PROF. BREWER'S LECTURE. 13 



that in such cases the nature of old pastures as compared 

 with new ones should be well understood if we would turn 

 such land to the most profitable account, and especially if wo 

 consider the quality of the butter, cheese, or meat we wish 

 to produce. 



Having said so much in favor of age, now let it not be in- 

 ferred that a pasture is necessarily good because it is old. 

 You have all seen lands kept to pasture year after year, and 

 remain in unmitigated poverty, and perhaps you have seen 

 several varieties of such, which only resemble each other in 

 that they are poor, for their poverty may depend upon a 

 variety of causes. No amount of manure will bring up a pas- 

 ture that is too wet for healthy grass, that one needs drain- 

 ing. Hill pastures often remain poverty stricken for an un- 

 limited period, from a variety of causes. Sometimes the soil 

 is loo poor in organic matter, the grasses grow so sparsely as 

 to hardly merit the name of sod, and the rains wash down to 

 the vallies much of the very material that the pasture needs. 

 In the treatment of pastures as in other matters pertain- 

 ing to agriculture, no empyrical but golden rule can be given 

 to apply to all cases, no universal -panacea which shall prove 

 efficacious in all cases, and mitigate all the forms of poverty. 

 The key, however, lies in the rule stated that the most nutri- 

 tious grasses need a moist but not too wet soil, and on toler- 

 ably fertile, and if we have not these conditions we must try 

 to produce them. In the poor soil pastures named, where 

 the soil is too poor in vegetable matter, this may be at first 

 improved by judicious applications of rotted barn yard manure, 

 and as the sod gets better, then this will increase from natur- 

 al sources. It is drawn from the air faster than it will decay, 

 while the soil remained poor the reverse was the case, it 

 might decay or wash away even faster than it was gathered 

 from the air. It seems in this that the same rule applies that 

 is so often quoted in spiritual matters, " to them which have 

 shall be given more abundantly, and from them which have 

 not shall be taken away even that which they have." 



This accumulating richness may be derived from more 

 than one source. It may be drawn directly from the air, or 



