Management of Grass Land. 251 



Who can say, in 1858, that he has done more? How many can 

 claim to have done as ?7iuch? Doubtless bogs have been drained, 

 mountains and moors cleared of rocks and rubbish, and many 

 thousands of acres made to grow grass where none, or next to 

 none, grew before ; but, taking the great body of the grass-land of 

 the kingdom, is it not notorious that farmers — good farmers — 

 men of capital and intelligence, do, for the most part, look at 

 their grass-land as a kind of fixture, almost as much so, in fact, 

 as the rooms of their houses ? There is a parlour here and a 

 kitchen there, and no one would think of letting one encroach, 

 on the other ; so there is a feeding pasture here and inferior 

 grass-land there, and as such they are allowed to remain ; and 

 if these lands are not ploughed out or permitted sensibly to 

 deteriorate, this is considered quite good enough management 

 for the grass, even on a farm where the tenant is introducing 

 the most enlightened and excellent management into the cultiva- 

 tion of his turnips and his corn. 



Such general results must spring from equally general causes, 

 and we believe one of the most influential reasons to be, that the 

 returns from capital laid out in the improvement of grass-land do 

 not come so directly into the pocket as those from corn, and are 

 apt, therefore, to be underrated or lost sight of. Fev/ farmers sell 

 hay, and if, b}' more liberal treatment of their meadow land, the 

 Lay-stack increases in size so as to effect a saving in horse-corn 

 and bring the store cattle into the pastures in spring in a more 

 healthy and thriving state ; or if the improvement made in a 

 poor pasture enable the occupier to rear more young stock 

 and in better condition ; still the return on the outlay is mixed 

 up with other questions, such as the market price of lean and 

 fat stock at the times of sale and purchase, and it becomes 

 extremely difficult to separate it from the general profit and loss 

 account of the whole farm. In short, the farmer does not put 

 the money derived from the improvement of his grass-land 

 directly into his pocket, and he is, therefore, not very sure 

 ■whether what he lays out in this waj ever finds its way back or 

 not. The result of a doubt on such a question it is not difficult 

 to foresee ; — so the grass-land has to content itself with what the 

 half-starved cattle are compelled to leave behind them, added to 

 a liberal allowance of atmospheric advantages, and its continued 

 poverty is a standing proof that these resources are not of the 

 richest, and will not bring us any nearer to the tico blades of 

 grass. 



The time, however, has undoubtedly arrived when the rapid 

 increase of our population, and their greater command over the 

 comforts of life, have created an effective demand for so much 

 larger a supply of well-fed meat, as well as of more perishable 



