Required to Sow an Acre. 91 



fields (a point to which I have previously alluded), all 

 the conditions must have been extremely favourable, it 

 is probable that it would be safer to assume that 

 20,000,000 of germinating seeds per acre should generally 

 be used, though in the case of land in very fine tilth the 

 quantity used by me, or, say, about 19,000,000 of 

 germinating seeds, would be sufficient. In 1903 the 

 Inner Kaimrig and Harewells fields, then being in fine 

 tilth, in consequence of the vegetable matter grown on 

 the land, were sown down with a reduced seeding {vide 

 Appendix III.) In the case of the first field the take of 

 grass shows that we have lost nothing by reducing the 

 amount of seed. In the case of the second * it is rather 

 early to form a decision, but, as far as we can see at 

 present, no loss 'virill occur from reducing the amount of 

 seed, and certainly none has as yet occurred in the case 

 of the hay crop and foggage obtained from the field this 

 year. Let us now turn to a point of great importance, 

 viz., the quality of the seed to be sown. 



To an unskilled agriculturist a grass plant is a grass 

 plant, and there is nothing more to be said about it as 

 long as it comes up and flourishes. But there is, of 

 course, as much, or perhaps even more, difference 

 between grasses grown from different qualities of seed 

 as there is between sheep oi cattle of the same breed, 

 and the quantity and quality of the herbage to be 

 produced differ largely in accordance with the goodness, 

 or inferiority of the grasses from which the seeds put 

 down have been gathered ; and the evils arising from 

 seed, which, though genuine, may be of inferior quality, 

 cannot, as far as my experience goes, be remedied for a 

 great many years — ^if, indeed, ever. As to these points, 

 we have had ample experience on this property by 

 giving parts of fields to rival seedsmen, and in one 

 instance a whole field to one and a whole to another; 



* Subsequent experience shows that in tlie case of the Harewells field 

 the reduced seeding used has been adec[uate. 



