Cunr.—On Grasses and Fodder Plants. 885 
can be sure of the merits of such proposed introductions, but all the 
labour, expense, and trouble of numbers of introductions. may be repaid by 
only a few things that turn out to be really useful and worthy, and in 
grasses this has been proved especially to be the case, as those grasses 
mentioned in my former papers to this Society will show, and yet there 
remain very many amongst the hundreds I have sown and experimented 
with that show they would be very useful if sown by the farmers and 
graziers to increase the feed in their pastures. 
I purpose to add, before concluding this paper, some other grasses to 
those before described that are desirable to cultivate to increase the herbage 
for the places and times indicated. 
When it is remembered how vast are the interests that are involved in 
keeping up the pastures to the best possible condition, it seems mar- 
vellous the little interest that is taken, by even farmers or graziers them- 
selves, in grasses and grass-culture; so long as a little rye-grass seed and 
a little white clover seed is scattered over the field—they are satisfied. The 
live stock is then turned out, either to kill it by over feeding-down, or, by 
constantly trampling over the grass and ground, to reduce its power of 
growth to the lowest, and then finally to kill it. This is all the knowledge 
and care taken about the matter; but it is soon seen how little stock can 
be kept to the acre by such plans, and how impossible it is that land can be 
profitable under such treatment when used to depasture animals upon. 
It is put forward by some persons who have not fully considered this 
question, that foddering or stall-feeding, or shutting up the live stock and 
supplying them with all their food, which must be specially grown for them 
by hand, is the most advantageous course to pursue, but except under 
very peculiar circumstances this is impossible. It becomes a question 
of cost of production, and the meat markets of the world regulate the profit 
or loss upon this matter. Even in Great Britain, with cheap labour and a 
full knowledge of how to produce the greatest amount of fodder at the 
cheapest rates, the cost is so great that meat has risen to an almost pro- 
hibitive price; and now the Americans, taking advantage of their large 
grazing fields, where grass is at present abundant, because the population 
to the square mile is small in numbers, are pouring in meat to the British 
markets, and making it impossible fer the men who are hand-feeding their 
animals to compete with them. If, therefore, meat production will not 
bear the cost of hand-feeding of live stock in Great Britain, where the meat 
consumers are numerous and labour for feeding cattle cheap and abundant, 
it certainly will not pay to hand-feed in this colony where all these con- 
ditions are different. As a large proportion of this population must gain 
their means of living by meat and wool production, it follows that they must 
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