Letting up Pastures for Winter Keep. 73 



having withered, with some green intermixed, it is considered 

 very beneficial as preparatory to the stock being turned into 

 green pastures. The system has also its disadvantages, as by 

 allowing the grass on the land, it tends to destroy the most 

 tender and nourishing grasses, and ultimately the quality of the 

 pasture becomes very much coarser.* The fogging of land 

 certainly tends to destroy moss, and many of the fallen seeds 

 will, of course, vegetate. Mr. Young is right with regard to one 

 acre of fog being of more value than one acre of hay, provided 

 it is a mild winter, with but little frost and snow, and in a 

 sheltered locality." 



I would here observe that the reader must not suppose 

 that the disadvantages alluded to by my correspondent 

 must occur always ; on the contrary, they need never 

 occur in the case of well laid down pastures, and I had 

 an interesting proof of this when, on the 7th of June, 

 1884,, T visited, in company with some landlords and 

 tenant-farmers, Mr. Faunce de Laune's pastures at 

 Sharsted Court. In one case my friend had allowed 

 a pasture in its fifth year to grow up, intending tjo cut 

 it for hay, but for some reason or another he changed 

 his mind, and turned sheep into it, which were kept on 

 the pasture in the autumn, winter, and spring following. 

 The result extremely astonished one of the oldest, most 

 experienced, and intelligent graziers present, who could 

 not at all accoimt for finding on the 7th of June such 

 clean, level, close turf, with grasses as fine as those on a 

 lawn, following on the letting up of the pasture the 

 year before. But the explanation is simple. Ordinary 

 pastures, if so treated, would certainly show deteriora- 

 tion, because they usually have a considerable proportion 

 of weeds and inferior grasses — holcus especially. Were 

 such pastures, then, allowed to flower, and then grazed 

 with sheep, they would pick out the good kinds of 



* This seems to show that the land should only be hained once, say, 

 every four years, as an occasional haiuing could, T should say, do little 

 harm to the smaller grasses. 



