6 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



rotted — and was therefore very rich in organic matter — 

 and had been supplied with phosphoric acid and potash 

 and lime in abundance. The changes of the succeeding 

 ten years showed an increase of the Agrostis up to 70 

 per cent., the White Clover almost invisible, the Poas 

 and smaller plants crowded out, Bull's-faces, Hard Fescue, 

 Sweet Vernal, and a few Sedges and Rushes making 

 the total herbage. After close search one weak plant 

 of White Clover was found in about 10 square yards. 

 The absence of Leguminous plants generally was par- 

 ticularly noticeable. Thus on the same ground the 

 original heath in the first place becomes by treatment 

 covered with the most scientific mixtures of Grasses and 

 Clovers invented for the use of agriculturists by expert 

 seedsmen, only in the course of a few years to be made 

 the battle-ground of a fight to the death of many strong 

 growing Grasses and weeds, with the victory of some 

 that are perhaps among the most useless for the adequate 

 support of the highest forms of animal life. 



As agriculturists we are in the habit of estimating 

 the value of a pasture by the amount of stock it can 

 carry per acre, and in my case, when its carrying power 

 had become reduced to half its former value, some treat- 

 ment seemed to be necessary. The radical treatment 

 would have been to begin over again with the plough, etc., 

 but with the more thorough knowledge of the manurial 

 needs of arable lands, a series of experimental trials on 

 worn-out pastures, as they have been called, was resorted to. 

 It thus happened that the moorland, which had been 

 broken up in the seventies and allowed gradually to 

 deteriorate during the eighties and early nineties, came 

 to receive some attention, and to be treated in various 

 ways, the results being manifest in the botanical changes 

 noticeable in these specimen sods to which I would 

 draw your attention. There would be, it is natural to 

 suppose, a considerable residuum of the original dressing 

 of potash, lime, and phosphoric acid, and there is still 



