1 88 A TREATISE ON THE CONNECTION OF 



time, it shoukl not be depastured until the grass be 

 sufficiently advanced to allow of a good bite. As all plants 

 receive nourishment two ways, by their stems and leaves 

 .IS well as by their roots, the growth of young vegetables 

 must necessarily be much retarded, when deprived, by 

 being constantly eaten down, of one of their sources of 

 subsistence. 



As the consolidating the soil of peat mosses is an object 

 . of the first consideration. It is obvious, both on chemical 

 and mechanical principles, that much cropping, and the 

 consequent exposure of fresh surfaces to the adlion of air, 

 are improper : and that after a few crops are obtained, the 

 ground should be laid down with meadowgrasses and white 

 clover, and depastured with as much stock as it will carry. 

 By these means, not only the soil will be consolidated and 

 compressed, and particular grasses or herbage promoted 

 according to the cattle so depastured, but the urine and 

 dung of the cattle, by carefully folding them, will be laid 

 on in such quantities, as will perform rapidly, and at once, 

 the efFe£t required ; whereas, if the same quantity were 

 divided over fifty or a hundred times the surface so folded 

 upon, its operation would scaiccly be perceptible, and the 



application 



