Establishment and Maintenance of Hay Fields: With Information on Methods of Land Preparation, Sowing, Mowing and Hay-making

By F. H. Storer

Contained within this book is a complete introductory guide to creating and maintenance hay fields.

Establishment and Maintenance of Hay Fields offers the reader simple, clear descriptions and explanations of what should and should not be done, coupled with expert tips and other information invaluable to the farmer.

The contents include:

Farming

Establishment And Maintenance Of Hay Fields

Stirring the Sod of Mowing Fields

Spring or Autumn Seeding

Grass Seeds must not be Deeply Buried

Methods of Sowing Grass

Experiments with Buried Grass Seeds

Winter-killing of Grass

Snow Protects Grass

Spring Rolling of Grass Fields

Burning off of Grass

Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on farming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781447491361

Book preview

ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF HAY FIELDS.

THERE are many chemical questions relating to the cultivation of grass and the curing of hay which are still open for discussion. It would be extremely interesting, for example, to know precisely what kind of land is best suited for any given kind of grass, and why. Every farmer would be glad to know what kinds of grasses are best adapted to his own particular fields, and to know just what condition the soil should be brought to, in order to the utmost economy of production, both as regards fertility and fineness of tilth, and in respect to moisture at the moment of sowing and throughout the year.

Even the amount of seed to be sown on a given area is in some sort a chemical question, since the plants that spring from the seeds will struggle with one another for food, and will grow and feed differently, according as they are crowded or not. The depth at which the seeds should be buried manifestly depends on chemical considerations,—and it is, by the way, one of the most important points that the grass farmer has to consider.

How much and what kinds of manure should be applied to grass lands, and at what times, are other questions of very great importance; and so is the question in how far can the mulching of grass fields be made to supplement the process of manuring, or to make good a lack of manure.

The whole history of the growth of the crop, i. e. the knowledge of its condition and quality at different stages of growth, and the finding out of the best possible time for the cutting of grass, are matters which will be determined ultimately by the aid of chemical investigation.

So, too, with regard to the curing of hay, there are problems relating to the rapidity of drying, to the condition of dryness in which hay had best be housed, and to the comparative merits of storing it in barns or in stacks. It is still a matter of dispute among some farmers whether new-mown grass should be spread in the sun, or dried slowly in swaths, and windrows, and cocks.

Then, again, how shall mowing fields be taken care of, when once they have been established? Shall the sod be broken up every few years, or will it be well to try to keep the field in grass continuously for generations, as is sometimes done in Europe?

For the sake of convenience, it will perhaps be best to divide the study of grass husbandry into two sections, one of which shall relate to the hay crop proper, and the other to pastures and the care of them. And first as to hay, which is a highly important crop throughout the Northern United States.

Timothy preferred for Hay in America.

In New England, farmers have long been accustomed to look upon timothy (Phleum), or Herd’s-grass as the local name is, as the representative grass, and to hold that it combines all the excellences which are to be found in a grass. The utmost they are ready to admit is, that a mixture of timothy and red-top (Agrostis), or of timothy and clover, may sometimes be advisable. It is probable, however, that this notion includes a considerable amount of error, and that sooner or later the discovery will be made that there are several other grasses worthy of being cultivated in this region, each of them in the places best suited to it. It would be indeed strange if, among the three or four thousand kinds of grasses now known to botanists, there should happen to be no more than one or two kinds suited to the climate and requirements of the Northern United States.

Probably this wellnigh exclusive growth of timothy is largely a matter of fashion, akin to the preferences for Baldwin apples and Bartlett pears which prevail in the same locality. Perhaps this fashion will die out in time, as that for the varieties of fruit just mentioned assuredly will, to judge from past experience relating to other varieties of fruit that were formerly esteemed and are now obsolete. It is noticeable, even now, that many pomologists stoutly deny the suggestion that the Bartlett pear is a fine fruit. Nevertheless, it may still be well, especially when speaking to New Englanders or to their descendants in Western States, to regard timothy, or a mixture of timothy and red-top, as the normal grass for hay.

As will be shown directly, timothy has one great advantage, in that it yields a very heavy burden of fairly good hay. It succeeds well on rich loams, even on peaty loams that have been well mixed with sand or gravel; and although it needs a fair supply of moisture in order that it may do its best, it is still true that on occasion it can support drought better than several other of the cultivated grasses, such as the meadow foxtail (Alopecurus) for example. But timothy is not in the least adapted to support long-continued hardship, such as insufficient food or permanent lack of moisture, and it is a mistake to sow it on land subject to these conditions. There can hardly be any adequate profit in growing this grass on light dry land, where most of it will die out in the course of the second year.

Methods of preparing Land for Grass.

There are two or three different methods of laying down land to grass, from the consideration of which some ideas may be got as to the condition in which grass land needs to be kept. In the vicinity of Boston, the commonest method is to till the soil during two or three years with hoed crops which are well dressed with manure, and then to seed down to grass, either with or without an addition of grain. By the continued tillage, the soil is well pulverized, its capillary condition is improved, and the manure is distributed throughout the soil. But another way of proceeding is merely to plough under the sod of an old grass field that needs to be renovated, to work in some manure, and to sow grass seed immediately, without any other tillage than that needed to smooth the furrows, stir in the manure, and prepare a shallow seed-bed.

Inasmuch as the chief motive in breaking up any old mowing field is to kill or check wild grasses which have worked in, this method of simply turning under the sod may often serve a fairly good purpose, particularly on fields where the ground-water is not too far from the surface; and, if good, it is manifestly to be preferred to the other on many farms where hay is the chief crop. Wherever a fair profit can be got from corn, potatoes, roots, or other hoed crops, it would probably be best to interpolate such crops between the grass crops, according to the usual method, and thus charge the land with manure and bring it into a good state of fermentation; but it is none the less true, that the practices of most European countries where pastures and mowing fields are kept up for centuries, and are the more highly esteemed in proportion as they are older, go to show that rotation is in no wise essential for the successful cultivation of grass.

The partisans of the old method of seeding to grass after hoed erops, justly enough, urge the importance of bringing the land into an open, capillary condition. They insist on frequent ploughings as a preliminary to the seeding down of land, and there can be no question as to the benefits derivable from deep and thorough tillage in a climate so dry as ours. The power of tilling deeply and frequently is doubtless one of the merits of that system of seeding in which hoed crops precede the grass. But it is none the less plain, that the soil of many of the old European grass fields and pastures, on clay lands, for example, must be decidedly compact,—far more compact, indeed, than the soil would be after harrowing, and during the