On Grass Land. 403 



instead of being suffered to remain, in a solid body, on the 

 place where it has been dropt. 5. Where the large, and the 

 smaller kinds of stock, are to be fed on the same pastures, 

 the larger species should have the first bite : And, 6. It is 

 not thought in general advisable, to pasture land with a mixed 

 collection of different species of live stock, unless the field 

 be extensive, or unless the herbage varies in different parts 

 of the field ; for it is generally found, that the grass produced 

 by the dung of cows and oxen, or of horses, is injurious to 

 sheep, producing grass of too rich a quality, for that species 

 of stock. 



There is no mode, by which such pastures are more effec- 

 tually improved, than by the application of lime, either 

 spread upon the surface ( a9z ), or mixed with the soil. When 

 to be broken up, it is essential, that the surface should be 

 limed the year before, that the lime may be mixed with 

 the surface soil only, as it is apt to sink, if covered deep 

 by the plough. The coarse grasses would, in that case, 

 regain possession of the soil, and the dung afterwards de- 

 posited by the cattle, will not enrich the land, in the same 

 manner, as if the lime had been incorporated with the sur- 

 face only (* 93 ). 



2. Grass Lands of a medium Quality. 



There can hardly be a doubt, that a much larger propor- 

 tion of the United Kingdom than is at present so cultivated, 

 might be subject to the alternate system of husbandry, or 

 transferred from grass to tillage, and then restored to grass. 

 Much of the middling sorts of grass-lands, from 200 to 400 

 feet above the level of the sea, is of this description ; and 

 all well-informed husbandmen, and friends to the general 

 prosperity of the country, regret, that such lands are left in 

 a state of unproductive pasturage, and excluded from til- 

 lager 4 ). 



In consequence of a requisition from the House of Lords 

 to the Board of Agriculture, in December 1800, a very ex- 

 tensive inquiry was made, " into the best means of convert- 

 " ing certain portions of grass-lands into tillage, without ex- 

 " hausting the soil, and of returning the same to grass, after 

 " a certain period, in an improved state, or at least without 

 " injury ;" and the information collected by the Board upon 

 that subject, is in the highest degree satisfactory and im- 

 portant (* 95 ). 



From that inquiry it appears, that an acre of clover, tares, 



