300 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



20th of May is early enough to turn cattle into almost any 

 of our pastures. Out of some they should be kept later* 

 The driest pastures should be used first, though in them the 

 grass is shortest, that the potching of the ground in the wet- 

 test may be prevented. 



The bushes and shrubs that rise in pastures should be cut 

 in the most likely times to destroy them. Thistles and 

 other bad weeds should be cut down before their seeds have 

 ripened ; and ant-hills should be destroyed. Much may be 

 done towards subduing a bushy pasture by keeping cattle 

 hungry in it. A continual browsing keeps down *he young 

 shoots, and totally kills many of the bushes. Steers and 

 heifers may mend such a pasture, and continue growing. 



But as to cleared pastures, it is not right to turn in all 

 sorts of cattle promiscuously. Milch kine, working oxen, 

 and fatting beasts, should have the first feeding of an inclo- 

 sure ; afterwards, sheep and horses. When the first lot is 

 thus fed off, it should be shut up, and the dung that has been 

 dropped should be beat to pieces, and well scattered. After- 

 wards, the second pasture should be treated in the spme 

 manner, and the rest in course, feeding the wettest pasture 

 after the driest, that the soil may be less potched. 



Something considerable is saved by letting all sorts of 

 grazing animals take their turn in a pasture. By means of 

 this, nearly all the herbage produced will be eaten ; much of 

 which would otherwise be lost. Horses will eat the leavings 

 of horned cattle ; and sheep will eat some things that both 

 the one and the other leave. 



But if in a course of pasturing, by means of a fruitful 

 year or a scanty stock of cattle, some grass of a good kind 

 should run up to seed and not be eaten, it need not be re- 

 gretted ; for a new supply of seed will fill the ground with 

 new roots, which are better than old ones. And I know of 

 no grass that never needs i ?ne\ving from the seed. 



A farmer needs not to be told, that if he turn swine into 

 a pasture, they should have rings in their noses, unless 

 brakes and other weeds need to be rooted out. Swine may 

 do service in this way. They should never have the first of 

 the feed ; for they will foul the grass, and make it distasteful 

 to horses and cattle. 



Let the stock of a farmer be greater or less, he should 

 have at least four inclosures of pasture land. One inclosure 

 may be fed two weeks, and then shut up to grow ; then 

 another. Each one will recruit well in six weeks ; and each 



