GRASS, 27t 



on the ground : so far, all was no more than common good 

 husbandry ; but he applied a thought entirely his own : as 

 he found that the flinty gravel, marie, and other earths, 

 but especially the gravel, was very beneficial to the her- 

 bage, he thought of sowing v.'inter tares and white clover 

 upon the places wherever any earth was spread, or any 

 other operation had laid bare the surface, harrowing in 

 those seeds. 1 had the pleasure of seeing several of these 

 crops growing : the success has been uncommonly great ; 

 for the land thus sown not only has given large and very 

 profitable crops of hay, but has also received a rapid im- 

 provement in the herbage; the cover and shade of the 

 tares, so beneficial to all land, mellowed the surface, and 

 seemed to draw up as well as prote£l such of the old plants 

 as received improvement from the manure, and exhibited 

 a much superior fleece of grass to any spots where this 

 singular management had not taken place. So that nothing 

 can be clearer, on viewing this large trail of meadow, 

 than the superiority of the improvement resulting from the 

 growth of the tares : the effefl of the manure is much ac- 

 celerated and rendered greater. The idea is certainly ap- 

 plicable to many of the grass-lands of the kingdom, espe- 

 cially such as are improving by the addition of chalk, 

 marie, clay, loam, sand or gravel : 40 loads an acre of 

 any of these bodies will much improve coarse or wet, or 

 moory grass-lands ; and then to add tares secures an im- 

 mediate profit, and makes the manure work much sooner 

 and more powerfully. He sows some so late as the mid- 

 dle of May. An idea here strikes me, which I shall ven- 

 ture to add ; that if I was to scarify any mossy, hide- 

 bound or poor pastures, &c. it should be with a drill sca- 

 rifier, drilling in winter tares by every tooth of the scari- 

 fier, and I have no doubt but the tares would take well, 

 and cfFcdl a considerable improvement, even without ma- 

 B b 2 nuring. 



