Cultivation of Pastdbji: Land. — The softson reminds us of the necessity of saying a word 

 for the mtieh neglected grass land. 'I'lie majority of parties, -who take the utmost pains with 

 their tilla<2;e, seem to think that their o'rass is a ditierent matter, and that it may very well 

 take care of itself. Nor is it often beUer treated when first laid down. Land is by far too fre- 

 quently first-cropped as long as it will produce seed again, and then laid down to become per- 

 manent pasture. Great credit is takeo \i the laud is made summer-fallow before the close of 

 the corn-cropping; but too often -i fallow crop is also taken, to protect the seeds, for fear they 

 should grow too luxuriantly. 



Others take greater care. They grow no crop of corn ; they pay a high price for well selected 

 and carefully grown grass-seeds, and, possibly, they sow' the land in fine mechanical condition; still 

 they are sometimes drsappointed, and blame 1 he seedsman if they do not find his finer grasses grow as 

 plentifully or luxurantly as they could wish. The fact is, they wonder ought to be that any should 

 grow at all. 



Sometimes grass land is taken out, to improve and lay down again to pasture. But the process 

 adopted is one of depletion, and not of nutrUion. They crop away with corn so long as crops are 

 obtainable, and then take great credit if ihe land gets a dose of lime when it is laid down to grass. 

 And oftener the grass, after the haprovcneni, is worse than that which preceded — carries less stock, 

 and maintains them in a manner far inferior to what it did before. 



The old grass land of the farm is sehloin :iyte<l fairly by. It must give up all, and receive nothing 

 in return. If it is mown, a little rotten eiiaif, or waste scrapings, is a liberal allowance. If 

 not, it is considered that no manure is mcossary. Though milking cattle and store stock are 

 depastured upon it, and eorry all off year .ifier year, no addition of manure of any value is made to 

 the soil for this serious abstraction. In rich alluvial feeding pastures it is imnecessary, but where 

 store cattle of any kind are depastured, the hiud must inevitably deteriorate. 



To beo-in with the. beginning, land to lay down with grass should be as carefully prepared as for 

 any othe°r green crop; the one being permanent,, however, and the other only temporary, the greater 

 care should be taken of the preparation; tliis is oi more consequence than seeds. There are always 

 natural grass-seeds in eveiy soil, lying ready for germination and growth as soon as the manurial or 

 feeding elements of the soil are ready for their development. On this principle it is that a dressing 

 of mountain lime will bring into action seeds of white clover where a white clover plant was never 

 known to have existed before. So on a very rich stubble, on almost any soil, there will be found 

 the finest "-rasses growing in rich luxurianee, after the corn crop is taken off, without a single seed 

 being sown. In like manner, one year wiil bring a vast smother of trefoil on land where none 

 was ever sown. 



Hence to be rich— to have abundance of phosphoric acid in a free state— to have a full supply 

 of aramo'niacal matter, are of more importance tiian being particular to a shade in the selection of 

 o-rasses It is only a question of time. If the land be rich and fertile, there will be found a 

 |rowth of the finest grasses which are adapted tc the soil, and these will soon eat out those which 

 are more or less unsuitable. 



So in improving' pasture ; it is not always necessary to take it out into tillage. If hide-bound, a 

 good heavy loamino-, a few fresh seeds, and a compost dressing will soon recover it. If mossy, the 

 moss will soon disappear before good cultivation. It is Nature's covering for land too poor to grow 

 ..rass; and on stone walls, rocks, and similar places, the moss appears for simply the same reason— 

 ft is a covering preparatory to the production of more nutrient materiaL 



Rushes and° similar, plants, due to the prevalence of stagnant water, are to be disposed of in 

 another way, namely, by proper and efficient drainage. 



some two-and-a-halt menes tnicK, ana so piaceu upon it, ... a ^o.. ^^. ^^^^^^.^^ 

 acre, including cartage; this has been slightly manui-ed and well ro led, an advantage to the turf, 

 and a rapid accesssion of permanent grass pasture to the arable T^iis is a mode far preferable to 

 that of inoculation. Grass will be had at a nuich ea.lier period, and, if well followed up by dress- 

 incrs of manure, it will soon become a pasture as permanent in appearance as if it had been lying 

 in^'that state for ages. In fact, it will have acquired the age of its surface. 



For grass-land, it is not always necessary to apply farm-yard manure Guano wdl have the 

 most powerful and speedy effects on a pasture, if applied before rain If that does not pretty 

 rapidly follow, there will be great loss by the application. Bones produce a wonderful efi-ect on 

 the Cheshire pasture-denuded of their phosphorus by the cheese sol^ away from the farms, which 

 it so supplies but the majority of clay'grass-lHn<is will require the bones to be dissolved before 

 any 3 striking effect cL be produced. The light land grass-the grea est difficulty of al^ 

 which the Scotchman would say ought always to be converted into arable, and only allowed to lay 

 down for two or three years-may be dressed with a compost of clay and dissolved bones with the 

 Se t adTrntacre. If the house bones of n.ost of our farmers were from time to time to be put 

 L an earthlnwa^e iar half full of sulphuric acid, and this poured from time to time on a heap of 

 day? a vlst quantity of the most valuable manure would be made from materials at present wasted. 

 — London Magazine. 



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