of 
his estate. It is a common practice in Eng¬ 
land to feed cotton-seed cake to the stock 
A HOME-MADE BUSH-ROLLER. 
grazing in the pasture in the first few years 
after laying it down, in order to increase the 
richness of the manure dropped on the land. 
The critical period in the life of the pasture 
arrives in the second or third year; and if 
concentrated fodder has not been given to 
the stock, manure must be applied to carry 
the young sod safely through this period. 
It is singular that the notion should be so 
widely prevalent, even perhaps among those 
who give some thought to their grazing 
lands, that a pasture will take care of itself, 
and all the manure made on the farm or 
bought may be put on the tilled land. This 
idea is as wrong as it is to suppose that wheat 
or corn can be raised year after year on the 
same soil without manure. Milch cows oc¬ 
cupy our pasture lands as often as any other 
stock; and in their milk, phosphates are car¬ 
ried off from the soil of the pasture to such 
an extent as to lead, sooner or later, to cer¬ 
tain exhaustion, just as surely as in the con¬ 
tinued cultivation of wheat on tilled land. 
The effect of the exhaustion is plainer to the 
eye in the diminished crops of the wheat 
field than on the pasture, which may perhaps 
continue to look green and thrifty, while 
poorer grasses are all the while creeping in 
and displacing the finer kinds, which require 
a richer soil. The pasture must be treated 
with its share of the available manure of 
the farm, or else it will run down. With' 
favorable climatic conditions, it is undoubt¬ 
edly cheaper to keep a pasture, once well 
made, in good heart for a number of years, 
than to let it run out for want of food, and 
then make it over again. Dr. Lawes’ doc¬ 
trine, the result of his own experiments and 
observations is, that pasture land must be 
well stocked with nitrogen and potash, and 
that phosphate must be supplied from time 
to time, as well as the other two important 
plant nutrients, to replace what is carried off 
in the produce sold. Hence a top-dressing 
of fine bone-meal is likely to prove beneficial, 
although there are cases where the use of 
phosphate has done but little good. Nitrate 
of Soda is often used with good effect, at 
the rate of from 100 to 150 lbs. per acre in 
the course of the year; and the statement is 
very emphatically made by those who speak 
from experience, that frequent dressings of 
manure, in small doses, produce better grass | 
than when the whole quantity for the year i 
is applied at once. Plaster has sometimes 
produced excellent results on pastures by 1 
bringing in that most desirable forage plant, 
white clover, and wood ashes have also pro¬ 
duced a similar effect. There can be no safer I 
dressing than rotted manure, put on in the 
spring, when the plants will soon be ready to 
take it up; but if all the available stock of ; 
this manure is wanted for the tilled land, ' 
then artificial manures should be used. 
Punipk are usually grown as a“ stolen 
crop,” that is on land not specially devoted 
to their production, the seed being planted in 
“ every other hill of every other row ” of 
corn or even of potatoes. While not very r 
nutritious they have a certain feeding value, 
due in part to the sugar they contain and, 
perhaps in a greater degree, to the fact that 
they gratify and stimulate the appetite and 
cause the animals to consume a larger quan¬ 
tity of other food, and digest it more thor¬ 
oughly. But whether it really pays to grow 
pumpkins, some think an open question, for 
on general principles, it may be said that if 
