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.