i 3 8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



are by no means equally good, adjoining fields, in some places, 

 showing extraordinary differences in feeding value. Land is 

 often found surrounding the most valuable fattening fields 

 which can only be used for breeding upon or that will just 

 keep sheep growing. The two types of land are referred to 

 as " fatting" and "non-fatting" pastures; the immediate object 

 of the work undertaken by Hall and Russell was to discover 

 the causes underlying the remarkable differences they exhibit. 



Samples of the grass were obtained, at various centres, at 

 different times of the year, from fields representative of both 

 fatting and non-fatting pastures ; these were examined botanic- 

 ally and chemically. Samples of each foot of soil down to the 

 water level (usually about, eight feet) were also taken and sub- 

 mitted to mechanical and chemical analysis ; moreover borings 

 were made to determine the water content of the soil at various 

 depths at different seasons, and during 1909 and 1910 regular 

 observations were made of the water level in the fields and of 

 the temperature at twelve feet and six feet below the surface. 

 By these means it was hoped to detect differences which might 

 lead to an explanation of the obvious differences in feeding 

 value between the two types of pasture. 



The investigation of the botanical composition of the herbage 

 from the various fields showed that the most abundant grass was 

 Lolium perenne, which formed from one-third to four-fifths of 

 the total herbage on all the pastures ; Agrostis alba and vulgaris 

 were regular constituents up to 20 per cent. ; there was also 

 a fair proportion of white clover, though this is not evident 

 in the analyses, owing to the creeping habit of the plant, which 

 made it difficult to include it in the cut samples. The floral 

 type was on the whole remarkably similar in fatting and non- 

 fatting fields. No differences were brought to light by the 

 analyses which could at all account for the higher feeding value 

 of fatting fields. 



There were, however, certain differences in the herbage 

 evident to the eye which were not brought out by the botanical 

 analyses. On the good land, the growth of grass was essentially 

 leafy and covered the ground much more effectively than on the 

 inferior land, where a marked tendency to the production of a 

 stemmy herbage with abundant flower-heads was noticeable. 

 This was seen very remarkably in one case, a non-fatting field 

 being covered with the yellow blossoms of buttercups when the 



