Liberal Seeding Essential to Success. 89 



amount of seed is essential to success. Mr. James 

 Hunter, the well-known agricultural seedsman of 

 Chester, tells me that of all his customers I am the 

 most liberal seeder, and he has more than once even 

 remonstrated with me as regards the quantity of seed 

 I put down. This I was induced to do, partly from my 

 own observation, and partly from the remarks of the 

 late Mr. Brotherston — an excellent botanist, who had 

 paid much attention to the whole subject of grasses 

 and their cultivation — ^who was much in favour of 

 liberal seeding, and the more I have considered the 

 subject the more certain do I feel that Arthur Young 

 is right as regards the opinion he held as to liberal 

 seeding being essential to success. For what are the 

 main points to be kept in view ? Are they not to cover 

 the ground as quickly as possible with as much grass 

 as it will hold ;* and an equally important, or even 

 more important, point, to fill the land as soon as possible 

 with a large quantity of roots, to the end that its 

 physical condition may not only be maintained, but im- 

 proved ? And when we come to consider the numerous 

 causes of loss that are liable to occur from defective 

 seasons, the ravages of birds and field mice and insects, 



* A pasture not fully occupied with plants renders the whole land 

 more liable to suffer from drought, and this is, of course, more 

 especially the case when drying winds sweep over it. In the case of 

 a young pasture the conserving of moisture is obviously a point of the 

 £rst importance, as plants more often sulEer from lack of moisture at 

 a critical period of their growth than from any other cause. The 

 land may be ever so rich, but without a good supply of moisture the 

 pasture cannot take advantage of the plant food present. Every bare 

 spot in a pasture, then, though only an inch in width, has a tendency 

 to starve the plants in its immediate iieighbourhood in the event of the 

 season being a dry one. The wind and sun of course dry up the bare 

 patches. These patches draw into them, by lateral attraction, from the 

 adjacent soil moisture which is speedily evaporated and carried away. 

 Every bare patch, therefore, acts as a pump to draw moisture out of the 

 land. Multiply these little pumps all over a field, and though each pump 

 may be no larger than half a crown, it is clear that their total dessicating 

 effect must be very considerable when drought reigns in the land. 



