270 CLOSE FEEDING. 



" The next circumstance I would wish to note, is 

 that of close feeding. In the preceding trials 

 there was not, through the 30 weeks, scarcely a 

 bent to be seen ; the pasturage was constantly 

 shorn to the ground ; and in that state it was re- 

 markable to see how constantly, and even rapidly, 

 it sprung, during the continuance of a drought 

 that was destructive of all produce in fields on the 

 same farm, suffered to run to bent, for hay or other 

 views. The comparison was the most decisive that 

 can.be imagined. I had many fields,, better than 

 any here registered, that yielded so contemptible a 

 produce of hay, as to be scarcely worth mowing ; 

 and I was amazed to see in some of them how poor 

 the rouen or after-grass was, so that both united, or 

 the entire growth of at least 40 weeks, has amount- 

 ed not to the fourth of the value of the produce of 

 similar soils pared close by sheep. " A Roniney- 

 marsh grazier would be ruined if he had so much 

 grass on his land," says Mr. Boys, in his farming 

 tour, speaking of a field understocked *." " No- 

 thing so bad," says another, " in Romney-marsh, 

 as mowing, so that some landlords prohibit it." 

 Pliny knew this Est culm in primis inutile, nasci 

 her bus sementaturm^*. Of the facl, however, I 

 have not the least doubt, from various experiments 

 and observations, and there is no man but has re- 

 marked it in the case of ray-grass, the produce of 



* Annals, vol. xix. p. 118. See also Mr. Price's powerful 

 observations, in that Marsh. 



f PJin. Hist. Nat. lib, xviii, cap. 28. 



which 



