AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
5 
OLD MEADOWS. 
“A Young Farmer,” writing from Consti¬ 
tution, Ohio, says : 
“I have a piece of meadow land which 
has been cleared about ten years. The 
seeding was done by harrowing in, and it 
has never been plowed. It now yields only 
about half a crop of grass, but a goodly 
amount of iron weeds. Some of my neigh¬ 
bors advise me to plow it up, while others 
say it ought not to be plowed, as I never can 
get as good a sod again. Now, Mr. Editor, 
can you or any of your correspondents in¬ 
form me what I must do, in order to have a 
first rate meadow ?” 
Remarks.— Breaking up old meadows for 
the purpose of re-seeding, is practiced to ad¬ 
vantage in most parts of the country. The 
roots and other vegetable matters that exist 
in new soils, by their slow decomposition 
exert fertilizing influences for years. When 
they are gone, the soil settles and becomes 
more compact, and the grass—as the com¬ 
mon expression is —runs out; not from old 
age, nor from a lack of the inorganic ele¬ 
ments of growth, but by reason of an im¬ 
proper condition of the soil. Such meadows 
are to be benefitted by breaking up, and by 
plowing under as much vegetable matter as 
may be in the shape of sod, green growth, 
and stable manure, and then re-seeding. 
From the fact that there is now a growth 
of weeds on our correspondent’s meadow, it 
is probable that there is no lack of mineral 
ingredients necessary to a good growth of 
grass, and that the existing deficiency is 
rather from a want of ammonia and carbonic 
acid in the soil to render those mineral in¬ 
gredients soluble. Such land is to be bene¬ 
fitted by plowing in green crops. 
It has lately been proposed to subsoil such 
meadows, admitting air and draining off 
water, so as to allow the decomposition of 
what organic' matter may remain to go on 
again for their restoration. But this treat¬ 
ment can afford only temporary relief, while 
it does nothing towards extinguishing foul 
weeds. 
If the resources of the farm are such that 
this land can be manured, the problem is 
readily solved. A good growth of corn once 
secured, some one of the grain crops may 
follow it, and the ground may be laid down 
at the same time. 
To one who asked him how to improve 
land, Mr. Webster is said to have replied, 
“ Grow turnips.” He did not stop to inquire 
too nicely into theoretical notions of the ori¬ 
gin of the elements of fertility, to ask the 
origin of ammonia, or how carbonic acid is 
reduced in the leaf, but was satisfied with 
the truth that increase of live stock pro¬ 
duces increased fertility, and that all this is 
effected most readily by growing turnips. 
To meet the wider processes and larger ne¬ 
cessities of western farmers, this prescrip¬ 
tion becomes “ Grow corn.” 
In many places, such land as we appre¬ 
hend this to be, will bring a paying crop of 
corn even without manure. To effect this 
best, neither the aftermath nor the spring 
growth should be fed off, but turned under 
week before planting time, with one fine, 
careful plowing, and the corn planted on the 
inverted furrows. The crop may need 
nursing with guano, wood ashes, gypsum, or 
liquid manures, until the sod begins to de¬ 
cay, but when that is reached it will go on 
rapidly. 
As to the propriety of venturing on a corn 
crop without manure in this particular case, 
our correspondent must decide from observ¬ 
ation of like lands in his neighborhood, as¬ 
sisted by the experience and judgment of his 
neighbors. It is common with young farm¬ 
ers to suppose that there is some infallible 
rule of practice in agricultural science, and 
that editors have only to “ figure up ” prob¬ 
lems like this to give them the “ right an¬ 
swer.” 
In the dairying districts of this State, 
where the land is rough with stones, or wet, 
the meadows are very generally top-dressed 
with manure. Many of these dairymen 
plow only for potatoes and oats, and use all 
the manure on the meadows. This policy 
avoids hiring labor, and farms treated in this 
way rapidly improve. The expense of this 
kind of management on large farms is still 
further lessened by small hay barns out on 
the meadows, or stacks scattered about on 
them, for noon feeding in winter. By this 
kind of top-dressing our correspondent can 
restore his meadow, if he can manage to get 
rid of the weeds. 
The Eastern agricultural press are just 
now recommending farmers to invert such 
meadows with the plow in the fall, turning 
under as much green growth as may be, and 
seed them again to grass only. The surface 
should be harrowed, brushed, and rolled 
down smooth, and the new growth should 
be allowed to get as far advanced as may be 
before winter, to effect which the young 
meadow should be liberally top-dressed with 
special manures. 
And, finally, having secured a good, vig¬ 
orous growth, do not wait for it to run out 
before breaking it up and plowing it under. 
The great manure, after all, is sod, and the 
secret of good farming, of keeping the land 
in heart, is in spoiling good meadows. 
Break up the poor meadows and manure 
them, and lay them down again until you 
have none but good ones to serve in this 
way. Then you will raise no poor crops by 
reason of poor land. 
Broom Corn. —The Albany Argus says it 
is a singular omission in the United States 
census, that it does not give any statistics of 
the amount of broom corn raised in the coun¬ 
try. In our own State hundreds upon hun¬ 
dreds of acres are appropriated to the culti¬ 
vation of this desirable commodity. Broom 
corn never was stouter, nor a better crop 
than during the present year. 
There are at Oswego, N. Y., sixteen flour¬ 
ing mills, with eighty-four run of stone, ca¬ 
pable of manufacturing about 10,000 barrels 
of flour per day. The facilities for handling 
grain are extensive ; the elevating capacity 
abost 36,000 barrels per hour, and the stor¬ 
age room equal to about two million two 
hundred thousand bushels. 
PROTECTION OF HORSES FROM FLIES. 
Horses are not only very nervous, but very 
sensitive. A blow scarcely perceived by a 
thick skinned ox will produce excessive 
pain when inflicted on a spirited horse. The 
skin of the horse is much more highly or¬ 
ganized than that of the ox, much better 
supplied with nerves and blood vessels, and 
it is probable, for this reason, that it does 
not make solid leather. Every one has 
seen spirited horses tremble in the stable at 
the sound of a whip, and any one who has 
had occasion to inflict wounds on both classes 
of animals knows how much more pain is 
produced on the horse by the same operation 
than on the ox. 
Flies during the summer are a serious 
source of annoyance and pain to the horse. 
If at liberty, he dashes about and stamps 
when stung by them, and thus gets clear of 
his tormenters. When confined, then, can 
we blame him if he become restive and 
maddened by their presence? New-York’ 
cartmen resort to a number of contrivances 
besides netting to protect their horses from 
these depredators. They put a pantaloon— 
if we may be allowed the singular of the 
word—on each leg of the animal, and sup¬ 
port it by attaching it to some part of the 
harness. To defend the lower part of his 
body, a piece of cloth is extended from one 
shaft of the cart to the other, underneath the 
horse. Strips of muslin are tied where they 
will, by their fluttering, drive the flies from 
other exposed parts. That side of the horses 
neck unoccupied by his mane is protected 
by two or three cords attached by one end 
to the head piece of the bridle, and by the 
other to the top of the hames. These cords 
hang slack so that they vibrate up and down 
with every movement of the horses head, 
and thus scare away the flies. 
An umbrella to protect the animal from 
the rays of the sun is sometimes constructed 
by lashing a strip of wood transversely to 
the two front stakes of the cart, and another 
slip to the hames, crosswise the horse’s 
neck, and then extending a piece of cotton 
cloth from one to the other. 
THE QUEEN’S MEWS OR STABLES. 
A lady friend now in London writes us : 
Such nicely kept stables, and such fine horses, 
from the large coach down to small ponies, 
is rare to find. The state coach horses 
are heavy Hanoverian cream-colored—some 
with brown manes and tails, and some with 
white or “ silver.” The Queen’s favorite is 
the most lovely horse I ever saw. He is of 
a bright strawberry roan, the tail a snowy- 
white, immensely full, and fairly trailing on 
the ground. The mane is of the same color, 
equally full, and all of three-quarters of a 
yard long ! Its eyes have the intelligence of 
those of a human being. There are some 
fine Arabians here, but others only so-so, and 
hardly to be admired. The ordinary carriage 
horses are brown. All told, when the 
Queen’s household is in town, they number 
one hundred and sixty! 
The state carriage weighs four tuns, and 
is about 20 feet long and 12 feet high. Two 
