100 ON THE MANAGEMENT OF GRASS LANDS IN ENGLAND. 



lands; some, however, use considerable quantities of cotton and 

 rape cake. This tends to considerably improve the pastures, 

 at the same time it enables the farmer to make a greater quantity 

 of meat per acre. In these times of high prices of meat, the 

 farmer cannot err by using large quantities of artificial foods. 

 The great bane of the English grazier is the heavy losses he 

 sustains from diseases which prostrate and destroy his stock. 

 During the present autumn I have seen cattle fit for the butcher, 

 attacked by foot and mouth disease, decrease L.3 per head in 

 value during the short period of a fortnight ; and it is impossible 

 that they can recover their former stage at gTass this season, 

 the country calls urgently for more stringent regulations as to 

 the removal of cattle. Experienced graziers are first-rate judges 

 of a lean beast. They carefully select and purchase then- own 

 stock. Some of the large graziers attend the London market 

 weekly from June to Christmas, and sell their own cattle ; 

 others intrust them to the hands of salesmen. The money is all 

 paid through bankers, and the farmer always receives his returns 

 by the following morning's post. On the best land a sheep to 

 the acre is generally wintered. These are mostly lean yearling 

 wethers, purchased about the beginning of November. Most 

 farmers give h lb. per day of Imseed or cotton cake from the first 

 of January. They are shorn and sold oft' to the butcher by May- 

 day, and generally leave one pound a-head for the six months' 

 keep. We may mention some of the best gi-azing lands with which 

 we are acquainted in the Midland Counties : — Buckinghamshire, 

 Creslow, on the upper oolite, and its junction with the green 

 sand ; Warwickshire, Wormleighton on the lias ; Northampton, 

 Eaxton, Cottesbrook, and Clipstone on the lower oolite ; Leices- 

 tershire, Kibworth, and Lutterworth on the lias, and Market Har- 

 borough on the lower oolite. The most productive pastures with 

 which we are acquainted are to be found on the deep alluvial 

 loams of the valley of the Dove, the Derwent, and the Trent, in 

 Derbyshire. The soil is a mixture of various materials derived 

 from the abrasion of the trap, mountain limestone, millstone 

 giit, and other formations. These materials have been washed 

 down by the floods of centuries, and are yearly fertilised by new 

 deposits. The soil varies from two to six feet in depth. The 

 quantity of gi-ass some of the best fields produced is immense. 

 Only lately we valued some of this land for rental — one field 

 we put at L.6, and others at L.3 per acre. The principal grasses 

 are Alojjecurus pratensis, meadow foxtail ; Poa trivialis, rough 

 stalked meadow grass ; and Dadylis glomeraia, rough cocksfoot. 

 This soil is best adapted for dairy purposes. The quantity of 

 milk it produces is enormous. Some of the best fields are used 

 for fattening cows or heifers. These get fat upon it, yet the 

 pastures ai-e weak compared to those of the oolite or lias series, 



