248 On the Majiurivg of Grass Land. 



thickness. This trefoil evidently sprang up from seeds which must have laid 

 dormant in tlie ground until this new fertilizer was applied. 



" My experience, however, in the use of tank liquor as a dressing for grass-land 

 •resulted in the discovery that bj^ its exclusive application in successive years 

 a very strong grass was produced, which appeared to destroy by its rankness 

 the white clover and all the finer and more delicate kmd of gi-asses ; whilst a 

 return to the use of farmyard manure, as a change, restored all the various 

 kinds which had usually grown before. The system I ultimately adopted, and 

 which I found to act most beneficially, was to give alternate dressings with 

 liqu'or and yard manure, and my crops of hay were ahvays abundant, and con- 

 tained all the ordinary grasses in rich proportions." 



I am Indebted to Mr. Byvvater for the knowledge of another 

 instance of one-sided manuring- which illustrates the position 

 above taken, but in which part of the ordinary produce was so 

 stimulated as to take exclusive possession of the land to the 

 destruction of the rest. 



A field in the neighbourhood of Leeds received repeated and 

 heavy dressings of the alkaline salts extracted from the clinkers 

 of furnaces, and the result was that certain of the stronger and 

 coarser grasses were pushed to an enormous growth, so as almost 

 to resemble reeds, while the finer grasses disappeared. 



These two instances suggest the impropriety of dressing grass 

 continuously with any manure which docs not contain all the 

 elements of plant food, and indicate the wisdom of varying the 

 application from year to year when persons use (as they wisely 

 may do) manures which contain an excess of particular elements 

 of fertility and a defect of others. Tlie cow-water should not be 

 rejected because it wrought such an alteration, but should be 

 regarded as a one-sided application which the next year's dress- 

 ing was to balance. In like manner the alkaline salts need not 

 to be rejected, but should be resorted to at intervals only ; the 

 excess or defect of each year being subsequently compensated, 

 and the land being kept in the same condition as if it wei'e 

 possible to give it annually a complete supply of the substances 

 which enable it to yield a maximum of the best produce. 



The omission of Seicac/e would render this paper culpably 

 Incomplete, and yet tlie application of sewage even to grass 

 must ever be limited. The excessive quantity of water which 

 must be put on in order to obtain suflScient fertilizing matter is 

 so large, that t'.ie prudent and profitable application {ippears to 

 me to be restricted to localities w here It can be got on tiie land 

 by the force of gravity, and where the soil is so porous and 

 sloping as to allow a rapid removal of the excess of water. 

 Moreover the grass grown by sewage requires to be frequently 

 mown to prevent rotting, and therefore soiling seems the correla- 

 tive of sewage manuring. That soiling will pay on a large scale, 

 except for the production of milk and butter remains to be 



