264 Management of Gi'ass Land. 



a rapid effect, but are not permanent because by mowing- you 

 take the whole produce from the land — the same applications ta 

 pastures have a much more lasting effect, because the increased 

 number of stock that they will carry leave a corresponding- 

 amount of droppings, both solid and liquid ; and if the system 

 of collecting- compost recommended in the early part of this 

 paper be adopted, these temporary applications will be found to 

 produce a lasting benefit. It must not be forgotten that if a 

 poor pasture be thoroughly bad, a great effort must be made 

 entirely to change its character ; and for this purpose, in the 

 absence of farm-yard manure, nothing but a liberal application of 

 substances which are slowly soluble, such as bones, lime, marl, 

 &c., will produce any sufficiently decided and sufficiently per- 

 manent effect. If, however, a field merely appears stunted in 

 its herbage, producing no quantity of grass, a dressing of the 

 mixture of guano and nitrate of soda above mentioned will often 

 produce a striking efiect, doubling the quantity of stock that it 

 will carry the very first season. On the other hand, should the 

 land bear coarse strong herbage, Avhich cattle reject, a dressing- 

 of compost containing a (ew bushels of bones per acre — espe- 

 cially if well soaked with liquid manure from a cattle-yard — will 

 bring clover and fine herbage, and make the cattle graze it to 

 the very roots of the grass. 



In conclusion, I would state my decided conviction, the result 

 of twenty years' experience, that money judiciously laid out in 

 the improvement of grass-land brings in a more certain return 

 than when expended in the growth of corn. It is not, as in that 

 case, liable to great injury from an unfavourable seed-time, from 

 severe winters, from wet harvests, and the various minor visita- 

 tions to which grain-crops are subject ; and if in a very growing 

 season more grass is produced than the cattle can consume, it is 

 always possible to convert it into an additional haystack — a piece 

 of furniture which, however bulky, is never found to incommode 

 the cattle in their winter-quarters. 



Jvirhi/ Hall, Jiihj, 1858. 



