HINTS ON RAISING FARM CROFS 
29 
There are some important points to be ob¬ 
served in the maintaining of a good meadow. 
The plants which compose the meadow should 
form a smooth, even turf of ground, rather 
than a bunchy surface, as it is essential that 
the ground be smooth for the efficient opera¬ 
tions of the haying implements—the mower, 
raker, etc. There should be enough seed sown 
so that the stems do not grow too coarse, and 
that weeds may be properly kept down. Only 
those plants should be used that cure readily 
into hay, as slow curing is a detriment to pal¬ 
atable hay. As the stems of the hay plants 
constitute one of the chief parts of the hay, 
it can be readily seen that these should n©t 
be too tough, nor allowed to grow too rank, 
because cattle will discriminate against such 
coarse feed. Hay plants usually have con¬ 
siderable food value in their leaves, and es¬ 
pecial care should be excersised in seeing to 
it that these leaves are not spoiled tfr lost in 
harvesting the hay. 
Anyone familiar with grass seed knows that 
this seed is quite small in size. Therefore, in 
preparing the seed bed for either pasture or 
hay land, it is even more important that the 
seed bed be worked up into a fine condition, 
for many of these small seeds will fail to 
germinate on a poorly-prepared seed bed. 
Firmness, mellowness and moisture are the 
three essentials to be kept in mind when pre¬ 
paring the land for new seeding. Further¬ 
more, maximum yields cannot be expected un¬ 
less the meadow land is fertile. If the grass 
seed is being sown alone (that is to say, with- 
