64 The After Managettient 



was, after turnips, to sow up with 2 bushels of Koenigs- 

 berg tares, 2 bushels of oats, half a bushel each of 

 Italian and perennial ryegrass, 4 lbs. each of alsike, white 

 clover, and trefoil, and 2 lbs. of cow clover. His later 

 practice was to diminish the ryegrass, and substitute 

 4 or 5 lbs. of cocksfoot and timothy. He cut the crop 

 before it reached the full blooming stage, and made it 

 into hay. In the case of very rich land he omitted the 

 tares, and sowed 3 bushels of oats, and cut the crop for 

 hay whenever they were fully shot, and before the 

 grain had formed. The late Mr. Faunce de Laune's 

 experience was — and a very extensive experience he 

 had — that grass may be grown equally well with or 

 without a crop, and after any crop, excepting clover, 

 for, sown after' clover, he found that the grass most 

 conspicuously failed. I now turn to a consideration of 

 that most important of all points connected with la3ring 

 down land to grass — the subsequent treatment of the 

 pasture. 



Some years ago, when discussing the whole question 

 of grass with a farmer who is most skilful in laying 

 down, and still more so in managing, his pastures, he 

 said that the management of the pasture is even of 

 more importance than the s^slection of the seed and the 

 preparation of the land. This remark I am particularly 

 anxious to impress upon all those who are inexperienced 

 in laying down land to grass, because it is from the 

 too common, careless treatment of young pastures that 

 such a number of complete and partial failures occur. 

 F&rmers who have hitherto been in the habit of only 

 laying down grass to lie for a year, or two years, and 

 treating it in the way such grass is usually treated, are 

 too apt to treat in a similar manner land laid down to 

 permanent pasture, or that is to lie for five or more 

 years before being again ploughed. And it is of the 

 more importance to dwell on this point, because the 

 mixtures which ought to be used for five or six years' 

 lays, or for permanent pasture, are so much more 



