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THE QUESTION OF WHAT IS A GOOD STAND. 
The amount of seed sown to the acre in this state 
varies exceedingly, the smallest that I know of as having 
been sown for a hay crop, being seven pounds per acre ; 
and having examined the stand personally, I have no doubt 
but that it will produce as large a crop as a heavier seeding 
would, but whether there is the same certainty of getting 
an even stand is a question. In this case it was very even. 
Fhe highest amount that I have seen given as sown to the 
acre is thirty pounds. Twenty and twenty-two pounds to 
the acre is common. This gives us, supposing prime seed 
to be used, from 1,470,000, with seven pounds, to 4,620,000 
seeds when twenty-two pounds of seed are sowed to the 
acre. There is certainly a wide difference in practice, and 
it is claimed, with no difference in the result, either in quan¬ 
tity or quality of hay. The majority is unquestionably in 
favor of heavy seeding, but the minority seem to me to 
have more reason on their side. 
The quantity of seed to be sown to the acre was 
touched upon by Miller (1807). “In sowing broadcast 
Rocque directs fourteen pounds to the acre ; in Kent they 
sow twenty pounds, which is generally allowed to be the 
proper quantity ; in France they allow near thirty pounds 
to an English acre. Some sow only ten pounds with six 
pounds of broad clover, to have a crop the first season, 
both with a thin crop of barley or oats.” Again, he says : 
“The field was sown broadcast with Lucern seed. * * 
Twelve pounds to the acre sown at twice.” And of 
another field of broadcast Lucern sown twenty years before 
with barley. “ The plants were in patches or single, often 
two or three feet apart ; yet it produced four tons of hay 
on an acre, at three cuttings. * * * It also shows 
what a large space plants of Lucern will fill. ” 
Two reasons can be urged in favor of heavy seeding, 
and if they are founded on facts, they are sufficient to jus¬ 
tify the practice. One is that a thick stand produces a 
more desirable hay than a thinner one ; the second is that 
a large amount of seed is necessary to obtain such a stand. 
In the first proposition there is clearly a lack of definite¬ 
ness in the term “a thick stand.” Very few persons who 
use the term have any idea whether they mean by this one 
or twenty plants to a square foot, and I doubt whether 
there is any increase of crop or quality of hay gained in 
one field with 260,000 plants to the acre over another with 
one-half that number, assuming that the stand is equally 
even in the two fields and that other conditions are similar. 
This is six and three plants to the square foot respectively. 
