American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man .”—Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 114 
For the Week Ending August 9, 1924 
Number 6 
A Weedless Hay Crop for Next Year 
It is Too Bad There is Not More Summer Following 
During the past several months our market page has 
consistently carried the mention that No. 1 Hay has met a 
steady and firm market with good demand. At the same time 
the market was flooded with a superabundance of a common 
and poor grade hay in small bales. The quality producer 
has had things all his way. In the article Mr. Kelseg tells 
how the hay producer can get a crop of clean hay and crash 
into the No. 1 group .— The Editors. 
B 
IG BUSINESS” makes a fuss about 
small leaks—hires an efficiency engineer 
to find them quickly—but, 
well, they don’t have any big 
leaks, such as a hay-crop fifteen per cent, 
weeds, for instance. They are not that 
foolish. 
There is no surer, more profitable nor 
more valuable general farm crop than 
that of cured hay. Hay to feed and hay 
to sell, for hay is a legitimate money-crop. 
But perhaps because it is grown so 
commonly, it is usually the worst-grown 
crop on the place. Weedy meadows 
scowl at one from every side, whereas the 
hay-grass crop may easily be produced 
99 per cent, pure, at the worst, and we 
have had many meadows where it was a 
practical impossibility to find one weed— 
the result of just plain, old fashioned 
summer fallowing coupled with intelligent 
use of modern tools at the right times. 
The only new feature in these methods 
are omission of any nurse-crop. The best 
hay farmers today never sow grains with 
grass any more. The below way brings a 
heavy hay-crop in ten months without 
weeds—instead of a light crop in twenty- 
two months with weeds. 
A wise old doctor once said to a young 
couple: “There is one inevitable blessing 
I in marriage—it always leads toward 
housekeeping and home life.” Similarly, 
farming of every sort, leads to some of the 
many forms of animal industries, and 
live-stock means lots of grasses, clovers 
| and hay. 
Again, no rotation is worth the name, 
I with hay production left out. The grass- 
I plant, root and top alike, is by far the 
cheapest road to abundant humus in all farm soils. 
The summer fallow followed by grass seeding is 
the best method ever found to cheaply clean a 
field of foul weeds and to subdue and reclaim 
abandoned or wild lands as well as reinoculate 
them for more intensive farm crops. 
One of Our Greatest Money Crops 
And hay is one of our greatest, most reliable and 
I most profitable money crops. Massachusetts for 
[instance, last year sent about $10,000,000 out of 
[the State—just for hay! A crop we understand, 
which we could raise and should abound in. All 
Eastern States farmers need to do to pocket this 
monstrous sum is to grow normal, full crops upon 
j their present acreage of hay-lands. They need not 
add one more acre to their usual grass fields. 
Figure it out for yourself. The present average 
production is 1 Vf tons per acre which is at the very 
| least ONE TON SHORT OF A NORMAL CROP! 
The most common objection—that selling hay 
[amounts to sure soil-depletion—has been again 
and again exploded and proven untrue. Say one 
DAVID STONE KELSEY 
ton of hay fed out on the farm is worth $6 in 
fertility (an extremely high figure) and that it 
could have been sold for $20 right at the barn. 
Omitting the labor-saving in the latter case, this 
$20 judiciously expended for fertility will grow 
three tons more, under poor management, and 
five under the best. And don’t forget the lime 
when buying “fertility.” 
three to five hours per acre, following every few 
days, or when any weeds show, with the Acme— 
set for deep work at first, then more and more 
shallow, so as never to turn up a new lot of weed 
seed from below. 
For grass after grass—for a new crop of hay 
ten months after the last hay was harvested—we 
of course plow at once after mowing, and as 
thoroughly and smoothly as possible—though 
never until the weighted cutaway has been 
run over that stubble field (on both 
diagonals—never the direction the fur¬ 
rows run) several hours per acre. If the 
land be too dry to plow, always cutaway 
promptly, then wait a few days. This 
cutaway work will actually moisten it like 
a miracle, merely by almost wholely 
arresting evaporation. It has also 
done two other vital things—cut into 
bits (even though these results are 
scarcely visable) the stiffer side of 
the coming furrow-slice, so that the slice 
will crumble tightly into its place when 
turned over, and hard-hit every per¬ 
ennial weed-stock, turning it up to the 
burning sun. 
And finally, it has also begun to make 
plant-food of the old turf. Especially if 
there comes a rain to wet this side of your 
furrow just before turning it, decay will 
be very rapid, rotting also most of the 
just germinating weed-seeds that were on 
the former surface. 
The baby grass-plant is our very tiniest. 
It is far smaller than that from any other 
important seed used in farm practice, 
and infinitely slower and frailer in its 
growth. 
This valuable baby needs and is entitled 
to all the comforts within our command 
to assemble—abundant, soluble food 
within easy reach, an environment wholly 
favorable and free from enemy plants, 
such as is provided only by the old- 
fashioned summer-fallow, a bed that is 
firm and warm as well as moist, never hot 
or dry. And finally, this tiny plant needs 
companionship, which is provided by 
Even the worst objection to hay as a money seeding very thickly, 
crop—that timely harvesting of the entire produc- Does all this sound too expensive and fussy? 
tion is impossible on most farms, most seasons— It is not, it means merely “taking pains.” Any 
is now done away with. About all of June, the methods here advised will not add to costs, with 
accepted month of good haying weather, is now the possible (and always profitable) exception of 
utilized, and subsequent cuttings so well distrib- more and better plant-food and seed. Thorough 
uted, into September even, that every field may methods should immediately increase your yield 
comfortably be cut at its peak of prime—when (if hitherto only around the above-quoted average) 
bloom is just beginning. not less than 2500 pounds per acre per annum, 
There are certain specifications, however, that about all of which will be clear profit. 
are really vital and one of these—the bane of most Follow Nature in Seeding 
farm operations too—is timeliness. Scarcely ever 
is hay-land seeded early enough, with seed pro- Follow nature—where seeds mature in August 
vided early enough on' land thoroughly enough and immediately shell and fall as with timothy 
prepared, and almost never is the crop harvested and redtop, seeding September 1 is exactly right, 
on time. One of the reasons for our failure is that except that if the field is low land or poorly drained 
“There is no surer, more profitable nor more valuable general farm crop 
than that of cured hay ”—providing it is of high grade, the kind the market 
demands and wants 
been extensive rather than 
remedy is found in more 
our hay crop has 
intensive. Hence a 
intensive methods. 
More Intensive Methods Followed 
For instance, after any hoed crop we seldom 
plow at all—just use the cutaway immediately, 
it is not safe to wait later than August 10 to 15, 
and the same is true on high, cold land, very poor 
soil, or for latitudes above 42. 
The grasses, like all grains, require a firm, 
solidly packed-down seed-bed. We settle ours till 
the horse-tracks at final harrowing scarcely sink 
(Continued on page 9 6b 
