64 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



PASTURE LAND. It is difficult to draw a hard-and-fast line 

 between a meadow and a pasture, especially in this country, 

 where the same land may be grown for hay in one year and the 

 next left for grazing. There seems to be a general consensus 

 of opinion that land which is mown should be called a meadow 

 and that a pasture is, strictly speaking, land which is grazed ; 

 the terms " mowing meadow " and " grazing meadow " have 

 been applied to land that is both mown and grazed. Speaking 

 generally, a pasture is higher and drier, and its vegetation is 

 shorter and more open than that of the meadow. 



Farmers often speak of permanent and temporary, or seed, 

 pastures. Soil which is too light to maintain a good pasture 

 for any length of years is very often devoted to seed pasture, 

 and in the present condition of agriculture it is considered that 

 the best system of farming is to have from one-sixth to a quarter 

 of the land thus laid down. Permanent pasture is land which 

 is always under grass. In ecological work the terms "artificial" 

 and "natural pasture'' are more generally used. Natural pasture 

 has been defined as primitive grassland without heath plants ; it 

 is permanent pasture, for it has never been anything else but 

 grazing land. Where, however, a permanent pasture has been 

 -artificially made, as when land originally a heath or moor has 

 been converted into pasture, it would from the ecological point 

 of view be considered artificial pasture. All those grazing lands, 

 with the ridge and furrow, which indicate ploughed land, would 

 come under the term "artificial pasture." The fact is, that 

 there is comparatively little natural pasture in our islands, 

 especially in Scotland. The chalk downs of Wiltshire, the oolitic 

 limestones of the Cotswolds, and the Permian limestones are the 

 best examples in England. 



A good grazing pasture should have its surface covered with 

 a level and uniform turf of nutritious Grasses and Clovers ; there 

 should not be clumps of brown herbage here and there. Grasses 

 which form a leafy underground, such as the Sheep's Fescue 

 and the Meadow Grass, should be planted, in order to secure 

 a thick " bottom growth," as it is called. Great and regular 

 attention has to be paid to the manuring of grazing land. If 

 the grasses are so manured as to produce a coarse growth they 



