PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 367 



circumstances (in this case Oxford clay) perennial ryegrass floes maintain and 

 even improve its position. It is, however, a common experience of those who 

 have laid land away to grass with ordinary commercial seed that perennial 

 ryegrass does not persist,' but neither, for the matter of that, does white clover. 

 And the probability is that the cause in both cases is to be found in the same 

 direction. Both these plants, as usually grown in this and other countries for 

 seed, are the progeny of a long line of cultivated ancestors, grown under some- 

 what forcing conditions which may be. said to undermine the ' constitution.' 

 They have adapted themselves to their artificial environment, and such adapta- 

 tion has taken the form of early maturity and the pi-oduction of a large yield 

 of ' bold ' seed which is easily marketed. Gilchrist has, of late years, directed 

 attention to the merits of wild white clover,'" which, as regards persistency, 

 is on an altogether different plane from the cultivated or Dutch white. The 

 price that farmers are willing to pay for the seed of wild white clover is the 

 best proof of the sharp distinction which they draw between the two varieties. 

 What we now want is similar work on grasses, and particularly on perennial 

 ryegrass, and it is satisfactory to know that such work has actually been started. 

 Other lines of investigation associated with the creation of permanent 

 pasture that might repay research are the relative nutritive values of the more 

 important pasture plants when grown under precisely similar conditions, as 

 also under conditions of soil and climate with which they are naturally associated, 

 and when subjected to the actual process of grazing. In 1853 Way published 

 an account of his analysis of grasses, clovers, and other pasture plants, '^ a 

 line of inquiry that was again followed by Voelcker '- some thirty years later. 

 In the former case the plants were collected as they grew naturally in the 

 field, while in the latter they were specially grown in plots. A comparison 

 of the two sets of figures does not reveal any consistent agreement, a result 

 that seems to support the view that, in respect of nutritive value and mineral 

 contents, grasses are very sensitive to soil conditions and other factors of the 

 situation. The difficulty of determining the feeding value of pasture by 

 means of chemical analysis was experienced in a marked degree by Hall and 

 Russell, who thus express themselves " : ' The only general conclusion one can 

 draw is that the method of food analysis as ordinarily practised gives no 

 measure of the feeding value of such material as grass. It fails to reveal 

 anything to correspond to the very marked differences in habit of the fatting 

 and non-fatting grasses, and none of the results can be interpreted so as to 

 show which of the grasses were poor and which valuable food. . . . Although 

 the difference in feeding value was known to be great, the differences revealed 

 by the ordinary methods of chemical analysis were very small. The ordinary 

 methods are clearly inadequate for dealing with pasture grasses.' It would 

 therefore appear that if further attempts are to be made with a view to 

 differentiating between the various pasture plants in respect of nutritive value, 

 resort will have to be had to the digestive track of animals on lines suggested 

 by the Tree Field Experiments at Cockle Park. Areas large enough to provide 

 grazing for a sufficient number of sheep, and, a fortiori, of cattle, present a 

 serious difficulty, and the idea suggests itself that perhaps guinea-pigs or rabbits 

 could be utilised as the medium in small-scale experiments. I should also 

 like to see a test made of the effects of sowing the mixed seed derived from 

 the herbage of good grass land fortified with a pound per acre of the seed 

 of wild white clover, in contrast with a mixture of seeds compounded on the 

 most so-called scientific principles. Nearly twenty years ago I took over a 

 heavy farm on the Weald and created as good pastures as, I believe, the land 

 could carry by applying 7 cwt. of basic slag to the foul stubbles without the 



' Stapledon and Jenkin, op. cit., p. 26. 



"> D. A. Gilchrist, 'Trials of Wild White Clover.' Jour. Board of Agric, 

 vol. xxii. 



" J. Thomas Way, ' On the relative Nutritive and Fattening Properties of 

 different Natural and Artificial Grasses,' Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc. Ennl. vol xiv , 

 p. 171. ' 



'2 M. J. Sutton, ' Permanent Temporary Pastures,' 1st Ed., 1886. 



'^ Of. cit., pp. 369 and 370. 



