LOWLAND PASTURES. 319 



healthful, fleshy, comfortable creatures, well cared for and fed, 

 or from poor, miserable, half famished, neglected specimens. 

 But this is a mistake. 



If our pastures are enriched by affording the requisite ele- 

 ments for an abundance of highly nutritive grass required for 

 the finest and highest development of our animals, a large pro- 

 portion of the excellence contained in the food supplied will be 

 found in the manure, and this must necessarily be of much 

 greater value than that can be from animals grazing upon neg- 

 lected pastures affording but a limited amount of that richness of 

 nourishment conducive to vigor and strength. How important, 

 then, in every point of view, that we turn our attention immedi- 

 ately to the renovation of our grazing lands, and adopt some 

 new and more successful methods of improvement, those hith- 

 erto practised having nearly exhausted and ruined all ; and 

 especially when we reflect that without flourishing, fertile pas- 

 turage our herds and flocks, of whatever blood, must inevitably 

 languish and cease to yield a profit, while our farms, in other 

 departments, must also deteriorate. 



Lowlands may require a different treatment from either of the 

 classes mentioned, but all have many demands in common. 

 Those in this class overgrown with moss, coarse grass, ferns and 

 and rushes, in root and in surface-soil most difficult of decom- 

 position by the usual methods, and having a cold, insoluble base 

 of clay, should be treated by a course of deep drainage, paring 

 and burning, thoroughly harrowing, lightly manuring, spreading 

 evenly the ashes over the surface, and seeding with those vari- 

 eties of grass most desirable. This course may be adopted with 

 the assurance of great success. * 



Ploughing and thorough cultivation, seeding in the usual 

 manner, may be attended by similar good results ; still I incline 

 to the adoption of drainage, paring and burning as offering the 

 best and most certain mode of subjugation of this variety, and 

 the entire destruction of the seeds and roots of every mischievous 

 growth by which it has been infested. 



On smooth lowlands, producing already the desirable varieties 

 of grass, some finely-prepared barnyard manure spread evenly 

 over the ground, or the occasional sowing of some fertilizing 

 agents recommended, will insure abundant and satisfactory 

 crops. To practise a system of the rotation of crops on some of 



