Management of Grass Land. 263 



cases, recommend that a trial should be made of each in adjoining 

 portions of the same field before either the one or fthe other be 

 largely employed. A great deal of useful information as to the 

 effects of these fertilizers will be found in Mr. Dixon's Prize 

 Essay [supra, p. 204), and I would call especial attention to 

 his remark (p. 213) that he has " found it the safest and soundest 

 economy to obtain the effect at once, and not by niggardly or 

 piecemeal applications." This more particularly applies to 

 those cases where the herbage is altogether of an inferior descrip- 

 tion, and where to produce a change of plant it is necessary to 

 make a much larger application than would be necessary where 

 the herbage is tolerably good, and the dressing is chiefly intended 

 to produce a good crop for one season. 



The last point to which I shall call attention is the improve- 

 ment of pastures, and there is scarcely a farm in the United 

 Kingdom on which this kind of improvement is not wanted. An 

 outlay in bones or lime of 4/. or 5/. per acre would convert a 

 large portion of our second-rate pastures into good feeding-land. 

 Every farmer knows the advantage of having some grass that will 

 fatten bullocks, arul if any is to be let there are always numerous 

 offers for it at a high rent. Then, would it not answer well to 

 occupiers to convert some of their moderate grass (rented, say at 

 30s. per acre) into land worth 3/. to 4/. per annum, by the outlav 

 of 4/. or 5/. per acre? That this is practicable, they can easily 

 convince themselves by an experiment or two on a small scale. 

 Let them, however, bear in mind Mr. Dixon's advice " to obtain 

 the effect at once, and not by niggardly or piecemeal applications.''^ 

 Let them also consider the alternative. If they leave their pas- 

 tures still in their unimproved state, they must continue, as at 

 present, to fatten their cattle in the winter at a great cost of 

 attendance and purchased food, or they must part with them in 

 autumn, when half-fat, at a great sacrifice, or keep them in a 

 straw-jard and lose what flesh they have picked up during the 

 summer. If a fair balance were struck between the cost per 

 stone of fat beef, when obtained in the one case by merely 

 turning a bullock into a pasture lean and taking him out fat, — and 

 on the other hand, by supplying him with artificial food, shelter, 

 and constant attendance for several months, — shrewd men like the 

 bulk of our tenant-farmers could hardly fail to be struck with the 

 great disparity, and the corresponding advantage they would 

 derive if they could from time to time convert a iew acres of 

 store pasture into feeding-land. The method of doing this 

 which I have observed to be most effective does not differ much 

 from that recommended for meadows : the great difference in the 

 two cases being that, whereas guano, nitrate of soda, and other 

 top-dressings which are of easy solubility, produce on a meadow 



