1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
86T 
A PERMANENT TIMOTHY MEADOW. 
The “ Clark” System Once More. 
Part II. 
T HE SEED BED.—If you can stay by this work 
to the end, September 1 will find your field as 
fine and loose as an ash bed. It will be full 
of pieces of dead roots where the disks have chop¬ 
ped them up. In some cases, particularly where 
quack grass abounds, it is necessary to rake off these 
roots to clear the land. We are so friendly to cover 
crops and humus that on general principles we would 
use such roots for manure or mulch. Quack grass has 
so many lives, however, that it will be safer to burn 
its roots. Not one field in 50 has a true grade or a 
smooth surface. There are little hollows or depres¬ 
sions in which the water will stand, and Timothy is 
neither a swimmer nor a duck. If you 
leave these hollows the grass will be 
killed out and trash will crowd in. Dur¬ 
ing the last of August Clark went over 
his fields with a light board scraper 
filling in the little hollows. Then he 
used a light straight-tooth harrow to 
rake over the surface and level it for 
the seed. The Acme harrow, followed 
by a plank or brush drag, will do this 
work well so that by early September 
the ground is fit for the seed. 
MODIFICATIONS.—That was the 
Clark method of preparing land for 
seeding. It did the business and the 
fields thus prepared gave from four to 
six tons of hay to the acre and kept 
this yield up, with good feeding for 
eight or 10 years! Few farmers can 
afford to fit land in this way, and not 
many would have the faith to stay by 
the work with bull-dog tenacity until 
the soil was fit. The best that most of 
once. Consider how rapidly a crop of Timothy must 
grow. On April 15 in New England it is just turn¬ 
ing a dark gi-een where the snow lingei-ed, yet by 
July 4 it should £e cut for hay. This means lively 
growing and the plant food should be like a whip to 
drive it along. You may plow under big chunks of 
cow manure and plant corn expecting a fair crop. 
The corn does not make its best growth until July 
and August, at which time the soil is warm and the 
manure becomes available. The grass must make 
its rapid growth while the soil is cooler and soluble 
nitrogen is not being produced. Clark did not use 
stable manure. He said it brought in too many weed 
seeds, and unless it was well rotted and fine it was 
not the stuff to feed a Spi'ing growing ci'op. 
CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS.—Probably no crop is 
like grass in responding quickly to the right chemi¬ 
finds a part, and where there is no desire to put 
down a permanent meadow. Such farmers expect 
one crop of wheat or rye, one of clover, and one of 
Timothy—then the soil is plowed for corn. What we 
are talking about now is a permanent meadow, 
where the grass will be cut eight or 10 years. We 
have such a meadow seeded on a modification of 
this Clark plan nine yeai's ago, and still giving good 
crops of fair grass. Clark objected to the gi'ain or 
“nurse” crop for several reasons. 
WHITE LEGHORNS “EATING OUT OF YOUR HAND.” Fig. 415. 
us can do is to come as near to it as we can. A 
farmer with only one team or three horses will 
find a dozen jobs for them in late Summer, at 
haying, cultivating, or marketing ci'ops and he can¬ 
not hope to work any lal'ge area 15 or 20 times over. 
Oxir expei’ience is that he would be better off to take 
half the usual area and work it twice as much be¬ 
fore seeding as he could the entire space. There 
can be no question aboxxt the effect of this intense 
culture on the yield of grass. Notice what hap¬ 
pens when yoxi sow gi'ass seed on an onion or a 
potato field. These crops are well fed and we ai*e 
obliged to keep them clean in order to obtain a 
yield. The grass which follows always shows the 
resxilt of this feeding and cultivation. We have 
foxxnd that one disking or plowing followed by five 
or six workings with spring-tootli or Cutaway gives 
us a good seed bed. We would rather use the Cut¬ 
away to begin with bxit if it is not pos¬ 
sible to carry oxxt the Clark plan, plow 
deep and cover the furrows well and 
work all that is possible with si Cut¬ 
away going as deep into the ground as 
the horses can handle the job. 
USE OF LIME.—At the time Clark 
made his experiments the modern facts 
regarding lime were not popularly 
known. Clark advocated occasional 
dressings with lime on the grass sod. 
We now understand that this is not 
gooxl practice. In many cases the lime 
does not work down into the soil. We 
have known it to form a crust or mor¬ 
tar near the surface—out of the reach 
of the grass roots. The proper time for 
liming is when the soil is first turned 
over. The thorough working by the 
harrow mixes the lime all through the 
upper soil. That is just what is needed 
so that the upper soil may all be acted 
upon. Slaked lime is better for this 
purpose than ground limestone, for it 
gives a quicker action and will help 
to destroy the old weeds and grass which we are 
trying to clean oxxt. Timothy must have a neutral or 
alkaline soil in which to make a quick start and a 
rapid growth. Thus lime and available fertilizers 
should be used at seeding. In trying to start a per¬ 
manent meadow anywhere at the East we should 
assume that the soil needs lime (the crop does any¬ 
where) and use at least one ton of slaked lime to the 
acre after plowing or disking the land. 
FEEDING THE CROP.—Thus far we have tried 
to tell how to get the grass plants started so they 
will be as permanent as a peach orchard. Anyone 
who has grown peaches knows he may get the trees 
started if he works right but they will not keep on 
bearing year after year unless they are fed on plant 
food which they can take care of, and utilize at 
cals, and moi’e slowly to the wrong kind. The right 
kind are quickly available, with a large proportion 
of nitrogen. One of the best grass growers we know 
of uses equal pai’ts of nitrate of soda, fine ground 
bone and muriate of potash. This makes a very 
strong mixture, and where it is used the grass sim¬ 
ply has to grow. Clark used a commercial brand 
which is much like the following xnixtuxe: 400 
pounds nitrate of soda, 1,200 pounds fine bone, 400 
pounds muriate of potash. There are many differ¬ 
ent combinations of nitrate of soda, sulphate of am¬ 
monia, bone or acid phosphate and potash. The 
various top-dressers and grass mixtures are made up 
of these chemicals. The first principle of all is to 
have the nitrogen in a solnble form so as to force 
the grass from the start. It would be a mistake to 
feed this kind of grass on the theory of returning 
to the soil what the hay crop lemoves. You must 
LIME AND CULTIVATION FOR ALFALFA. 
T HE pictures shown on page 960 are taken fx-om 
Bulletin 178, Kentucky Experiment Station 
at Lexington. A thorough study of the needs 
of the Alfalfa plant for Kentucky soils was made to 
give the basis for the figures shown in 
this bulletin. The picture, Fig. 414, 
shows the difference in the growth and 
appearance of Alfalfa on soil that was 
thoroughly limed and soil of much the 
same character whicn was not txeated 
with lime. As a general proposition 
the ixse of ground limestone gave an in¬ 
crease of 3,220 pounds of Alfalfa in 
four cuttings. It was also noticed that 
on unlimed parts of the field the 
wheat growth was much heavier. The 
hay from the first cutting where the 
lime was not used was nearly half 
weeds. It was found that four tons of 
ground limestone per acx’e was the most 
profitable application for Alfalfa on 
this soil. The point to be made from 
this experiment is the fact that Alfal¬ 
fa is a lime loving plant and cannot be 
expected to give a good account of it¬ 
self except upon a natux'al lime soil or 
where heavy applications of lime are 
made. These facts would indicate that Alfalfa may 
not be the most pi’ofitable ci'op in many sections 
where soil is deficient in lime and where the lime 
must be hauled long distances and thus sold at a 
high pi-ice. 
The other picture shows a device used for culti¬ 
vating Alfalfa. This work is done oix the fax*m of 
M. I. Givens, a well-known Kentxxcky farmex*, who 
grows 100 acres of Alfalfa. Mi 1 . Givens has been so 
successful with the Alfalfa that he finds it more 
profitable than tobacco, and has given up the latter 
crop. Immediately after each cutting Mi*. Givens cul¬ 
tivates the Alfalfa soil with a spring-tooth harrow 
such as is shown in the picture. The teeth of this 
harrow are filed down to a sharp point. Thus it 
scratches and tears up the ground until, as Mr. 
Givens says, “it looks almost like a cornfield pre¬ 
pared for planting.” The Alfalfa is not injured, 
however, by this treatment, but it 
comes up afresh and makes a new and 
better crop to pay for the cultivation. 
SHALL WE PLOW THE SOY 
BEANS UNDER? 
w 
. - ‘ •..,• AU...-V • - v • 
■ 
y v; w -1 - 1 1 
A RACK USED WITH A HAY LOADER. Fig. 416. 
add that much and more in order always to have a 
surplus of plant food in the soil. There will be little 
if any loss on a crop like grass, which keeps the soil 
constantly filled with long roots. Clark used about 
S00 pounds of his mixture at seeding; mixing the 
chemicals thoroughly in before the seed was scat- 
tcred. Thereafter he used 600 or more per acre in 
the Spring—which is the proper time for fertilizing 
grass. In some cases when the latter part of the 
Summer was wet another application was made after 
haying so as to force a heavy second crop of grass. 
SEEDING.—Most farmers use grass seed with 
wheat or rye in the Fall or oats or barley in the 
Spring. They think the grass does better with a 
“nurse crop,” and they need the grain. Such seeding 
is usually part of a rotation in which small grain 
E have two acres drilled to cow- 
peas, and two to Soy beans, 
side by side, to be plowed this 
Fall for raspberries, to be set 
next Spring. We wish to know whether 
lime should be added this Fall or next 
Spring, and how much would be best to 
use? c. L. A. 
Ohio. 
Unless there is some special reason 
for doing so we would not plow this 
Fall. In the case of the Soy beans we 
should sow rye and turnips in the Soy 
beans the same as in corn. Cultivate 
the seed in and let them alone. They 
will die down at frost and during the 
Winter mat on the ground. Some little 
manurial value may be lost by not 
plowing under, but not more than the 
cost of plowing, while the rye and tur¬ 
nips will more than make it up. If the cow peas 
are in drills, we would do the same with them. 
If they are broadcast, scatter the rye and turnips 
right among the vines while the ground is wet 
after the rain. In the Spring we would plow 
the dead vines and turnips and the living rye and 
use half a ton of ground limestone per acre. The 
l’aspberries do not respond fieely to lime and we 
would not use slaked lime in preparing for them. 
We imagine your soil needs potash as well as phos¬ 
phoric acid. We should use 400 pounds of acid phos¬ 
phate and 125 pounds sulphate of potash per acre. 
The best time to use these chemicals is in late Sum¬ 
mer—after picking—during late cultivation. At 
this time the plants are forming their fruit buds for 
the next crop. 
