LAYING DOWN TO CRASS 47 



of corn prices by prompt laying down to grass, is still 

 more emphatic now. Hopes of a change for the better 

 and the cost and delay of making good pasture, caused 

 postponement. Now it is imperative. And his view is 

 distinctly encouraging. He does not believe in heavy 

 outlay, in cleaning and fallowing, and other preparation 

 of the land. " If you manure the land well, the best 

 grasses will drive out all the weeds and bad grasses." 

 " I have had a field, with a thick bed of couch grass, and 

 I have destroyed it all by manure. The grasses have 

 come of themselves and driven it out It is a longer 

 process, but it does it." Even the worst Essex clays 

 " will by degrees come into grass — manure is the great 

 thing." And pasture is constantly accumulating fertility 

 which may be drawn out again, if times improve and 

 land is broken up. His own method has usually been 

 to sow the grass seed with a barley crop, and " after that 

 I have entirely depended upon feeding with cotton cake " 

 — sheep being the best manurers. 



To select one or two illustrations from a mass of 

 evidence on this point from all parts of the country : — 

 Mr J. Stratton states that in Hampshire he has " laid 

 down 2000 acres of poor arable land to grass, and 

 instead of losing money, as that land did before, I 

 consider it pays its way." It may pay occasionally to 

 take a crop of oats, and break up some of it when a large 

 accumulation of stock is sold off at a favourable 

 moment, " but if I were farming my own land, I would 

 never plough it out of grass." Careful feeding of cattle 

 with cotton cake will make pasture of almost any land. 

 Mr Pringle gives an instance of a farm rescued by 

 scientific laying down, and now in excellent condition 

 and paying well. Furthermore, the saving in labour on 

 879 acres'has been ^659 a year. 



Mr Riddell, on a large mixed and grazing farm^ 

 in the hilly part of Midlothian, converted 775 acres of 

 land, previously in rotation, to permanent pasture at an 

 outlay of ;^20,ooo during his nineteen years' lease, and 

 states that his system resulted in multiplying the stock- 

 ' Corsehope ; see pp. 193, etc. 



