256 MANAGEMENT OF GRASS LANDS. 



or from giving them in too small quantities thus favouring the growth of 

 weeds. A gentleman who had a large farm, principally consisting of strong rich 

 clay, (every field of which, with hardly an exception, he occasionally broke 

 up,) was accustomed to lay them down with a crop of barley, and to sow four- 

 teen pounds of white clover, a peck of rib-grass, and three quarters of hay- 

 seeds per acre. By this liberal allowance of seed, he always secured a thick 

 coat of herbage the first year, which differed from old pasture only in being 

 more luxuriant. Such lands, therefore, under judicious management, will 

 rarely be injured by the plough. When laid down from tillage into grass, they 

 may not carry, for the first year or two, such heavy cattle as they would after- 

 wards, but it will support more in number, though of a smaller size, and bring 

 a greater weight of butcher meat to market. 



It is often desirable to keep one or two moderate sized inclosures of from 

 ten to twenty acres, according to the size of the farm, in perennial pasture for 

 the feeding of cattle and sheep, and as a resource for the stock to go to, in case 

 of a severe spring or summer drought; but the retaining of any considerable 

 portion of a farm in old turf or permanent pasture, unless of the richest quality, 

 is, in general, injurious to the proprietor, the tenant and the public. The value 

 of any estate, where the system of permanent pasture has been carried to an 

 unreasonable extent, may be easily and greatly augmented by appropriating 

 the manure of the farm to turnips, beets, and other green crops, and by the 

 adoption of the convertible system of husbandry. 



There are cases, however, where this doctrine, though in general to be re- 

 commended, ought not to be carried to an extreme. It is remarked, where the 

 land is commonly light, and where sheep are both bred and fed upon the same 

 farm, a proportion of permanent pasture is essential. Much injury in particu- 

 lar has been sustained by breaking up permanent pastures on such soils. A 

 farm in general lets best with a fair proportion of grass land upon it, which 

 admits of a mixed management, in consequence of which, if one object fails, 

 another may be successful. 



According to the improved system of laying down lands to 

 grass, the land ought to be made previously as clean and fertile 

 as possible. Therefore all the green crops raised ought to be 

 consumed upon the ground fallow or fallow crops ought not 

 to be neglected, and the whole straw of the grain crops should 

 be converted into manure and applied to the soil that produced 

 it. Above all, the mixing of calcareous matter with the soil, 

 either previously to, or during the course of cropping, is essen- 

 tial. Nothing, in general, improves meadows or pastures more 

 than lime or marl. They sweeten the herbage, render it more 

 palatable to stock, and impart to it more nourishing qualities. 



In the second season of the grasses and there is no period 

 in their growth when they will afford so early and rich an 

 herbage as in this the second year after they are sown, or 

 when, in the language of farmers, they are one year's old grass, 

 the plants may be consumed in either of the three ways already 

 mentioned: 1. They may be made into hay and the after- 

 math depastured. 2. They may be mown at intervals during 

 the season for green forage or soiling, and the aftermath de- 

 pastured; or, 3. They may be depastured with live stock. 



