132 AGRICULTURE 



whether basic slag or superphosphate of lime 

 be used, but if basic slag does not succeed, 

 there must be few cases where a better 

 result would attend the use of the other 

 substance. 



The course of the history of a pasture field 

 which is improved by phosphatic dressings 

 may be thus described. In the first year 

 little result, if any, may be obtained, in the 

 second year the effects are usually very 

 striking, and in the third year they are 

 equally so or even better. At this stage, in 

 the month of July, the herbage may appear 

 to consist of little but clover, which probably, 

 if it be sorted out and weighed, constitutes 

 about 50 per cent, of the whole. From 

 the third or fourth year onwards a change 

 comes over the character of the herbage. 

 White Clover, and leguminous .plants gener- 

 ally, become relatively scarcer, their place 

 being taken by a stronger growth of grass. 

 The grass, however, which supplants the 

 White Clover is much superior, as a rule, to 

 what the latter had previously displaced in 

 the second and third years. On the kind 

 of land where phosphatic manures produce 

 their greatest effect, the commonest plant 

 is usually Bent Grass, that is to say, some 

 species or variety of Agrostis. This grass is 



