Wj 
NEW YORK, JULY 30, 1921. 
Office at 
1879, at the Post 
of March 3, 1879. 
Vol LX XX Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co.. 
333 W. 30th St.. New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
No. 4649 
Tke “Intensive” Method o£ 
T HE CLARK SYSTEM.—Every year at this time 
we have letters from readers who ask us to 
tell once more about the “Clark system of seeding 
grass.” Some years ago we made a feature of pre¬ 
senting this subject at least every Summer, in 
response to numerous calls. The system was named 
for the late George M. Clark, a well-known character 
throughout New England, who invented the cutaway 
harrow. Mr. Clark had a farm in the Connecticut 
Valley. It was originally an old pasture land covered 
with rocks and huckleberry bushes, as most of that 
abandoned laud is. Mr. Clark undertook to show 
that the ordinary turning plow simply turned the 
sod over and left the roots and seeds of weeds down 
under the ground, so that they would come back into 
the new crop and fill it with trash. His theory was 
not to turn the sod under, but to cut and chop it up 
to the sun, so that all the old roots and weeds would 
be thoroughly killed out, instead of being buried, as 
would be the case with a plow. Accordingly he took 
a sharp cutaway harrow, well weighted down, and 
chopped the soil over. The principle of the disk or 
cutaway harrow of course is that of cutting and 
chopping and tossing the soil, and after working 
Seeding, Grass 
thorough working was to fit the soil as fine as an 
ash heap, and also to kill out all trash and weeds. 
SEEDING.—About the first of September, after 
this work had been done, and if possible just after 
a shower, the grass seed was put in. Mr. Clark 
used a heavy seeding of Timothy and Red-top seed 
mixed, about 15 lbs. each to the acre, with about 
S lbs. of clover seed added the following Spring. 
Great pains were taken in putting on this seed to 
have it evenly distributed. The Timothy seed was 
generally seeded one way, and the Red-top was 
seeded across it. For the fertilizer Mr. Clark pre- 
Young America Learning the Language of Flowers. Fig. 396. 
the strength and value of this New England soil 
when properly handled and brought back into civil¬ 
ized grass culture. Starting with an ordinary hill¬ 
side pasture, he blew out the stones and hauled them 
away, then plowed the land and smoothed it as well 
as possible. His usual plan was to start in the 
Spring with a crop of oats and peas, after giving 
the land a good dressing of lime. The oats and peas 
were either cut for hay early in July, or the whole 
crop was plowed into the soil. Then the real work 
of this so-called “Clark system” began. 
HOW THE WORK WAS DONE.—Mr. Clark did 
not believe in plowing, especially when an old mea¬ 
dow was to be brought back into grass. He claimed 
through the old sod with this implement the field 
was left in chunks of sod. As soon as he had fin¬ 
ished cutting one way he turned around and worked 
across the field in the other direction. This was 
kept up through July and August, the object being 
to kill promptly any green growth which might start 
on that field. "Where the roots were bad lie used a 
tool somewhat like a spring-tooth harrow for break¬ 
ing off and ripping out the roots. A grader was 
used in an effort to make the surface of the field as 
smooth as possible. By the middle of August, with 
this constant working with a cutaway harrow, the 
entire sod was usually chopped up and every living 
plant thoroughly killed out. The object of this 
ferred a mixture containing about one-third each of 
fine ground bone, nitrate of soda and muriate of 
potash. This was not the most economical mixture, 
as it gave more potash than most soils would need 
for a crop of grass, while the heavy dressing of 
nitrate of soda was not economical for Fall appli¬ 
cation. Mr. Clark generally used about 900 lbs. to 
the acre of this mixture, most of it applied at the 
time of seeding. 
RESULTS.—There can be no question about the 
immense crops of grass which were grown in this 
way. There was nothing for the grass to do except 
to grow after receiving this treatment. The soil 
was as fine as a garden and well sweetened by the 
