358 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
Some years later the question was again answered, as follows: From 
West Springfield: * ‘‘ The proportion of value which fresh-meadow hay 
bears to upland hay, each being of a medium quality, is about two- 
_thirds.”’ 
From Newbury: ‘* About two-fifths.’’ 
From Vassalborough:}$ ‘* Meadow hay is worth about half its weight 
of upland hay.”’ . 
From Danvers:§ ‘* About one-third.”’ 
From Dunstable: || ‘* Proportion of value as one to three.” 
In 1823, Mr. Prince,f of Roxbury, complains of the ‘too general 
practice of feeding cows in the winter with only meadow hay which has 
less nourishment than good straw,’’ and the complaint has often been 
repeated since then. ‘The unreasonableness of assertions so sweeping 
as this is well shown by the following remark of Dr. Sturtevant, of 
Framingham, made in the course of a recent debate on Dairy Hus- 
bandry.** 
‘¢ The farms in Massachusetts contain a great variety of soil, and some 
of it is pretty bad. In one location in eastern Massachusetts, I know 
of a farm which would support nothing like the number of stock that are 
kept on it, from the good land of that farm. The only way we can carry 
the herd, and make it profitable, is by utilizing the poor hay and poor 
land of that farm. At the present time on our own farm we are keep- 
ing a breeding herd of about thirty-two cattle, all told. We have one 
foddering of hay, and one foddering of the low-meadow hay. At the 
present time, we are feeding what we in Massachusetts call meadow hay 
(that is, muck-land hay), mixed with a quart and a half or two quarts 
of grain a day to each cow, either shorts or meal. In Massachusetts we 
cannot feed all good grass, because we haven’t it. If we undertook to 
do it, we should have to cut down our herds about two-thirds.’’ 
At the present time, February, 1875, bog hay or ‘‘ swale hay,”’ as it 
is sometimes called, sells in the Boston market at $12 (@ 13 per ton, the 
price of the best upland hay being $22 /@ 23, and that of medium upland 
hay $19 @ 20. But the city price hardly bears upon the question of 
fodder value, since the bog hay is not used here as food to any extent, 
but somewhat for bedding animals and largely for packing crockery and 
glass-ware. In point of fact, the bog hay is worth decidedly less in the 
Boston market than straw, which is esteemed to be cheap at the price 
for which it is now selling ; viz. , at $17 @ 18 per ton. 
* The “ Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal,” 1815, 3, 59. 
t Ibid. 1815, 3. 268. 
t Ibid. 
§ Ibid. 1815, 3. 341. 
| Ibid. 1815, 4. 48. 
7 Ibid. 1823, 7. 168. 
** See Massachusetts Agricultural Reports, 1872, p. 48. 
