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tures with this advantage, that for one seed of a valuable species of grass supplied to the ,oil 

 by the slow and gradual process of Nature, in one season, a thousand are supplied in the same 

 space of time; and thus take possession of their natural soil, without the danger and inconveni, 



ence of expelling its usurpers. 



There has been some difference of opinion respecting the manner of reaping the produce of 

 seedling grasses; whether by depasturing with sheep, or by mowing after the plants have per- 

 fected their seed. The manure supplied by sheep to the young grasses, is of great advantage; 

 but the animals are apt to bite too close to the root, and sometimes tear up the young plants 

 altogether. I have found on repeated trials, that cropping seedling grasses before they had 

 produced flowers, had the eflFect of retarding and weakening the after-growth of the plants 

 for that season very much. But after the period of flowering, cropping was found to 

 strenathen, and rather encourage the growth of plants. In the same way I found, tliat 

 old plants of grass, when cut very close after the first shoots of the spring made their 

 appearance, afforded about one-third less weight of produce in the whole season, tli 

 those plants of the same species which were left uncut till the flowering culms began to 

 appear. As the advantages of the manure of the sheep may be supplied by top-dressing, 

 and the disadvantages resulting to the tender seedling plants from early and close cropping 

 cannot SO speedily be removed, the practice of suffering the grasses to produce flowers before 

 they are cut, with the application of top-dressings, and the use of the roller, till the summer of 



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the second year, appears to be far more profitable than the former practice of depasturing the 

 seedlin"" o-rasses at an earlier period than the summer of the second year. But iuthis, no doubt, 

 as well as in other particular modes of management recommended for general practice in tbe ciil- 

 ture of plants, local circumstances may interfere SO much as often to render some modification 



of them necessary. 



But though the pasture be formed in the best manner, with a combination of the most valu- 

 able grasses, nevertheless, a judicious mode of treatment afterwards is as essentially necessary to 

 continue its value. By proper stocking, top-dressing, and weeding, very indifferent pastures 

 (where the soil was adapted to the gro 

 most valuable; and, on the contrary, the richest natural pastures, by neglect of proper stocking, 

 top-dressing, and weeding, or the too frecpient repetition of hay crops, have become so unprofit- 

 able, as to require many years to bring them again to their original value. The neglect of foul 

 hedges and road-sides, is the best possible encouragement for the propagation of those perennial 

 weeds which infest permanent pasture land. In Warwickshire, I have seen valuable pasture land 

 rendered nearly equal to the worst under proper management, by the intermixture of these 

 weeds, supplied liberally from foul hedge-rows and road-sides; besides, the weeds in these 



■ 



nurseries afford shelter, and at particular periods/ nourishment, to insects, which annoy and 

 distress cattle in summer. 



The comparative value of permanent pasture, and tillage land, is a subject out of the reach ot 

 the humble narrator of facts. All that has been here brought forward, goes no farther than to 

 prove, that where such lands have already been converted to tillage, they may, by the means 

 recommended, be brought to as valuable, if not to a superior state of pasture, as before, and that 

 in the space of four years. The means for effecting this, however, are not yet sufficiently withm 

 the power of the Agriculturist, A more general knowledge of the diflerent grasses (and the 



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