62 A FARMER'S YEAR 



the grass, making patches of green carpeting, a very unusual 

 thing at this time of year. I am glad to see it there, however, 

 for this pasture has now reached the critical period, about its 

 fifth year, when the young clovers and finer grasses are only too 

 apt to die out. I have already made some remarks as to the 

 laying down of pastures, and now I would add to them a question 

 to those who argue that these cannot be successfully established 

 upon such lands as are generally supposed to be unsuitable to 

 them. How is it, then, that even on most of these soils the 

 banksides or ditches bordering the head-lands are good sound 

 turf, not black grass, or water-grass, or twitch, but herbage such 

 as a beast can fatten on ? Doubtless the grasses going to form 

 that herbage are those natural to the neighbourhood, and I 

 believe that in almost every case, if a botanist could be found to 

 classify them and to estimate even roughly in what proportions 

 they occur, the difficulty of laying down grasses which would 

 prove quick to establish themselves as permanent would be very 

 much lessened. 



In a paper written by one of the most esteemed of our 

 Norfolk farmers, Mr. Clare Sewell Read, I read recently that when 

 he was a lad he remembers pastures being very successfully 

 established on light land by a system of inoculation, that is, 

 by cutting turf from the roadside or other waste places, and 

 planting it in lumps over the surface of a field, leaving spaces of 

 bare soil between the lumps. Across these spaces the grass spread 

 quickly, till in a few years it formed a compact turf, the trouble 

 being to prevent the rooks and other birds from pulling up the 

 planted squares before they had time to get hold. I can well 

 believe that this plan is an excellent one, although too slow, 

 perhaps, for our modern habits. Anyone who has observed such 

 matters will be aware how quickly growing things spread in soil 

 that is suitable to them. Thus I am certain that were it left 

 uncultivated much of the land in England would become dense 

 thorn scrub within a single generation. 



Indeed, I have seen the process going on in a neglected 



