BEST KINDS OF GRASSES.
It is important to know what kinds of grasses are best adapted to the production of milk and butter, for both summer and winter feeding; and upon this depends, in a great measure, the profits to be realized. The practice of seeding with a single kind of grass, or even with a mixture of clover and timothy, is not a good one. Four of the most nutritious and productive kinds of grass, including timothy, white clover, and such other varieties as are well adapted to the particular nature and condition of the soil, are none too many to be sown together, for pasture or meadow. Five quarts of timothy, three of white clover, six of orchard grass, and three of red-top (if the ground is quite moist), or other grass suited to the soil, are about the proper quantities and proportions for general use, on an acre of land. Such a mixture, upon a rich soil, will produce fully twice as much feed as any one kind upon the same soil. White clover produces a greater quantity and better quality of milk and butter than any of the other varieties of grass, and the quantity of feed produced by such a mixture, will astonish any person not acquainted with the facts. Besides producing much more abundantly, they furnish something of a variety of feed, which is greatly beneficial in the manufacture of both milk and flesh. Weeds injure the flavor of milk and butter, and should never be in the food for cows. An acre of rich soil, well seeded with a good selection and variety of perennial grasses, will produce six tons of well-cured hay in one season; by mowing twice, and, by early cutting, this can be done without difficulty. In my own experience, the first mowing has given at the rate of full four tons per acre, and the second, somewhat injured by drouth, two tons. Some writers recommend the sowing of one or more of the rank growing annuals, as being more productive; but a careful consideration of the subject, accompanied by experiments, discloses the fact that the extra expense of preparing the ground and seeding annually, overbalances any increased quantity of feed produced, especially when the coarser and less nutritious nature of the feed is taken into the account. There is nothing suited to this climate and latitude, that will answer a better purpose as food for stock, than such perennials as timothy, red-top, orchard-grass, blue-grass, the clovers, etc., when sown upon a rich soil, thick enough to completely cover the ground and to insure fine, soft hay, when cut at the proper time and well cured. I have omitted red clover in the mixture of grasses, because soils adapted to that variety will produce white clover equally as well, and in about the same quantity, while the white gives a much better flavor to milk and butter, and an increased quantity. Blue-grass, either green or cured, is excellent feed for cattle, but is unprofitable on account of the small product, and that coming only in the fore part of the season, falling, as it does, just at the time when fresh feed is most needed. Red and white clover may be advantageously mixed with the true grasses, in many localities where the soil is suitable, though the clovers are likely to “run out” in a couple of years, and leave their places to be filled with inferior fodder plants.