Cultivation of Graft Land.- Watered Meadows Advantages of. 447 



food at fuch times : after being flooded again in the latter end of April, they arc 

 (hut during the fummer for the hay crop. The after-grafs is eaten offin autumn with 

 cattle, it being confidered as very pernicious for fhcep to pafture on watered mea 

 dows. The SufTex Report records a remarkable inftance of its fatal effects ; 

 &quot; Eighty ewes, from Weyhill fair, were turned into fome fields adjoining a watered 

 meadow : a fcore of them broke into the meadow for a night, and were taken out in 

 the morning and kept till lambing ; they produced twenty-two lambs, all which 

 lived, but every one of the ewes died rotten before May-day. The remaining fixty 

 made themfelves fat, nor could a rotten fheep be difcovered aniongft them.&quot; 



That the grafs of watered meadows mould be f nourifhing to fhecp in the 

 fpring, and mould prove fo deftructive to them in the autumn, is not cafily ac 

 counted for; but the fact appears to be eftabliftied beyond doubt. Mr. Bofwell 

 advifes, that no fheep, except thofe that are juft fat, mould ever be fuffered, even 

 for an hour, in watered meadows, as they will infallibly rot them at any other feafon 

 than the fpring, efpecially if made from low, boggy, or fwampy ground : &quot; not 

 fo when made from dry healthy land.&quot; 



On farms where it is convenient to have three or four meadows that can be 

 watered, it will be found very advantageous ; as while cattle are eating the firft, the 

 fccond will be growing, the third draining, and the fourth under water.* 



In Wiltmire watered meadows are of confiderable ad vantage to the farmers, 

 as they afford an early fupply of grafs for the forward or early breed of lambs, on 

 which they begin to feed them about the middle of March, having previously with 

 drawn the v/ater from the meadows and laid them as dry as poiHble. On a good 

 crop of grafs of this kind five hundred couples may be fed for -one day on an acre. 

 The practice is to hurdle out, daily ; fuch a portion of the ground as is neceffary, leav 

 ing a few open fpaccs in the hurdles through which the lambs may feed forward on 

 the frefh grafs. The hours they arc fuffered to feed on this grafs are from about 

 ten o clock in the morning till five in the afternoon, when they are generally fold 

 ed on the contiguous barley fallows. 



This practice is fuppofed to have its advantages from its manuring a part of the 

 farm without having -recourfc to the dunghill, as well as in affording a very early 

 fupply of food for the fliecp at a feafon when green food is fcarce, and in being ul 

 timately ufeful to the other .{lock, affording much manure, and thereby enriching 



* Bofwc-H on Watered Meadows, 



