grass, when it cannot support the number of animals that it would if frequently plowed. He referred to the President, Hon. T. C. Peters, as to the comparative capacity of the grain and dairy lands, and Mr. Peters confirmed the statement that the grain lands would carry the most stock.

John Kelsey, of Bucks county, Pa.—In the fall of '52, '53, took possession of the old Yarley farm. It was a worn out place, and I went to work to improve it. There was a meadow of some twelve acres that was covered with blue grass and noxious weeds. Harrowed and grubbed out twenty three loads of roots and sowed timothy. The first crop was twentyfive loads of hay, when before there were but two loads. It has cut from sixteen to twenty loads annually ever since, and this year the crop was twenty-one loads. If timothy is properly sown, it will fill up and cover the ground perfectly. Never knew herds grass to winter kill. Herds grass and red top are identical in Bucks county. Would prefer to harrow pastures and meadows to kill weeds and bad grasses, and then sow seed, timothy, white clover, &c.

E. H. Peterson, Seneca county.-My experience is that lands produce more that are frequently plowed and re-seeded; know a farm of one hundred and thirty acres that carries twenty-four cows and one hundred sheep, and where from ten to fifteen acres of corn are annually grown. It is reseeded every three or four years with timothy and clover. The meadows produce from two to two and a half tons per acre. It is seeded so heavily that the first year a good heavy growth is had; the second year the crop is good, and if it lays over three years, white clover comes in and takes the place of red clover. When lands are seeded every three or four years, the grass forms a perfect mat over the whole surface the first year. Lands that lay long in timothy are troubled with the wire worm, which destroys. the grass. He thought pastures should not be kept over four years, when they should be re-seeded. This plan gave the best results for milk.

Rev. Mr. Loomis, Herkimer county.-Was acquainted with a pasture that had not been plowed for twenty-eight years, and four acres of it had never been plowed. Another had been down eighteen years. Had seen the first named pasture mowed recently, and the quantity taken off was one ton per acre. He had asked the farmer why he did not break up the four acres, and the reply was, "I have got to be an old man, and my experience tells me that my old pastures are the best." Knew another farm, a part of which was plowed and stocked down six years ago, and part not. The latter was producing the best results. It had a firm, thick sod filled with grasses, "native and to the manor born." The grasses in the old pastures were the best for milk. If the system of plowing and re-seeding can carry more cattle for fattening, it cannot carry so many "cakes of cream" to New York.

Mr. Geddes, of Onondaga.-When statistics show that grain lands can carry more cattle, it must be evident that a mixed husbandry is best, on lands adapted to it. If the Herkimer county lands can produce fifty bushels of barley and eighty bushels of corn to the acre, that is not bad soil. When a farm is capable of mixed husbandry, then that kind of farming should be carried on, instead of running into a specialty. Did not believe

in laying down ultraisms. Farmers should adapt their farming to the kind of land they occupy. If I had a farm I could not plow, and could not afford to raise wheat at two dollars per bushel, would go to raising sheep. Don't believe in handling cows and manures, there is too much labor, and labor of an unpleasant kind about it. It is my opinion that in the white grain region, where I live, the people find it advantageous to plow their pastures and seed with timothy, then with clover, and top-dress with plaster.

Mr. Laird, of Oneida.-I find that lands in Michigan and Indiana require different treatment from those, in Oneida and Herkimer. In the latter counties, old pastures are best, but in the west, pastures cannot be kept in grass without re-seeding.

Mr. A. L. Fish, of Herkimer.-I have been a practical farmer for thirty years, within which time I have cleared up and seeded over one hundred acres to pasture, have often cultivated and re-seeded those same lands, and older pastures; have been a close observer at all times of the condition of the soil and the changes by cultivation and re-seeding, and have invariably observed a marked increase in forage and like results with my neighbors, when cultivation was well done; hence, I am firm in the belief that pasture lands that can be feasibly plowed, are improved by judicious cultivation. To merely invert the sod and take on a crop, then turn it back and strip it again, and so on through the popular rotation, then seed sparsely with one or two kinds of grass, without regard to deep and thorough pulverization, I do not accept as judicious cultivation. Let any of our pasture lands that can be feasibly plowed, be deeply and thoroughly pulverized, and as much manurial matter incorporated with it in the process, as will amend for the crops taken off, then seeded with a variety of the indigenous grass as with the usual variety of cultivated grasses-keep the herd from grazing or tramping it the first season, so that the new roots may be thoroughly interspersed through the soil before it becomes packed again, and I will risk my reputation as a farmer, upon the assertion that its productiveness will be much improved and the grass quite as sweet and nutritious as the old indigenous sward. The prejudice against re-seeding for pasturage, has no doubt grown out of the fact that the tilth and manner of seeding has not been properly done. The lay and texture of land is so unlike in different localities, that it would be difficult to adopt a rule of general practice without broad exceptions, some soils requiring to be pul verized and packed to make them less porous, others to be pulverized and not packed to leave them more permeable. All soils must be permeable to receive full benefit from the circulating elements passing through. No seeds will germinate or grass roots grow without their presence, which is good proof that they contain the life-giving principle. The fact that air and water will grow plants without earth, but earth will not without them, is also good proof that the soil is only a repository for food of plants, where it is held in a physical medium by a mechanical faculty of the soil. If we accept the theory as sound, that a small amount of the inorganic portion of the soil enters into the bulk of growing plants, we must look for a mechanical faculty in the soil as a base of its productiveness. What

ever we recognize as a vital sustaining principle in the soil, it behooves us as farmers to see to it that it is developed in the soil we occupy. To make the point I wish to impress, I will assume that all physical growth is from minute particles of organic matter contained in the circulating elements, which attach by contact with surfaces adapted to retain and absorb them into a physical medium. The soil, I will say, is a physical medium, in which organic matter, in all its minutiæ, is held by a mechanical faculty for decomposition, and chemical combinations. When we consider that plants obtain food in the soil by fibrous roots with mouths too small to be seen without microscopic vision, we reason that it is by some subtle faculty that it is held in their reach, which we should understand and recognize as a vital principle. I will suggest that it consist in a capillary texture of the soil by which small particles of manurial matter are brought in contact with surfaces to which they adhere. Leachy soils have a coarse capillary texture, admitting of the circulating elements passing through them so rapidly as to wash away manurial matter from attaching surfaces. It is a natural tendency of soils to become too porous; small veins will form by water leaching through them, and grow larger by use till they require breaking up to pulverize and refine their capillary texture, so that water will filter slowly through them and reach every attaching surface of every particle of soil; each particle of soil, ever so small, has a surface to which still smaller particles of organic matter will cohere if brought in contact, hence the importance of occasionally pulverizing the soil, to refine the texture of that too porous, or to make a tenacious soil more permeable. In this consist the benefits of breaking up old pastures: they are then better prepared to hold the manures applied; they will not wash off from the surface of a too tenacious soil, or leach through a too porous soil in currents. My mode of using manures is to apply it to all crops at a season when the growing crop will appropriate it most speedily to its use, to prevent waste by evaporation, and otherwise, while vegetable growth is dormant. The very convenient way of spreading manure broadcast in the winter season I discard as ruinous to the farmer, as the frost decomposes and prepares for excessive waste before the soil can receive it. Let any dairyman take one-tenth of his pasture land and cultivate it to grow maize for soiling, and feed it to his cows annually, and I will engage that he will have made more cheese or butter from the same number of cows, and the same area of land, and the land will have improved under the treatment, provided he makes judicious use of manures and grass seed.

Mr. Loomis, of Herkimer.—I have no theory to advocate in this matter, but have presented a simple statement of facts. The pasture referred to was put down with barley. The result in that case was that the land was filled with couch-grass and milk-weed. The former disappeared in eight years, and the latter in twelve years, and this is one reason why I would not break up old pastures.

We can raise barley on our lands, but straw-fed animals are not the ones that give the most milk. When we go to the wheat region to purchase milch cows, we find it takes about two years to get the straw out of them, or, in other words, to get them in good condition for milk.

Mr. Geddes. I know of a farmer in the grain region that keeps upon his farm one cow to every three and a half acres, and yet raises annually from 5,000 to 7,000 bushels of grain from the land.

Mr. Walrarth, of St. Lawrence.-I believe that thorough cultivation of the soil, from time to time, and enriching it, will give the best results. The lands of St. Lawrence are troubled with white daisy and thistles, and to eradicate weeds the land has to be broken up. If the soil is pulverized and under-drained, there is no trouble in having good grass.

Mr. Peterson, of Seneca county, advocated the claims of the re-seeding party, and affirmed that by heavy seeding they could carry two cows to the acre during summer.

Mr. Loomis, of Herkimer, said that he knew of a farm in Herkimer, of 110 acres, which he believed would carry as many cows as any farm in Onondaga. He knew something of the capacity of lands in the grain districts, having resided and farmed it in Cayuga county. The forty-six acres he referred to in Herkimer county he would be willing to place side by side with any sixty acres of land in the grain raising district, believing that the product of the dairy land would not be outdone by the latter.

Mr. Geddes still contended that a mixed husbandry was best, and that dairymen would carry more cows upon their farms if they plowed more. Statistics told the story, and the lesson they taught showed dairymen to be mistaken.

Mr. Loomis was aware that statistics told their story, but they did not tell whether pastures should or should not be plowed up in the dairy region. The facts presented had not been answered.

Mr. Arnold, of Otsego, stated that so far as his experience went, it was best to let pastures alone. The old pastures were invariably the most profitable. He alluded to his own farm in Otsego, where, under the system of plowing and re-seeding, only ten cows could be kept, but by letting it lie to grass, and getting a permanent pasture, he had been enabled to keep twenty-four head on the same land.

Mr. Walker, of Oswego county.-I find it best in my experience to plow once in ten years, take off two crops, and get back again to grass, seeding at the rate of sixteen quarts to the acre. After a good seed is obtained, put the land in pasture. I believe in cultivating the land deeply, and in subsoiling, so as to admit a free admission of air and water. In Oswego county the best results, he believed, were obtained by renovating pastures by plowing through. No one rule could be adopted for all lands.

Col. Brewer desired to know if the grain regions could raise large quantities of grain, and at the same time carry more stock than the dairy region; and why it happened that the State Assessor reduced the valuation of the former and added it to the latter?

The President, Hon. T. C. Peters, stated that he did not intend to defend himself here as to his course as State Assessor. His report was published in the Transactions of the Society, and was open to inspection. He referred Col. Brewer to that.

Mr. Sanford, of Oswego, thought it could be demonstrated that the grain lands were the most productive. He had tried to re-seed grass lands by the use of the harrow, and top-dressing failed; the ground should be first

placed in condition, to receive the seed. If grasses dry up and die out there was no remedy except to plow up and get a good seed bed and then reseed.

Mr. Hoyt, of Madison county, claimed that the condition of soil and climate should always be considered. Some pastures do best if left to grass; others require plowing and re-seeding. He thought the Mohawk flats would support more cattle than Onondaga, although the latter might raise more grain. He had owned land on the Mohawk flats and found it most profitable to keep it in grass and to plow as little as possible. In Madison county it was necessary to plow and re-seed, or pastures would run out. The land in Onondaga county is of a very different character from that in this section. After a rain the Onondaga soil dries off in twenty-four hours, but here it often takes days.

The President then stated that it was time to adjourn. And as to the subject under debate, the remarkable diversity of soil and climate in this State precluded the possibility of any arbitrary rule on the subject of pastures. Climate, soil, geology, and general circumstances would need to be always taken into consideration. In his journeyings through the State he had been astonished by the wonderful contrast and diversity of its climate.

Before closing, Mr. Curtis, of Tompkins, wished to ask a direct question, viz: Whether the butter produced from newly sodded pastures was as good in quality as that from old pastures?

Mr. Arnold replied that in his case that produced from old pastures was altogether the best.

SECOND EVENING'S DISCUSSION.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, September 13, 1865.

GRASS-KINDS, QUALITY, PROPER TIME FOR CUTTING, AND BEST METHOD OF CURING HAY.

The discussion was opened by J. Stanton Gould, of Hudson, in an able and interesting discourse in reference to the principal grasses used for hay. At the outset, the speaker referred to the object which had brought them together, and remarked that in three years the crops of grass and Indian corn could be easily increased, so as to yield sufficient to pay the national debt. The hay crop in Oneida county is only 98 tons to the 100 acres. The proportion might be larger. There is an intimate relation between a prosperous condition of agriculture and the morality and religion of a nation. The statement was proved from historical facts. He who can double the production of grass alone, is therefore a public benefactor. It is of great importance to farmers to know what kinds of grass are best, and will yield the greatest amount of nutriment, according to their bulk when made into hay. It is of vast importance to understand how grass can best be saved, so as to retain its nutritive value when made into hay. It has been proved by chemical experiments that 100 pounds of timothy are equal to 300 pounds of chess, or to 150 pounds of vernal grass. Other sorts vary also.