PERMANENT OR TEMrORARY PASTURES 49 



seeds for his tenants, finds in about five years they wish 

 to plough them up, and adds : " As no farmyard manure 

 has been put on the seeds they are worn out in our East 

 Coast cHmate." Messrs Sutton also point out that, instead 

 of top dressing and caking pastures more liberally, the 

 Lincolnshire farmers keep their manure for their arable 

 land. 



Mr Pringle says as to the heavy Essex clays that 

 much of land laid down with good seeds was indis- 

 tinguishable from " tumbled-down " land. Failure is due 

 partly to the land having been allowed to get thoroughly 

 out of condition before the attempted change, much of it 

 being waterlogged, partly owing to ignorance of the 

 best methods, the heavy land generally being left flat 

 instead of in ridge and furrow, partly to the practical 

 bankruptcy of the farming class before it was attempted. 



In Mr Pringle's opinion, the Essex solution is in well- 

 managed temporary pastures, under which even the 

 heaviest lands may be turned to some profit. "The 

 formation of a really good old pasture is a tedious, costly, 

 and uncertain business, and is generally a commercial 

 loss during the years of transition." Among native 

 Essex farmers there is little knowledge either of laying 

 down, or of the management of temporary pastures in 

 the first year or two. Bad management and inexperience 

 have involved them in additional losses.^ 



Even in Essex there has been some success in per- 

 manent pasture. A successful Scotch farmer, who came 

 from Ayrshire fourteen years ago, and has gone in both 

 for temporary and permanent pasture, thinks " there is 

 no reason why heavy clays should not be laid down." 

 But, even allowing for some superfluities in Mr Pringle's 

 estimate for bringing the abandoned clays back into a 

 state of cultivation, which with draining and liming he 

 puts at nearly three times the present value of the free- 

 hold, laying down with any kind of preparation of the 

 soil which would give the new seeds a chance, must in 

 most cases cost too much money. And half measures 

 to introduce good grass by harrowing, sowing among the 

 ^ Pringle, Essex, pp. 49, 27. Appendix on grass question, p. 4. 



D 



