S74 
THI BUBAL MEW-YOBKEB. 
AUG 34 
abundance of fruit ? Do the female flowers 
depend upon insects to supply them with pol¬ 
len ? or must they depend upon the wind to 
waft it up to them at the right time ? 
During the past month or more the writer 
has watched the flowers at different times to 
ascertain. When the air is dry and the sun 
shines brightly the anthers are bursting every 
instant. One sees a little cloud of dust, as 
large as a pea perhaps, that reminds him of 
the distant discharge of a gun. A puff of 
smoke is readily seen, but there is no report. 
This castor-oil pollen, unlike corn pollen, 
which is inclined to fall, rises like a puff of 
smoke in a still atmosphere, at length envelop¬ 
ing the stigmas of the pistils immediately 
above it. This alone would suffice, it 
would seem, to pollenate the feathery stigmas. 
Many little insects, however, were noticed 
gathering the pollen from the male blossoms, 
and occasionally they would fly to the female 
blossoms in their further search for food. 
In botany flowers in which the anthers and 
stigmas do not mature at the same time are 
called dichogamous. They are either protan- 
drous or protogynous. In the first the stam¬ 
ens are developed before the pistils as, e. g. 
geraniums, pelargoniums, many of the com¬ 
posite, umbelliferae, labiate, etc. To this 
category the corn plant may be added as a rule, 
with exceptions as above noted. In the second 
stigmas are receptive before the anthers are 
matured. Botany will have to originate an¬ 
other specific name for the sexual development 
of the ricinus. We have as we write, two 
racemes before us. On one the fruit (re¬ 
sembling horse-chestnut burrs) is more than 
half grown while the male flowers below are 
for the most part immature. On the other 
raceme, the male flowers are far advanced 
while not a fruit has formed. 
iann 0amonnj. 
WHAT ABOUT THE PRACTICE? 
ECONOMICAL OR WASTEFUL? 
CONDITIONS THAT DETERMINE. 
AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION. 
FROM C. S. KICK. 
I practice the pasturing of meadows, fully 
believing that by so doing more profit is 
realized than by any other management. The 
oft-repeated assertion of the agricultural press 
that meadows ought not to be pastured has 
little weight with me when compared with 
facts within my own observation and exper¬ 
ience. For 20 years my meadows were not 
pastured, but the aftergrowth failed to keep 
up the yield of hay or to insure against the 
necessity for plowing and reseeding. I was 
led to change my practice while in pursuit of 
some method whereby my cows should have 
plenty of suitable food every day in the year. 
With a large amount of land devoted to pas¬ 
turing, there was often a lack of milk-produc¬ 
ing feed during the latter part of summer and 
autumn. Just the other side of the pasture 
fence in the meadow was plenty of the best 
of feed at the very time when the pasture 
failed to keep the cows from shrinking in 
their milk and becoming unprofitable. I be¬ 
gan pasturing the newly-seeded clover and 
Timothy meadows with the expectation that 
they would be damaged and would have to be 
plowed and re-seeded in a year or two. The 
result was that the cows were carried through 
the critical period without shrinking and 
their year’s productiveness and profit greatly 
increased and, much to my surprise, the mead¬ 
ow was in no way damaged. Now for 15 
years my meadows have been regularly pas¬ 
tured. The amount of land used for pasture 
in the ordinary way has been greatly reduced 
and the area used for cultivated crops in¬ 
creased to the same extent. A meadow that 
will yield from two to three tons of clover 
and Timothy hay when cut the first of July, 
will in three or four weeks have a second 
growth eight inches in higbt and will then af¬ 
ford excellent pasturage for the dairy. If 
judiciously pastured, it will produce a large 
amount of feed through the fall without being 
fed closely or in any way injuring the mead¬ 
ow, and the grass will finally go under the 
snow in a greener condition and in a better 
state of vitality than when allowed to make a 
more mature growth and then decay. The 
feed should be taken when in the best stage 
of growth and not be allowed to come to any 
sort of maturity. This is better for the cows 
and better for the meadow. I have but very 
little Inside stationary fence on the farm, and 
to secure the after-feed when at its best I 
have provided more than 100 rods of portable 
fencing. This can be quickly set up or re¬ 
moved. The first cost was but little, and the 
fencing will last many years. 
My meadows have not needed reseeding as 
often as they did under the former manage¬ 
ment, but they have steadily increased in the 
average yield and for several years very little 
has been plowed up because of failure to pro¬ 
duce a fair crop. Several times in the last 
few years a meadow that would have yielded 
two tons of Timothy to the acre has been 
plowed only because the land was wanted for 
the better paying crops of fodder corn and 
potatoes. On the farm of 130 acres I had, 
three years ago, 70 acres of meadow and very 
little of it needed reseeding. Five acres were 
plowed for corn-fodder and ten acres that 
would have cut more than two tons to the 
acre, were turned into pasture, and some old 
pastures were taken for cultivation, and re¬ 
seeding. The remaining 55 acres of meadow 
yielded an average of more than two tons of 
hay to the acre. My farm is not a natural 
grass farm, and, when this is taken into ac¬ 
count, it does not look as though pasturing 
the meadows had ruined them. 
I read in a leading agricultural paper re¬ 
cently an article by a well known writer in 
which he objected to pasturing meadows be¬ 
cause the grass would be eafrn and the weeds 
left and the land become full of weeds. Now 
I have a piece of meadow that was mowed 
this year for the fourth crop. It was pastured 
when newly seeded after the grass was high 
enough to hide the grain stubble, and it has 
been well pastured each year since. I have 
several times during the season taken well- 
known farmers to this field to show them the 
thick, perfect stand of clean Timothy. On a 
recent drive of ten miles among good farms 1 
looked in vain for an equally thick, clean, 
even field of Timothy, and yet I know of no 
farm in this vicinity where meadows are so 
thoroughly and systematically pastured as on 
my own. With a short allowance of pasture, 
a little clover cut and fed in June, a few peas 
and oats in July, with plenty of corn-fodder 
and good after-feed through August and for 
the rest of the season, one cow can be made to 
yield as much net profit as two or three limit¬ 
ed to old pasture and a little fodder corn. 
Cows that are in the best meadow after-feed 
will if good corn-fodder is drawn into the 
field, eat alternately of each, resting awhile 
occasionally and will if so fed keep up an even 
flow of milk through the season and will 
come to winter-quarters in prime condition 
for milk or fattening. 
Pasturing, if done as it should be, brings the 
grass to the winter in much the same con¬ 
dition as though it had been mown three or 
four times during the fall. If the second 
crop is allowed to attain full growth it is not 
as valuable for feed as it is under continuous 
cropping, nor is it as well for the future crop 
of hay. 
But some one will say: “ Why not cut and 
cure the second crop for hay?” Well, it 
would require considerable labor and the 
weather is quite uncertain late in the season, 
and meadows well managed will fill the barn 
with hay at one cutting, and, finally, it is utter 
folly to be forever tryjng to secure more hay 
to winter cows that are but half supplied 
with suitable food the rest of the season. 
I know that I am advocating the unpopular 
side of this question, but have had the best 
evidence before me for years that my prac 
tice of pasturing meadows does them no in¬ 
jury, and is of great benefit to the dairy. 
Lewis County, N. Y. 
FROM C. F. OLMSTED. 
From my experience and observation, I 
think it is no economy to make a practice of 
pasturing our meadow lands after mowing. 
The damage is in exposing the roots to our 
severe winters. I think that we, as a rule, 
make our mowing machines cut too closely, 
and what grows after mowing, generally 
should be left for the winter protection, in¬ 
stead of allowing the stock to eat it off. Our 
winters of late have been severe on 
meadows as well as on grains, from the fact 
that there have been so much freezing and 
thawing, and unless the meadows have been 
protected by the “ after-growth,” the hay 
crop has been very perceptibly shortened. 
This has been most noticeable on what we call 
our “ heavy ” soils, of those soils where drain¬ 
age is not so perfect as it should be, and with 
Timothy more than with the other grasses. 
There are cases where probably no barm 
would be done, especially in wet seasons, 
where the meadow had a heavy crop, or 
where it is so situated that the grass grows 
quickly, but then these meadows I think 
should not be pastured too late. Most of us 
are anxious to turn in the stock where the 
meadows look fine for feed, but it would bo 
a better plan, if we would only do so, to give 
the meadows a good top-dressing after mow¬ 
ing, with either barnyard manure or some 
commercial fertilizer, instead of feeding them 
off. 
Darien County, Conn. 
from prof. a. j. cook. 
I have always pastured my meadows after 
mowing, except in case of heavy clover, when 
I usually save this for seed. My land is clay 
loam, and is manured heavily once in four 
years. Unless I permit it to be eaten too 
closely or turn stock on it too early in the 
spring, I see no special harm in pasturing it. 
Of course, any vegetable thrives best when 
the balance between root, stem and leaf is 
Dot interfered with. We know that we can 
kill even Quack Grass and Canada Thistles 
by constantly cutting off the tops. Thus we 
may conclude that we can never cut off the 
green herbage of any plants without in some 
measure injuring the same. This shows why 
close pasturing is so harmful, and why all 
pasturing is expensive. We now know that 
we must allow our corn to advance to the 
drying off stage before cutting it for silage, 
would we secure the greatest returns. The 
larger the plant the more the working tissue, 
and the greater the work done, or the growth. 
We see then why pasturing is not good econ¬ 
omy, and why close pasturing is ruinous to 
our meadows. 
Ingham County, Mich. 
FROM JOS. WOOLWORTH. 
I do not think the practice of either pastur¬ 
ing or mowing a second crop of grass in the 
least injurious except in so far as it exhausts 
the soil. If it is good economy to take off the 
first crop, it is good also to take off the second, 
only we must feed the meadow well with some 
good commercial fertilizers or yard manure, 
as most convenient, only if one has to buy one 
or the other let him by all means use a com¬ 
mercial fert'lizer as it is much the cheaper all 
things considered. In my opinion there is 
one serious objection to leaving the after¬ 
growth to be mowed into the next year’s crop: 
it would render it very much harder to mow. 
I am not aware that the nature of the soil 
would make any difference, yet it might. 
Mowing the after-growth is allowable under 
all circumstances provided the yield is large 
enough to pay. If one has good fences, let him 
pasture if he likes, but he shouldn’t build 
fences to enable him to do so, it would be de¬ 
cidedly too expensive. 
Hampden County, Mass. 
FROM E. H. COLLINS. 
I have never grown Timotny. It is as ex¬ 
haustive to the soil as a corn crop; while 
clover is a blessing in every possible way. I 
cut clover one year and break it. Last year 
I bad English Clover; this year I have Alsike 
(20 acres). The latter made the finest clover 
hay I have ever seen—about two tons to the 
acre. Both of these clovers give but one crop, 
so that I could pasture if I preferred. I used 
to do so, but a neighbor who did not pasture 
aftermath had a very lively fine soil on 
breaking the sod; while mine was rather 
harsh and cloddy, and his soil remained mel¬ 
low all summ a r, while mine would harden in 
spite of cultivation. I attributed the differ¬ 
ence to the greater amount of aftermath 
which he turned under, and to the fact that 
his stock did not tramp the land when wpt. 
Harris in his "Talks on Manures,” page 157, 
tries to demonstrate by experiment that clo¬ 
ver mown twice for hay contains in its roots 
only half as much nitrogen as that cut once 
for hay and then for seed. The result is 
shown to be similar when clover is pastured 
as when it is cut for hay, and no doubt the 
Fig. 221. Page 575. 
plant matures a much larger, stronger root 
when not checked by cropping. 
Hamilton County, Indiana, 
FROM H. B. SPENCER. 
To those who have devoted their land to 
raising grass for the purpose of making Tim¬ 
othy hay, the subject of the preservation of 
their meadows is of great importance. The 
labor of properly draining, enriching and pre¬ 
paring the ground for a permanent Timothy 
meadow, makes it for the interest of the 
owner that it should last in good condition 
for several years. My observafc*^leads me to 
think that a rich, well-drained soil'is the most 
natural for Timothy, and that if water stands 
around the roots in winter the crop is apt to. 
die out, and what is left will rise up and form 
into bogs. The root of the Timothy plant is: 
composed of little bulbs and roots, which mul¬ 
tiply and increase from year to year, if the- 
conditions are favorable. By cutting the- 
grass about the time when it is in bloom, it is 
considered that the choicest hay for market 
can be made, and by so doing the bulbs too 
from which others sprout out and commence 
to form for another year’s cutting, are prop¬ 
erly matured if the conditions are favorable. 
To keep the bulbs and roots in a fresh and 
growing condition, should be the aim of the 
person who has a Timothy meadow. 
To pasture such a meadow with animals 
that eat the leaves as fast as they appear, 
would weaken the roots so that they would be 
likely to be killed out in winter, especially if 
the ground ia clayey and the soil thin and 
undrained. The amount of damage that pas¬ 
turing a meadow would do could be deter¬ 
mined only by dividing a given meadow and 
Fig. 222. Pago 575. 
giving each part the same treatment, with the 
exception of pasturing one and leaving the 
