214 
foliage, as is shown in the engraving. It is 
well to pinch the leading buds if a closer 
growth of foliage is desired. Respecting the 
rapidity of the growth of this vine, we may 
say that several years ago, we tied a string as 
a mark and found by exact measurement that 
in 34 hours the stem had grown eight inches. 
The flowers are borne in dilicute racemes 
and emit a pleasant cinnamon fragrance, from 
which circumstance an enterprising individual, 
several years ago, sought to introduce it as a 
new plant under the name of “Ciunamon 
Vine.” By this name it is still known in mauy 
places. In the axils of the leaves little tubers 
form which may be described as resembling 
miniature Early Rose potatoes. After the 
first frosts, these fall and, if buried iu the earth, 
will sprout the ensuiug spring. Or they may 
be collected and kept through the winter the 
(same as potatoes. 
The plant is dioecious. We have in this 
country only the male, so that true seeds never 
form. It seems odd that, iu view of its beamy, 
the female has never been introduced, so that 
we might hope to raise seedlings of different 
varieties, 
The large leaf within the vine and the bulb- 
lets underneath are of life size. 
Our Free Seed Diatribniinn. 
Iu the Rubai, of Feb. 38, wc published in¬ 
structions for the treatment of the seeds now 
being distributed to our subscribers. Since 
then we have received so overwhelming a rush 
of orders that our stock of Bebb’s Hybrid Aqui- 
legia has been exhausted, and being unable 
to procure more, we have beeo obliged to in¬ 
troduce a substitute for this variety. Thi6 
substitute is a musk melon named “ New Sur¬ 
prise” and we trust the “ emprise” may be as 
pleasant as the fruit is excellent. This va¬ 
riety is entirely new. It originated iu Wash¬ 
ington Co., N Y., and we have secured seed of 
the original 6tock. The fruit is of medium 
size, with thin, light-colored, finely netted skin 
and deep salmon-colored flesh. The culture 
of melons is so simple and so well known that it 
would be superfluous to give special directions 
for the planting of the seeds and care of the 
plants. 
#dti Crops, 
HISTORY OF A POOR FARM.-No. 24. 
Seeding to Grass. 
Grass is the most valuable crop we can 
grow, even upon a farm where soiling is prac¬ 
ticed. Where laud is cheap and the interest 
on its cost is low, pasturing is the most con¬ 
venient and economical manner of feeding, 
but where the interest charge is twelve or fif¬ 
teen dollars per acre, it will not pay to pasture 
cows. 
“What does It cost to feed a cow?" asked 
my old neighbor. “I never kept any accouut 
on my farm and I don’L know anything about 
what Ibis or that costs, or what it pays. It is 
too late for me to begin now; but I sec that a 
young man ought to know how to do it.” 
“It depends upon how a cow is fed,” re¬ 
marked Mr Martin. “If a cow is fed upon 
straw in the winter and a run on a poor pas¬ 
ture in the summer, she may be kept for about 
$5 a year, and it will take very little milk or 
butter to pay for her feed and make a good 
profit; 100 per cent, or so.” 
“Do you call that a profitable business?” 
asked William. 
“ Well, 100 per cent, is good interest, is it 
not?” 
“That depends upon circumstances,” re¬ 
plied William; “it might pay some people, 
and not pay others. It would not pay you, for 
instance. You may keep 10 cows on your farm 
and make £50 a year out of them, but you 
would not be satisfied to live on tllat. It might 
pay a man iu the Fur West where he could 
keep 100 or 1,000 cows on the plains, and make 
very good interest on his money. There is a 
middle course which is best. Jt would not 
pay me or you, either, to keep cows that cost 
$300 or $3C0 each, in a barn that cost $10,000, 
and have them brushed and carded twice a day 
and their stalls sanded with white sand, and a 
man in attendance to remove the droppings or 
dry the floor with a mop on every needed oc¬ 
casion. That is what I call faucy firming, 
and pays nobody. But iu u busiucss way it 
■will pay to make the most out of the land and 
stock by judieious expenditure. Now, I don't 
know precisely what our cows cost to keep, 
but^‘ don’t think it is less than $50 a year 
each.” 
“How do you make that out, William r’’ 
asked his grandfather. 
"I have Ihought over it and talked it over 
with Fred, and we have made it out iu this 
way:—Six cows pasture over SO acres in the 
summer. The summer feed eost6 nothiug 
more than the interest on the land; that 
amounts to £180, valuing the land at $100 an 
acre and interest at 6 per cent. The cow 
10 tons of hay worth $100, in the winter, 
THE BUBAL NEW-Y0BBEB. 
50 bushels of corn worth $35, w r hich makes, in 
all, $305.”, 
“You see the pasture is the greatest item,” 
I remarked; “ and your land is not really 
worth $]C0 an acre, because it takes five acres 
to feed one cow.” 
“The grass is not very good,” replied the 
old gentleman; “it is very old and has never 
had any seed; it is all wild grass, too, that 
came in naturally. Mauy years ago we knew 
nothiug of sowing grass seed, and, iu fact, had 
none to sow, and clover was unknown here, 
then. Your clover field last year had more 
feed In it than all my 30 acres of pasture." 
“And there were but five acres, which were 
cat three times, and furnished considerable 
pasture late in the summer besides. Twelve 
cows were fed nearly four mouths in all. from 
those five acres, which was doiug more than 
four times as well as your pasture did; the 
meal they had was paid for iu the larger 
quantity of milk they gave than yours did.” 
“It is a great wasto of ground certainly,'’ 
said the old gentleman, “but what can we do 
if we don’t have the grass?" 
“Get the grass on it,” I replied. “Your 
pasture is natural grass land, and would pro¬ 
duce twice as much as it now does, if it had a little 
manure; but if it had some grass seed on it 
besides and was well harrowed, I think it would 
produce four times as much feed. If I had 
that field of yours, 1 thiuk I could feed 15 cowb 
on it all the summer.” 
*■ llow would you do it ?’’ asked the old gen¬ 
tleman. 
“ I would harrow the old sod thoroughly and 
cross-harrow it uutii I had it loose enough to 
take some fresh seed. I would then sow some 
mixed grasses, as I am doing ou a piece of ray 
own low land ; for instance, red top, timothy, 
fowl meadow grass, meadow fescue, creeping 
bent grass, and some others, all of which do 
well on low, moist grouud|; and tbcu top-dress it 
with fine manure. If this did not succeed as well 
as I wished, I would put more seed on it and 
harrow it again, uud persevere until I had a 
thick mat of grass iu which a cow csuld stand 
to her knees. 1 would divide the field into live 
lots ol six acres each, and pasture but one lot 
at a time ;*I would mow halt the ground and by 
changing from one lotto another, i would have 
tho grass always high enough for a full bite, and 
fresh and sweet. I believe the ground could be 
made in this way to feed 15 cows the year 
round on pasture and hay. Then, you see, the 
cost of feeding one of those cows weuld amouut 
to only $12 a year for pasture and hay, instead 
of $30 which it now costs you.” 
“How long do you suppose that would last ?” 
asked Mr. Martin. 
“1 should expect it to last as long as the laud 
was so treated. Why not? If the field as it 
now is, has been kept iu grass for 40 years or 
more, and still feeds six cows through the sum¬ 
mer, why should it not remain two or three 
times as productive for 40 years more, if it is 
once made so. And if it will last 40 years, why 
should it not last a century ?” 
" What is the reason our grass lasts ouly two 
or three years and then runs out ?’’ inquired 
Mr. Martin. 
“ Because wc sow it only for such a purpose 
and we do not nee grasses that are of a perma¬ 
nent character. The usual plan is to sow tim¬ 
othy and clover. Tho clover is a biennial 
plant, and runs out after the second year. The 
timothy has a bulbous root which does not 
spread, hut grows in clumps and bunches and 
leaves two-thirds of the soil bare. With several 
kinds of grass maturing successively, the soij 
would be fully occupied, and the sod would be 
green from spring to fall, and indeed through 
the winter. One of my fields is seeded with a 
mixture of blue grass, Rhode Island bent, red 
top, creeping bent, meadow grass, and meadow 
fescue, and the grass was cut last season 
several times, and is now green and thick 
enough to give an excellent bite, if I wanted to 
pasture it. The sod is only two years old and 
you cannot see or feel the ground uuder the 
grass. It is thickly matted and denser than 
any sod of single grass I have ever seen." 
“ You have spent a great deal ou that field,” 
remarked my old neighbor. “You put bone 
dust and guano uud plaster on it, and last fall 
top-dressed It well." 
“Certaiuly,” I replied; “and you may see 
the result. • Out of nothing nothing comes.’ 
I have said that grass is our most valuable 
crop, hut it is rarely treated as such. It is 
sown when the ground is worn out by three or 
four graiu crops, and needs a rest. Then, 
when tired out, we seed the ground to give it a 
rest, and we complain if it does not respond 
with vigor. It is exhausted; the seed does 
not * lake;' we have a half or a third of a crop; 
and it lasts hut two years. If, on the contrary, 
wc treated the grass as we treat a grain or a root 
crop, what would be the result? We should 
double the product and we could make our 
meadows and pastures perennial. I have seen 
leaves—not stalks—of blue grass three feet 
long on the old blue grass fields of Kentucky, 
and there are pastures there which have never 
known the plow from the day the ground was 
cleared a hundred years ago, or more, uutii 
now, aud are never likely to be plowed up. 
Yet you say grass will run out after two or 
three yeais. Blue grass has running roots 
which fill the soil and form a dense sod, and 
completely occupies the ground. But the most 
valuable grass is that of which there are sev¬ 
eral varieties which furnish successive growth. 
We cannot have a vigorous growth without 
feeding il. and 1 have aimed to feed my field 
well, in the hope that the grass will pay for 
the feidiug as well as would corn or roots. 
And it promises to do so." 
“ ll is a mixture of grasses from which the 
thick growth is made,” remarked Dr. .Jones. 
“ It is a fact that mixed varieties of plants seem 
to thrive belter together than auy siugle one 
alone. I have observed this fact in woodland. 
A beech wood is open, aud every lover of art 
knows the beautiful contrast of light and shade 
that may he observed when the sun shines 
through a beeeh forest. It is so with every 
single variety of tree; the dense woods are 
those iu which many varieties grow together 
and crowd each olher, each seeming to vie to 
outgrow its neighbor. In a meadow we can 
grow twice aB muck clover aud grass as of 
either alone; and so with mixed fodder crops, as 
oats and peas, or barley aud vetches. I believe 
the different plauts take up different kinds or 
quantities of food, and one appropriates what 
another leaves. The fact is so, however, aud 
it is our business to know it and avail our¬ 
selves of it." 
“ I thought you did not approve of pasturing 
at all, and wanted to feed everything in the 
yards on fodder brought to them,” said Mr. 
Martiu. “ Have you chauged your mind ?” 
“ I am trying to make my farm carry all the 
slock it can, and to make as much profit out 
of it as may be possible. 1 am not farmiug 
for an idea, but for profit. When I began 
here there was not a blade of grass growing on 
the farm, aud the soil would not produce a 
graiu of rye or a clover blossom. In three 
years I have 25 acres in good grass; I have 12 
acres this spring well mauured for roots and 
corn; an unsightly swamp drained and cleared 
and part in grass; I grew enough last season 
to feed 25 head of stock with fodder through 
the summer aDd half through the winter, aud 
counting the manure made atwbat it would 
cost me to buy it and the increase of stock, I 
have had all my outlay returned. I have done 
it all by soiling, aud by artificial manure. 
Nevertheless, to feed slock by soiliog is a great 
care; everything must go ou like the best of 
clock-work; one must be on the wateh and 
the jump all the time; and 1 must confess I 
anticipate the time when I can turu my cows 
out to pasture, with the greatest pleasure. But 
it will not pay me, unless I can make an aere 
cf pasture carry one cow for six months. That 
is what I am trying for. My farm was a poor 
farm. You and all my other neighbors confess 
it is greatly improved. It is now a moderately 
good farm, aud by and by I hope it may be 
thought a very good one. Time Is a necessary 
clement, as 1 have said before. Grass needs 
time to grow, and without some good grass 
fields, my farm would always be a poor (atm, 
This is my creed and 1 don’t pin my faith to 
soiling or auy other system, altogether. I 
want to do the best I cau in my peculiar cir¬ 
cumstances. But I cau never get along with¬ 
out soiling to a large extent in the eunimer 
time; nor can auy fanner whose special busi¬ 
ness is the dairy. Aud if there is any branch 
of farmiug that pays bettor on a poor farm, or 
helps to improve Us condition better than 
dairying, I bave not discovered it or heard of 
it; for more goes on to the laud than goes out, 
if the larm and business are w ell managed. 
And that it must tell—In time.” 
•-♦ • ♦ 
STARTING TOBACCO PLANTS. 
G. A. GOFF, JR. 
I have received some questions on the above 
subject, which seem to me of enough general 
interest to justify an auswer in the Rural. I 
will offer a few hiuts in regard to the young 
plants, that I have gathered from my own ex¬ 
perience aud observation, ti listing they may 
be of use to some who are inexperienced in 
this line of farming. 
The first thiug to be considered in raising 
tobacco plants, is a place to sow the seed—or 
the “seedbed.” For securing early plauts 
the common cold-frame used by market gar¬ 
deners, is generally employed, which is so well 
known that it needs no further description. 
This frame is covered with glass early iu the 
spring, and as soon as the ground beneath, or 
(ho bed, becomes dry enough to work, it is 
forked over and prepared to receive the seed. 
This preparation should be thorough. The 
soil should be rich and made friable, bo that it 
will not hake or become lumpy. In making 
new beds it is best to draw a few loads of rich 
soil or muck from some rich spot and apply it 
to the lied. Such soil may he found in tho 
woods or often uuder old stables ; but in either 
case it is likely to contain Beeds of weeds, 
which are sure to make trouble unless some 
precaution is taken against it. This is best ac¬ 
complished by preparing the bed the previous 
season, frequently forking it over to give the 
APBJL 3 
weed seeds a chance to germinate aud then be 
destroyed. 
If plants large enough to set are desired be¬ 
fore the 10th of June, the seed should be started 
or “put to sprout" by the 1st of April. One- 
third of a pint will 6ow 300 square feet of bed, 
and will, with good success, furnish enough 
plants to set three acres. Mix the seed with 
muck or fine sand, aud place by the stove till 
sprouted, being careful to keep the mixture 
moist and warm. When sprouted, sow the 
seed eveuly over the bed aud carefully rake in 
with a fine-toothed rake. The seed must not 
be covered deep, or it will not grow. Indeed, 
many do not cover the seed at all, Simply sow¬ 
ing it on the surface. In either ease it should 
be well “ firmed ” down with a wide board. Iu 
a week or ten days the young plants will begiu 
to Bhow themselves. At this stage of their 
growth they are exceedingly tender, and care 
must be exercised to keep the surface of the 
soil from bccomiug dry. Tepid water should 
be used for watering the bed, and it should he 
applied with a sprinkler haviug a fine rose; 
otherwise the seed will be washed out and de¬ 
stroyed. Until the leaves become as large as a 
silver dime the growth is very slow, and about 
half of tbe time of the growth of tne plants 
while ill the 6eed bed. is consumed while they 
are attaining this size. After they have done so, 
the growth is more rapid if circumstances are 
favorable, aud in a few weeks the leaves will 
be as large as a common tablespoon, when 
they are ready to be transplanted to the field. 
Nothing is gained by setting small and sielcly 
plants. 
Iu regard to growing plants without glass, 
good strong plants may be produced in the 
opeu ground. Of course, they will not be as 
early, but they will be tougher aud better able 
to stand transplanting. Growers who plant a 
considerable amount of tobacco should have 
some early plants, so as to have a succession 
of settings, aLd therefore must raise some 
plants under glass ; but where only un aere or 
so is to be planted, enough plants can be 
grown in the open grouud to secure a setting, 
and with careful management they will be 
early enough to set by the 30th of June, which 
in this latitude will, in most eases, give the 
plants time to make their full growth before 
autumn frosts. In Hamming np ; wc find four 
poiuts essential to success in securing a bed of 
strong, healthy, aud early plants: 1, a prop¬ 
erly prepared seed-bed, with a rich, mellow, 
and friable soil; 2. an even sowing of seed, 
the proper thickness, having first been sprouted 
in muck or sand by a fire; 3, close attention 
to the plauts during the first fonr weeks after 
sowiug the seed, with frequent sprinklings with 
tepid water; 4, keeping the bed free from 
weeds during the whole season. 
If these rules are strictly followed, there 
need be no fear of failure to secure an abun¬ 
dance of strong, healthy plants, which will be 
one great step towards growing a successful 
crop of tobacco. 
Chemung Co., N. Y. 
■-♦- 
SOME OF OUR LEADING GRASSES. 
PROFESSOR W. J. REAL. 
Tiie writer has long entertained the idea 
that farmers limit themselves to too small a 
number of grasses and clovers, especially when 
we consider the great diversity of our soil and 
climate. There are several reasons why far¬ 
mers raise only a small number. Tho seeds 
are not in the market, or if they are, some of 
them are costly, often too much damaged to 
grow, and very likely not true to name, or 
mixed with seeds of foul weeds. Another prom¬ 
inent reason for the selection of a few species 
is the fact that many of them look much alike 
and cannot be distinguished by auy but a 
botanist. 
When there is a demand for these grasses, 
and only good, true 6ceds find sale, some 
one will supply the market. Owing to the 
reasons named, but few persons are bold 
enough to leave the beaten track and try any¬ 
thing except timothy aud red clover, and, per¬ 
haps, one or two more species. Home grown 
seeds are likely to be the most desirable, as 
they are less likely to contain seeds of foreign 
weeds. 
The number of our native grasses is much 
greater than is generally supposed, a single 
State, like Michigau or Illinois, containing not 
far from 130 species, to say nothiug about us 
many more sedges and rushes which much 
resemble true grasses. A grass is not neces¬ 
sarily the test adapted to a country because it 
is a native of that country. Look at our weeds 
aud some other introduced plauts, aud see how 
they drive out our native plants. 
The cuts of grasses iu the Report of the Agri¬ 
cultural Department for 1878, are excellent. 
The Editor of tbe Rural has had some of the 
most important cuts reproduced for the benefit 
of his numerous readers. 
Bromus.unioloiues— Schrader’s grass, Res¬ 
cue grass. The genus Bromus iueludes the 
chess, or cheat, which Is often troublesome iu 
wheat fields. The species first named, is an 
annual in the Northern States. Several spec 
