376 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION M. 



of a rich cake fed at intervals during twenty-one years is a poor showing;, and 

 justifies the conclusion that as an ameliorative agent cake occupies a low position 

 as compared with an effective phosphate like basic slag. 



A method of improvement of poor pasture that deserves notice consists in 

 scattering the seed of a ' renovating ' mixture over the surface, usually with 

 concurrent harrowing, rolling, and manuring. This procedure was practised in 

 the series of experiments conducted by the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, the seed mixture consisting of four natural grasses in addition to white 

 clover and yarrow." In their final report Carruthers and Voelcker stated that 

 re-seeding had not been successful, a result which they thought was 'entirely 

 due to the prevalence of dry seasons, the germinating plants being killed before 

 they could ge*- hold of the soil.' A more successful result is reported by 

 Middleton,''^ who on a poor pasture on clay soil in Essex, sowed, in the spring 

 of 1903, 12 lb. per acre of wild white clover seed, with and without basic slag, 

 kainit, and lime, this treatment being unaccompanied by harrowing. There 

 were no Leguminosie naturally present in the field. Helped by abundant rain 

 in the summer of 1903, when in the London area in June ' rain fell without 

 cessation from midday on the 13th to midnight on the 15th ; and at Camden 

 Town the total in fifty-eight hours amounted to nearly 3^ inches,'*' the seed 

 germinated well, and 'in 1904 the results were very marked.' It was, how- 

 ever, only when the seeding had been accompanied by basic elag that 'there 

 was the luxuriant growth which one expects in pastures where Leguminosse 

 are present.' 



Middleton came to the conclusion that 3 lb. per acre of white clover seed 

 would have been enough, and that ordinary white clover seed, as contrasted 

 ■with seed from the wild plant, would serve the purpose. Middleton carried 

 out this experiment in the early days of ' wild white,' and probably he would 

 now agree with the suggestion that this variety possesses properties which mark 

 it off rather sharply from the cultivated variety, and that the two, for perma- 

 nent purposes, are no' interchangeable. I also have reported on an experiment 

 where renovating a thin poor pasture with 6 lb. per acre of wild white clover 

 seed was entirely successful, and here, too, the beneficial effects were only 

 secured in the presence of basic slag.'" 



It would appear, therefore, that where the herbage of a pasture is thin, so 

 as to permit of a considerable proportion of the seed reaching the soil, and 

 especially in the absence of natural Leguminosae, renovation through the agency 

 of wild white clover seed, with concurrent phosphatic manuring, is likely to be 

 successful. Drought, however, at a critical stage of the growth of the young 

 plants may prove fatal, but such a contingency will be best avoided by seeding 

 in early autumn rather than in spring. 



The many experiments, and ordinary farming experience, show clearly how 

 poor pastures may be profitably improved in the first instance, but an important 

 matter still remains to be discussed — namely, the means to be adopted to main- 

 tain the improvement. 



When a responsive pasture is treated, for the first time, with say half a 

 ton of basic slag per acre, the effects reach their maximum usually in the 

 third season. From then onwards there is a steady diminution in the yield, 

 though even after nine years from the time of the initial dressing the improve- 

 ment is far from being exhausted. At Cockle Park, for instance, the plot 

 dressed once with half a ton of slag was, at the end of nine years, producing 

 three times a,'? much mutton as the continuously unmanured ground, while at 

 Sevington and Cransley the yield, at the end of nine and eight years respec- 

 tively, was 70 to 80 per cent, greater. None of the other stations was carried 

 on for so Ions: a period, but up to the end of the sixth year most of them show 

 residual fertility which is as great as the original rental value of the land.*' 

 That is a very important result, but in the interests of the country it is still 



" Jnur. F.A.S.E.. 1898, p. 148. 



4" Jour. Aqric. Science, vol. i., p. 136. 



" Ihid., 1913, p. 415. 



" ' Poverty Bottom,' p. 6. 



*' Supplemtnt No. 5 to Jour. Board of Agric, 1911, p. 28. 



