AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
173 
THE ALDERNEY COW AND BULL OF THIRTY YEARS AGO 
may be admired as the degree of excellence to 
which the race maybe brought by care and atten¬ 
tion in their breeding. 
AS A WORKING OX, OR A BEEF-MAKING ANIMAL 
the Alderney has less value than the English 
breeds which we have before described, for which 
purpose, indeed, he seems not to have been con¬ 
stituted. 
The figure of the bull shows that he is deficient 
in the required points of a stout working ox, or a 
first class beef animal. Nor for those purposes is 
he needed. For the improvement of our common 
dairy cows, the Alderney bull may be profitably 
introduced and crossed upon them ; and for many 
years to come every promising young one which 
may be dropped should be sought by those who 
wish to develop in the highest degree the milking 
quality of their herds. The cross has, as yet, 
been seldom resorted to in the United States ; but 
may well be adopted by our dairymen. 
Pasture Lands—Their Treatment—Hints, 
Examples &c. 
These are among the most important elements 
of the farmer’s wealth, and, as a rule, the most 
neglected, or their treatment the oftenest misap¬ 
plied. The management of pastures should differ 
with different soils. There are seme soils in 
wide belts or tracts of country, which are equally 
good for pasture, mowing grounds, or cultivated 
crops. Others there are which cannot profitably 
be devoted to any other use than grazing, by 
reason of their rough and stony surfaces, and 
these should all, in their several characters, be 
studied in their proper treatment. 
We recollect in our frequent reading of advertised 
New-England farms “ for sale, or to let,” their me¬ 
rits set forth in this wise :—“Well divided into pro¬ 
per proportions of mowing, pasture, and plow 
land which is to say : “ there are portions of 
the farm immemorially devoted to pasture, others 
to meadow, and others to cultivated crops.” And 
such, in frequent cases, has been the wisest 
course where the particular parts of the farm 
most favored the growth of the crops to which 
*hey were appropriated. The best pastures we 
have ever seen never had a crop of anything up¬ 
on them but grass, or perhaps a first single crop 
of wheat, rye, or oats, which was taken from the 
ground when seeding down to grass after clear¬ 
ing—and they have now been in pasture for half 
a century, and upwards. There are various rea¬ 
sons for this successful growth of the pas¬ 
ture grasses, numbering, perhaps, a dozen varie¬ 
ties, and usually called the natural grasses. The 
vegetable decomposition of the fallen leaves for 
centuries, with the wood of the roots forming the 
top soil, holds the grasses firmly, and retains them 
with a tenacity which cultivated lands will not 
do, and the firm hold which the roots have taken 
making the stalks fine, thick, and rich, giving the 
grass a better flavor and a richer nutriment than 
newly sown seeds, which, although ranker 
in growth, are less matted in the soil, thinner, and 
more watery, and less nutritious in their support 
to the animal system. 
Therefore, where land is natural to the grasses, 
pastures should scarcely, if ever be plowed. If 
plowed, and the original grasses be killed out, as 
they assuredly will be if the succeeding crops be 
well cultivated, no new seeding will give them the 
solid growth, enduring vigor, and sufficient variety 
which they had before, until many years after¬ 
ward. The old pastures— if properly treated — 
cannot be benefited by plowing. If run too close, 
they will fail, of course ; but the correct method 
of their restoration is to let them rest by keeping 
off the stock a season, or a part of a season— 
doing this in the earlier part is best—and giving 
them, if the land be thin, a top-dressing of some 
stimulating manure, and a sharp combing with the 
harrow. 
There are other lands stretching over broad 
tracts which will not hold the grasses of any 
good kind, permanently. They have not the ne¬ 
cessary humus, or vegetable material in the soil, 
either in decomposition or otherwise, to give them 
continuous sustenance for long periods of time. 
Such, therefore, require frequent plowings, and 
re-seeding with clover, timothy, orchard grass, 
and other rapidly maturing varieties, but not en¬ 
during, yet yielding well for a temporary purpose. 
Such are not natural pastures, and are unreliable as 
permanent stock farms. These soils are usually 
sandy, gravely, and light in texture. Clays of 
almost any kind are good grass lands, but when 
well fixed in pasture or mowing grounds, they 
should rarely be disturbed, and then only in des¬ 
perate cases—such as a complete running out, or 
failure to yield. 
We have an instance at hand, for illustration : 
On our farm lies a broad field. Fifteen years ago 
a part of it was in plowed crops, which it grew 
vigorously, and well, and had been alternated for 
twenty years with such crops, and mowed 
grasses. Another part had never been plowed— 
both the same soil, a heavy clay loam, rich, 
and comparatively new. We laid down the plow¬ 
ed land under a heavy seeding of timothy, and 
red clover ; mowed good crops of hay from it for 
two or three years afterward ; then took away 
the division fence between it and the old pasture 
adjoining, and turned it all out to pasture toge¬ 
ther. The old pasture started earliest in the 
Spring, and held out later in the Fall. The cat¬ 
tle and sheep which fed upon it would bite it into 
the ground all Summer, while the newly seeded 
was rank, and apparently much better. The 
sheep, particularly, loved the old turf, and fatted 
better on it than on the new. It was evident¬ 
ly sweeter and more nutritious than the other, 
and matted over the ground like a carpet, while 
innumerable bare spots of a few inches area 
could be seen throughout the surface of the fresh¬ 
ly seeded. The difference was, that the artificial 
seeds had not yet got possession of the new piece, 
while the old, in addition,to the timothy and clo¬ 
ver which it held, was intermixed with white clo¬ 
ver, blue-grass, red-top, and other natural plants, 
mixing in, and giving a palatable variety to a 
full bite of herbage. It was five or six years be¬ 
fore the last seeded ground caught up with the 
other in a full surface of grass, and to this day 
the stock like the old pasture best. 
Now, if we choose to do so, by shutting off the 
stock, we can cut heavy crops of hay on these 
pastures, but yielding so many varieties of grass, 
they ripen unequally, and the hay is of inferior 
quality to that cut from one or two varieties 
mainly ; hence we do not mow them. 
On our Atlantic borders, and in parts of the New- 
England States, we know of numerous tracts of 
land so poor—although as natural to the pasture 
grasses as to any other valuable crops—that they 
grow little but five-fingers, ferns, and other worth¬ 
less weeds, or low shrubs. Sheep are the best 
stock to put upon such, and some are too far gone 
foreventhem. Plowing, therefore, is necessary, 
indeed indispensable, where their surfaces are 
free enough from stone or moisture, to admit of it. 
Some sort of stimulating manure should also be 
applied—not much matter what, so that it has the 
elements of fertility about it. If any vegetable hu¬ 
mus still remains in the soil, grasses will hold in 
it. If not, a succession of clover crops plowed 
under will furnish that humus so that the grass 
