On the Manuring of Grass Land. 219 



XI. — On the Manuring of Grass-Land. By the 

 Rev. W. il. BowDiTCH. 



STi\TISTlCS would be out of place in an article on the manuring 

 of grass, and if they were not, the difficulty of arriving at trust- 

 worthy conclusions is so great, that I should leave to others the 

 task of determining how much land is in grass, and wliat portion 

 should be assigned to each of the classes into which it is di- 

 visible. 



Mr. Caird, however, has put the matter so as to show the 

 overwhelming iinportance of grass to the national agriculture, ^nd 

 I shall content myself with his statement to show the claim which 

 the manuring of grass has upon landowners and farmers, and 

 therefore upon the country at large. We cannot too often insist 

 upon the general as well as the sjiecial interests connected with 

 agriculture, because our town populations are not sufficiently 

 aware that a nation's prosperity varies directly as its agriculture, 

 and that England is pre-eminent in other respects greatly because 

 it is pre-eminent, area for area, in the production of food for man 

 and beast. 



According to Mr. Caird, it appears that while France has 53 

 per cent, of its cultivated land under corn, England has but 25 per 

 cent. ; but in grass and meadow, the natural food of live-stock, 

 England has 50 per cent, and France only 22, Notwithstanding 

 this enormous difference, England grows 5J bushels of wheat to 

 each person, and France 5i bushels. 



Every acre of corn-land in England receives, on the average, 

 the manure produced from three acres of grass (such are the rela- 

 tive proportions of land in grass and corn), while in France the 

 manure from each acre of grass must be spread over 2^ acres of 

 corn-land. Or, to give a more definite view of the different 

 systems, while that of England affords from its grass-lands 

 the equivalent of nine loads of manure to enrich each acre of 

 corn, that of France yields little more than one load to each 

 acre. 



This shows the relative proportion of grass (I Avould not be 

 understood as producing it for any other purpose), and unfortu- 

 nately it shows also the popular sentiment and practice with 

 reference to grass. The pastures and meadows of the country 

 are regarded as legitimate sources of plunder to the cultivator, 

 who lavishes the spoils upon his petted tillage lands. This should 

 not be. It is bad for the landowner, because it renders half his 

 land worth very much less than it ought to be and easily might 

 be ; it is bad for the farmer, because it saddles him with a large 



