254 Management of Grass Land. 



the pasture looked decidedly worse at the end of it than it had 

 done yet. The finer grasses were getting scarcer, instead of in- 

 creasing, and the white clover, though it did not immediately 

 disappear, looked small and stunted. By close observation I 

 became satisfied that the constant cropping of the sheep had a 

 very prejudicial effect on all the finer grasses, and that those only 

 which they partially rejected could make head against this 

 repeated gnawing into the quick. I have been thus particular 

 in describing the result of this experiment, because it gave me 

 the clue by which I was able to interpret several previous in- 

 stances of failure or very doubtful success, and has been of 

 great benefit to me in subsequent years. 



Tills was a singular but well marked case, in which there 

 could scarcely be any mistake. The land was of more than 

 average quality ; the seeds came up well, and during the first 

 season were strikingly luxuriant, whilst the subsequent treat- 

 ment was such as to supply the land with an unusual jv large 

 amount of fertilizing matter of the richest kind : nothing, in short, 

 was wanting but success ! Yet the failure was so marked, that 

 the most careless farmer could scarcely have avoided pondering 

 over it and trying to discover a solution of the riddle. I was 

 slow, indeed, to give up my perfect confidence in the fertilizing 

 tread of the sheep ; but after the failure of repeated endeavours 

 to find any other sufficient cause, I was reluctantly brought to the 

 conviction that amongst young grasses the gnawing tooth was 

 more than a match for the golden foot. Nothing, in fact, but the 

 repeated cropping could explain the gradual but steady dwindling 

 of the clovers and finest grasses, notwithstanding the uniform con- 

 sumption over the land of such an amount of linseed-cake as would, 

 if applied in the usual mode to any ordinary grass-land, have pro- 

 duced a luxuriant development of all the best fodder-plants. Fol- 

 lowing up this idea, I became satisfied that to graze sheep on 

 young seeds intended for permanent pasture was a mistake, and 

 that in all probability it had been the c.iuse of several previous 

 failures 1 had experienced. Up to that time I had never suc- 

 ceeded to my own satisfaction in laying down land to grass ; but 

 since making a rule rigidly to exclude sheep for some years 

 from newly-laid grass during the season of active growth, I 

 have never had a failure, though I have twice had occasion, for 

 local reasons, to lay down fields of which the soil was strong 

 clay. The method which I have found to answer best has been 

 to sow a liberal allowance of the hay-seeds of the district, 

 with a sprinkling of cow-grass and white clover; to sow them 

 with a crop of wheat (one of the short-strawed varieties) ; to mow 

 the first year, and as soon as the hay is removed, to give a good 

 dressing of farmyard-manure, and then for some years pasture it 



