370 JUNE. 



quality will be beyond conception, compared with 

 the state the lands were in before they were watered. 

 Mr. Boswell further cautions his reader to guard 

 by all means against keeping the water too long 

 upon the meadow in warm weather. It will very 

 soon produce a white substance like cream, which 

 is prejudicial to the grass, and shews it has been 

 upon the ground too long already ; but if permit- 

 ted to rernmn a little longer, a thick scum will 

 settle upon the grass, of the consistence of glue, 

 and as tough as leather, which will quite destroy it. 



FEEDING AND MOWING. 

 Relative to the application of grass, there are 

 some common opinions, which I heard so ofteri 

 canvassed, or rather asserted, in discourse, that I 

 gave a particular attention to them on my own 

 farm. It has been said more than once, that mow- 

 ing land exhausts it more than feeding ; and that 

 pastures should be alternately fed and mown, upon 

 the same principles that arable lands are fallowed. 

 I have remarked the effects of both on several of 

 my fields, and also on my neighbours', and there- 

 fore can speak to it from better authority than 

 mere conjecture. Several grass-fields on this estate,, 

 and some of my own, have been- mown every yean 

 as long as the labourers remember : I have a mi- 

 nute of 22 successive crops of hay in one field, 

 and yet neither that, nor any of the rest, shew, 

 more signs of being exhausted than others on simi- 

 lar soils that have been fed. Here are fields that 



have 



