108 Yarrow. 



a long period, and therefore requires no detailed notice. 

 Arthur Young, from what he has written, evidently had 

 a high opinion of it. It will be observed that Mr. James 

 Hunter, of Chester, thinks i lb. of it sufficient, and 

 perhaps this may be so in the case of permanent pasture, 

 as the plants spread gradually ; but in the case of 

 pastures to lie for three to six years, and which are 

 then to be broken up, I think that i lb. to 1 lb. should be 

 used, as it is desirable to have a good supply of this 

 plajit quickly established in the land — partly as food 

 for stock, and partly to insure a large root-growth in 

 the land, so as to furnish much vegetable matter when 

 the pasture is again brought into arable cultivation. For 

 such temporary pastures I have used 1 lb., and do not 

 iind it too much. I have been particularly struck with 

 the value of yarrow in seasons of extreme drought, and, 

 in the case of the East Countridge field, I remember 

 observing to my steward that were the yarrow removed 

 the field would have had a totally different appearance, 

 as it was the yarrow alone that maintained the green 

 appearance of the field. In permanent pastures where 

 the land happens to be very favourable to the growth 

 and spread of yarrow, care should be taken to eat it close ' 

 down early in the spring, or it will occupy the land to an 

 injurious extent, and so, as I have found, injure a 

 pasture. I was particularly struck with this in the case 

 of a pasture let by me to a cow feeder. The tenant had 

 no sheep to eat the yarrow down, and the yarrow was 

 also allowed to seed, and the result was that the pasture 

 has been distinctly injured — in fact, the yarrow, in some 

 places, spread so thickly over the ground as to strangle 

 both the grasses and clovers. Had the yarrow been kept 

 down by sheep, it seems impossible, judging by my 

 other pastures, that such a result could have occurred.* 



* The proportion of yarrow in this fieW has since declined and does not 

 now (1907) seem much in excess of the amonnt desirable. Perhaps the 

 field has become yarrow sick. There is a theory advanced in Fletcher's 



