ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 211 



the other day, that grass land, laid away with all the care and 

 all the science he could muster, was yet inferior to grass land 

 sown with what ? with the hay-seeds of the district got up 

 out of the hay-loft. I would not like to teach that such 

 a system is the right one for laying land down to grass. It 

 is unscientific. But when we purchase grass seed from an 

 eminent firm we must remember that they may be pure, and 

 they may be the right species, but they are not acclimatized 

 to our district, and there are such numberless small and 

 imperceptible differences in vegetation that there may be 

 just that sufficient difference, owing to climatic causes, or 

 owing to soil, why these expensive seeds disappoint us. 

 Such a result is just possible ; whereas we go to the hay-loft, 

 and pick up the seeds which have been shot out of good hay 

 mind, really good hay, and that seed is grown in our own 

 district ; it contains a very large number of species, and it 

 contains the species which the law of the survival of the 

 fittest has proved to be fitting to our particular soil. Hence 

 we see that from a scientific point of view there may be 

 something in the sowing of the hay-seeds of the district, or 

 even from a hay-loft, in preference to the sowing of expensive 

 seeds ordered from seedsmen, and which may possibly have 

 been grown out of England altogether. Not that I defend 

 the system of sowing hay-seeds, because I think that it has 

 its disadvantages also, but I think we ought to hold our 

 theories and our scientific knowledge not too tightly with 

 reference to a practical point of this kind. We must be open 

 to conviction, and not make ourselves appear foolish before 

 practical men by forcing ideas down their throats which they 

 know by long experience are not according to fact. 



Time is a most important element in the proper making of 

 a permanent pasture. We must not forget the old adage 

 that " to make a pasture will break a man. " The converse 



in the old adage is worthy of notice, because it depends on 



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