SUMMER AND WINTER FEEDING OF CATTLE. 55 



is to drain it. But when drained it wants improving : the 

 aqueous grasses which grew before must die out, and be sup- 

 planted by others which are suitable to the altered physical 

 condition of the soil. 



To promote the growth of these better grasses, a dressing 

 of 5 or 6 cwts. of superphosphate of lime is to be recom- 

 mended. Such a dressing, indeed, will often cause a trans- 

 formation scene to occur in the character of the herbage, 

 rendering it sweet where it was sour before, filling it with white 

 clover where none was previously seen, and making it attractive 

 where erst it was repellent. The coarse, sour grasses die out ? 

 the rushes and sedges vanish, and the new herbage consists of 

 a variety of gramineous and leguminous plants, all of them 

 nutritious, and sweet to the taste of the cows. They will eat 

 off such herbage as bare as a lawn ; and they always do best 

 on food which they like. Those only are profitable pastures 

 which cattle eat up with a relish. 



Land in good condition has longer seasons than poor 

 land : the grass upon it grows earlier, and later too, in the 

 season. It is not easy to keep the grass from running ahead 

 of the stock which the farm is calculated to carry in summer 

 and autumn alike ; but if it does run ahead, there will be 

 plenty of meat for the autumn. The difficulty is to keep 

 the grass under, during the period of most vigorous growth, 

 in May and June, in order to prevent rankness and coarse- 

 ness, and the only thing to do is to turn out early enough 

 upon it. But with poor land the thing is to turn out upon it 

 late enough, and to give it a good start, or else it will be bare 

 all the summer. In a very grassy season, when the cattle can- 

 not keep the pastures at all reasonably down, a field or two 

 may be shut up for mowing ; in this way the store of hay is 

 increased, and a light dressing of superphosphate in the 

 following spring will recompense the soil for the crop mown 

 off it. 



Young grass is always more easy of digestion than old grass, 

 and much more easy than hay. And when the summer mellows 

 into autumn the grass of the pastures begins to diminish in 



