208 ON THE IMPROVEMENT 



moved, it is presumed the nutritious grasses will occupy 

 their places. 



§2. Of Meadows. 



The crop being here annually carried off, it becomes 

 a matter of necessity, if the field is to be kept permanent- 

 ly in grass, to apply manure occasionally, if we would 

 prevent a diminution of product. It is affirmed, that a 

 perfectly thick bottom cannot be maintained on perma- 

 nent meadows, in England, unless it is manured every 

 second year. Gypsum will effect much here, upon dry 

 soils, though there its effects are equivocal ; but gypsum 

 alone will not suffice here. The average product upon 

 our old grass lands will hardly exceed a ton and a half 

 an acre. With a biennial or triennial top-dressing of 

 dung or compost, where the sod is in good condition, it 

 is believed the average would be double. 



Meadows are subject to all the evils that are experi- 

 enced in pastures, from mosses, wetness, and the dimi- 

 nution of the finer grasses, besides the greater exhaustion 

 of fertility consequent upon carrying off the annual 

 growth ; and the same measures are best adapted to reno- 

 vate them. Meadows are generally depastured after the 

 hay has been taken off, and the rowen partially grown. 

 " After the cattle have been removed," says an English 

 WTiter, " the land is bush-harrowed and rolled.''^ It has 

 been stated, though some question the fairness of the ex- 

 periment, that the operation of heavy rolling has been 

 found to add six or seven hundred weight of hay per acre 

 to the produce of the crop.* 



The effect of pasturing meadows in the spring, upon 

 the coming grass crop, has been a matter upon which 

 farmers have differed — though all agree that heavy cattle 

 should not be kept on so late in autumn, or put on so 

 early in spring, as to injure the sole of the sod, by poach- 

 ing it when in a wet state. Mr. Sinclair has stated, that 

 a given space of the same quality of grass having been 

 cut towards the end of March, and another space of 

 equal size left uncut until the last week in April, the pro- 



* Derbyshire Report^ vol. ii. p. 88. 



