The Improvement of Pasture Land in Wales 



33 



lands, that will effect so great and desirable 

 an obj ect. Very many of our farmers already 

 have more stock than they can well support. 

 When we take into consideration the steady 

 increase of the population of the United King- 

 dom, at the rate of a-quarter of a million an- 

 nually, and the flourishing state ot trade, 

 manufactures, and commerce, enabling our 

 artizans and workmen to pay for meat, 

 it may rise still higher in price, and that 

 would not be well even for the farmer. 

 Should not these considerations, seeing that 

 we are farming a part of the kingdom where 

 the climate and soil are naturally and pecu- 

 liarly adapted to the growth of grass, and 

 decidedly inferior for the production of corn, 

 induce us to give our best attention to the 

 extending and improving our pastures and 

 meadows? But so far from this being the 

 case, do not most of our farmers devote 

 their chief attention to their arable land, 

 carrying it to their farm-yard dung, and arti- 

 ficial manures for the wheat and root crops, 

 to be again followed by corn, which on this 

 western coast should only be grown as an 

 alternate crop, while their grass lands receive 

 little else than an occasional application of 

 lime and earth ? I would just here remark, 

 in passing, that if on an average one-third 

 only of our land was arable and cultivated 

 on the four-course, or any other alternate 

 system, we should be able to produce more 

 and better corn than we do at the present 

 time. 



THE DRAINAGE OF PASTURE LAND. 



Now, as to the improvement of our existing 

 grass lands. I need hardly say that if the 

 land is wet, the first step is efficient draining, 

 for litde or no improvement can be effected 

 without it. Draining being a very expensive 

 operation, it should not be commenced until 

 the land has been well examined and the 

 cause of its wetness thoroughly investigated ; 

 as there are cases in which a considerable 

 surface may be made dry by, perhaps, a 

 single drain, and so save a considerable out- 

 lay. The wetness may arise from a spring 

 on higher land that rarely gives an indication 

 of its position on the surface, and if that 



VOL. IX, 



spring can be tapped by cutting a drain into 

 it, the water may be led away to the outfall 

 by a single drain. Such springs usually shew 

 themselves after long continued rain or the 

 breaking up of a heavy frost, and by, at such 

 times, marking the place or places where the 

 water breaks out, may afterwards be cut down 

 into. In one instance, I have by a single 

 drain dried the side of a hill, and led the 

 water a considerable distance down to a pond 

 near the farm-yard for the benefit of the ducks 

 and geese ; and in another (where a consider- 

 able surface was wetted) to a place where I 

 can divert it from going to the outfall, to irri- 

 gate about 3 acres of pasture. It is, I am 

 satisfied, of no use to attempt the draining 

 of pure bog or peat land without cutting 

 through the peat down i foot at least into 

 the clay or sandy clay always found under- 

 neath, and which forms an impervious basin, 

 by the existence of which the bog has been 

 formed. If the peat is not more than 5 

 or 6 feet thick in the deepest places, and 

 an outfall can be found, and if the quality 

 of the peat is such as to have a tolerably 

 good turf on the surface, it may pay well 

 for draining. As an experiment, I drained 

 about 5 acres of such peat, which I should 

 state, had been attempted to be drained some 

 years before with pipes laid in the peat, 

 which proved a failure, most of the drains 

 having filled up. The drains I had cut 4 

 feet deep, and went i foot or more into 

 the sandy clay, except in a few places 

 where I had to go deeper. Over the pipes 

 which were placed at the bottom of the drains, 

 I foot of well-broken stones was filled in, and 

 on the top of the stones was placed the sur- 

 face sod reversed to keep out the peat soil 

 with which the drains were filled up. I then 

 gave the field a dressing of lime mixed with 

 the sandy clay left from the drains, and bush- 

 harrowed in such grass seeds as I considered 

 suitable to the soil. These drains were cut 

 in parallel lines down the slope of the field, 

 and the quantity of water carried off is very 

 large. This draining was done in the winter, 

 and the following summer (which was last 

 summer), I found the grass seeds coming a 

 good plant, and appeared likely to establish 



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