Paddocks and Pastures. 27 



mown, not a blade would have ripened and shed its seed, 

 and last, but not least, the "droppings" would be 

 deposited when the grass was dormant and at its shortest, 

 and they would consequently be more easily distributed by 

 the harrows, and the winter rains would wash and cleanse 

 away all taint before Spring growth started. 



The theory of the return by the cattle, in the shape of 

 excrement, of a portion of the nutriment they extract from 

 the soil, is well founded. It would be equally excellent 

 in practice, if the nutriment extracted from an area of, say, 

 six square yards, were, when returned to the soil, dis- 

 tributed over the same area, instead of being piled up on 

 a space of as many square inches. 



The coarse grass problem is by no means solved if the 

 stud manager, with a view to preventing the excessive 

 accumulation of the obnoxious cattle droppings, stocks the 

 paddocks very sparsely with cattle. The fewer head of 

 cattle per acre results, in practice, in smaller patches of 

 close cropped tempting grass, and larger patches of long 

 uninviting herbage, during the most important months 

 (from the herbage standpoint) in the racehorse's career, 

 i.e., the grass growing or suckling months. The difficulty 

 of finding and collecting cattle droppings amidst long grass 

 is patent, while the additional cattle that would be an 

 absolute necessity in the Autumn to " clear up " the 

 accumulated long coarse herbage, would have been more 

 profitably occupied in the Summer months in producing 

 larger patches of short tempting grass for the milking 

 mares. 



THE BEST CATTLE TO EMPLOY. 



Although every stud farm requires to be managed 

 according to its own particular conditions and requirements 



