CHANGES IN TREATMENT UNDESIRABLE 171 



herbage. The photograph, Fig. 22, shows the present state of 

 the turf. 



It should be remembered that no new seed of any kind has 

 been sown on the plots ; the increase in the amount of clover 

 and other leguminous plants is therefore due either to spreading 

 from occasional stunted plants which were hardly perceptible 

 in the herbage before, or to the blowing on of seeds which 

 find after the change a congenial soil for their development. 

 Immediately after the change the crop falls off, and only 

 reaches a new constant level when the redistribution of the 

 species occupying the ground has taken full effect. After 

 the change in the manuring the herbage is not suited to 

 the new conditions ; at first the particular species favoured 

 by the manure are not prominent, and it is only when they 

 bulk largely in the herbage that the new manure can show its 

 full effect. Hence it would seem desirable in manuring grass 

 land to keep to the same kind of manure year after year, 

 so as to produce herbage which will get the maximum effect 

 out of the particular manure that is used. Again, if land 

 is grazed one year and laid up for hay the next, the grasses 

 which were at first favoured by the grazing will be dis- 

 couraged during the growth of the hay crop : a better result 

 will probably be attained by always grazing or always haying 

 the same piece of land, so that there is present at the beginning 

 of any season the special class of herbage which has been 

 stimulated by the same conditions previously, and is therefore 

 likely to give the best return. 



The changes which manuring can produce in the composi- 

 tion of the herbage is perhaps best seen in Table LXIL, where 

 the complete separations of the herbage in the years 1862, 

 1867, 1872, 1877, 1903, and 1914 are summarised for the 

 more abundant species. Figs. 32-40, again, show in a graphic 

 form the distribution on certain selected plots of these more 

 important species. 



