MANAGEMENT OF GRASS LANDS. 355 



The stock maintained per acre on the best grazing lands, surpasses what 

 could be fed by any arable produce. It is not at all uncommon to feed, at the 

 rate of from six to seven sheep (24 pounds a quarter) in summer; and about 

 two sheep in winter. Thus a considerable quantity of meat will be produced, 

 besides above fort}' pounds of wool. Such lands, it is evident, cannot be better 

 employed than in feeding stock. 



Grass lands of the first and second kinds, the tenacious clays and heavy loams, 

 when brought, in a succession of years, or perhaps of ages, into a state of great 

 productiveness, cannot be ploughed, without the risk of great injury, and are 

 more profitable in the productions of herbage, than they could be in the pro- 

 duction of grain. 



Lands of the third kind, or the deep-soiled vale lands, would be productive of 

 grain if ploughed; but would probably be injured by cultivation; from their 

 texture being altered and rendered unduly loose and open by tillage; from the 

 native plants being more or less destroyed or enfeebled; and from the great 

 decomposition, and waste of the principles of fertility resident in the soil. 



The extent of these three descriptions of lands, however, is not so great that 

 the advantages of breaking them up could probably ever be a national object, 

 or worth the risk of injuring their future productiveness in grass. But there 

 are grazing lands of an inferior sort, which are too apt to be confounded with 

 those already described, and respecting ihe propriety of occasionally appro- 

 priating them to arable culture, there can hardly be a doubt. Such lands do 

 not depend upon their intrinsic fertility, but upon annual supplies of manure, 

 derived from the arable land in their neighbourhood. 



The question then, is, whether it is most for the advantage of the parties 

 interested, that one-half of a farm should be in perpetual grass, and the other 

 half in perpetual cultivation; or the whole alternately, under grass and grain, 

 and subject to convertible husbandry, with the exception of the rich grazing 

 lands above described. 



The objections to the division of a farm, one-half into permanent grass, and 

 the other half intone rmanent tillage, are not to be surmounted. The arable is 

 deteriorated by the abstraction of'the manure it produced, if applied to enrich 

 the grass, while the greater part of the manure thus employed is wasted: for 

 spreading putrescent substances upon the surface of a field is to manure not 

 the soil, but the atmosphere, and is justly condemned as the most injurious plan 

 that can be devised in an arable district. The miserable crops of grain pro- 

 duced where this system prevails, sufficiently prove its mischievous conse- 

 quences. 



So injurious is this mode of management, that, in the opinion of the most 

 intelligent farmers, the landlord loses one-fourth of the rent he might other- 

 wise have got for every acre thus debarred from cultivation; while the public 

 loses three and three quarter bushels of grain for every fourteen pounds of beef 

 or mutton thereby obtained. 



This is a point that cannot be too much inculcated in a country increasing 

 in population. and which finds so much difficulty in maintaining its inhabitants. 

 For with the exception of rich pastures, arable land is on an average superior 

 to grass land, with respect to furnishing articles of human food, in the propor- 

 tion of three to one; and consequently every piece of land unnecessarily kept 

 in grass, the produce of which will only maintain one person, is depriving the 

 community of food capable of sustaining two others of its members. 



Landlords in many parts of England are apt to be apprehensive, (and often 

 with too much reason,) that their property may suffer from a change of system; 

 and it is much to be lamented, that the law in England affords them very inade- 

 quate protection against bad tenants. Were it not for this circumstance, the 

 interests of the landlord might be guarded against injury by judicious cove- 

 nants, and by prescribing an improved mode of management. A regular sys- 

 tem of convertible husbandry might thus be established, while the value of 

 landed property would not only be greatly augmented, but the true interests of 

 the country be most essentially promoted. 



The principal objection to the con version of meadow into arable land, arises 

 from an alleged inferiority in the new when compared to the old herbage a 

 complaint which probably originates either from the improper choice of seeds, 



