Oil the Manurinc) of Grass Land. 247 



according to circumstances ; thus a poor upland, consistino; for the ir.ost part 

 of Uprigiit Bromc-grass, False Brome-grass, and Crested Dogstail, will sud- 

 denly change by merely folding sheep on -a portion from day to day; and 

 those very grasses will die out before the advance of Perennial Eye Grass, 

 Cocksfoot, and Meadow Grass. The truth is, these better grasses suitable to 

 an improved soil are all of them more perennial in their nature and habits, 

 and are kept so because cattle continually crop them down, whereas poor 

 grasses are refused by cattle, they seed without interruption, and then, having 

 performed the important function of reproduction they die out, and the decay- 

 ing roots, on the approach of damp and fogs become the nidus of funguses. 



" If from poverty of soil, too frequent haymaking, &c., this dying out of 

 the grasses and consequent encouragement of funguses be observed, it is 

 obvious that liberal treatment wWi soon effect a cure. On the rich pasture 

 Imds of Cheshire funguses were most abundant, but how rapidly have we seen 

 them dispelled before a compost of bones, ashes, and refuse, especially refuse 

 from old buildings !" [which jirobably contained nitrate of lime]. 



" Again on the forest marble clays of Gloucestershire, we have seen a slight 

 dressing of guano increase the crop of grass but ruin the funguses for some 

 years, so as to encourage haj'making where it was scarcely before thought of. 

 But tliis latter fact only proved more strongly the truth of the theory we are 

 advocating, as two years' haymaking [without adequate manuring of course] 

 has brought the i)asture to its former poverty, and the funguses to their pre- 

 vious luxuriance." 



This, beinnr interpreted, sisjnifies that we have grass-land poor 

 from bad treatment, as most of the grass of England now is : 

 that by better treatment we may make an enormous improve- 

 ment, giving a large present profit, and which a course of judi- 

 cious management will render permanent : that by neglect we 

 may speedily bring back the condition of things, which pre- 

 vious manuring had altered for the better, and so prove the truth 

 which so many other passages of agricultural life will illustrate 

 and confirm, '"''there is that icitJiJiuldeth more than is vieet, and it 

 tendeth to poverty." 



CUANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF PRODUCE BY THE APPLICATION 



OF Manure, 



An instructive illustration of this occurred on the farm of 

 Mr. J, R. Byvvater, Middleton Grange, near Leeds. That 

 gentleman kept a dairy of from twenty-five to thirty-five milch 

 cows, and carefully drained his cow-houses and dung-heaps into 

 water-tiglit tanks, and he thus describes his experience of the 

 effects of dressing grass with the liquid. 



" I collected the cow-water, with the diainincs from the manure deposits, in 

 a tank, and caused this fluid to be spread upon the grass-land alternately, say 

 to the extent of about thirty acres annually. The first and second dressings 

 produced immense crops of the ordinary kind of grasses to be found in our 

 locality, and one field in particular (after the second dressing), which had been 

 under the plough and had been laid down to grass six or seven years before I 

 commenced the use of the liquor, produced so much trefoil as was equal in 

 appearance to five-sixths of the whole crop, which was of great length and 



