466 EVENING DISCOURSES 



ammonium sulphate or nitro chalk in early spring Of course, we must 

 have sufficient lime, phosphate and potash present. 



By the proper management of the grassland on an English farm, it is now 

 possible to provide good grazing from the middle of April to almost the end 

 of October, and this management will be made easier, and the period 

 extended, when we use indigenous strains of grasses such as have been 

 bred by Prof. Stapledon and his co-workers at Aberystwyth. 



Besides good grassland management, let us for the moment consider the 

 effects of bad grassland management. 



If we graze a pasture hard in the spring every year, we check the perennial 

 rye grass and cocksfoot, and then if we undergraze from the end of May 

 the grass will grow in tufts which will become chiefly Yorkshire fog and 

 bent. Other parts of the field will be kept grazed short and will consist 

 largely of wild white clover, because the animal, offered far more than it 

 can eat, makes a selection. 



If a field is cut for hay, the wild white clover will be checked, and if this 

 is done year after year, clover will be almost entirely eliminated. Taking 

 a crop of hay from a permanent pasture will always be a severe check to 

 the growth of wild white clover, just as close grazing at the end of May 

 and for the rest of the summer will tend to increase the wild white clover 

 at the expense of everything else. 



There are many other ways in which we can ill-treat a permanent pasture. 



Good grassland management consists in keeping a balance amongst the 

 desired grasses and clovers by not ill-treating any one constituent of the 

 pasture too long, and by alternating the treatment of the pasture each year 

 so that desirable grasses which are discouraged one year are encouraged the 

 next, and those which have been encouraged must be checked in the 

 following year lest they become too strong. 



The good management of grassland is not achieved by blindly following 

 a rotation, but by observing the results of past treatment and following 

 the principles based on the work of Stapledon and Martin Jones. 



By good grassland management a large amount of food can be grown on 

 an acre of land, as we shall see later, but this grass must be grazed off or 

 cut to suit the grass and clover population of the field, and not to suit the 

 immediate demands of the animals alone, so that if we are going to have 

 properly managed grassland we must consider how we can manage our 

 farms. There are the following alternatives : 



(i) A small part of the grassland on a farm is well managed and the rest 

 takes its chance. The well-managed part is cut or grazed at the 

 right time, and the rest of the grassland becomes a rough grazing. 

 This has been done on some farms, where the farmer has more or less 

 managed his fields near the farm and has let the rest become rough 

 grazings. 



(2) The whole of the grassland might be well managed — but when a 

 field required grazing and there were no animals to graze it, the field 

 would be mown and the grass wasted- — except at a time suitable for 

 making hay. This system works, but it is wasteful and difficult to 

 carry out, and the land must be understocked. 



(3) The whole of the grassland on the farm may be managed well, and 

 surplus grass cut and preserved for the winter feed. In this case it 

 is worth while growing as much grass as possible, and nitrogenous 

 fertilisers will be found to assist the system of management. The 

 quantities of food produced per acre, on this system, are obviously 

 much greater than on the other two systems. 



