68 The Re-seeding of New Pastures. 



first year, one mows sometimes, and one mows and 

 grazes alternately. 



But besides the obvious advantages of not cropping 

 the seedling grasses either in the autumn or spring* 

 following laying down, and, allowing the plants to 

 begin to flower before cutting them for hay, there is 

 another great advantage from adopting this course, 

 as it gives a good opportunity for re-seeding vacant 

 places ; for, however carefully land may be laid down, 

 it will be found that there are always many vacant 

 spots, and though those may not seem, at first sight, 

 to amount to a considerable area, let any one take a 

 rake and some seed, and do the work himself (as I 

 have), and he will soon find that they are far more than 

 one would be inclined to suppose.! It is true that 

 these gaps would eventually be covered over, but it is 

 important to remember that our fields, like our minds, 

 are liable to be filled with weeds if vacancies are left 

 for their growth, and I consider it, therefore, of great 

 importance to re-seed vacant places, though they be 

 only a few inches wide. To do so, I have found, will 

 cost about a shilling an acre for labour. Two women, 

 or boys, should go together. One should have a rake 

 and scratch the ground, and the other put down the 

 seed, and these operations should be carefully superin- 

 tended. When the Duke of Wellington was once 

 asked by Lord Mahon (afterwards the Earl Stanhope) 



* The subsec[uent adoptiou of the Bank field mixture (vide Appendix 

 III.) calls for a modification of this remark in consequence of the use of 

 such a large proportion of the strongest grasses, which would, if not kept 

 back by grazing to a late period in the spring, give a coarse hay. 

 For the benefit of the subsequent grazings, and the pasture generally, 

 we have also found that a crop of hay, if more than two tons an acre, 

 is a disadvantage. We have also found that by grazing in spring the 

 chicory is so suppressed as to cease to be an objection in the hay crop. 



t The steward at Clifton has sown several large fields without any 

 vacancies, but these were fields of light soil where the seeds were less 

 liable to fail. 



