174 Cheap Re-seeding of Pastures. 



Impoetance of Deouoht-besisting Plantb. — The severe 

 droughts of 1898-99 proved the great value of the mixtures 

 used, as in the former year we had about three and in the latter 

 two tons of hay an acre. In 1899 the results were most 

 remarkable, as the land was exposed, light, and shallow. We 

 were indebted for the bulk of the crop to the kidney vetch and 

 clover (the late-flowering red clover used stands drought in a 

 wonderful way), and especially to the former. The field {vide 

 remarks on kidney vetch, page 107), was a veritable oasis sur- 

 rounded by a girdle of scorched hills, and with any mixttire 

 ordinarily used the crop must have been a disastrous failure. 



How MOST Cheaply to Ee-Seed Pastuees. — ■' Superior 

 grasses are liable to decline in pastures, because the culms are 

 eaten by stock, while grasses, inferior in quality or productive 

 power, like Holcus lanatus, bent grasses, and crested dogstail 

 (the last, though a good grass, is a small producer, and it is not 

 desirable to have a large quantity of it) tend unduly to increase. 

 Mr. Faunce de Laune sought to overcome this by turning out 

 stock at the time when the flowering culms were growing, and 

 re -stocking after they had seeded ; but this course would often 

 not suit the circumstances of the farmer, and I think it would be 

 better to hurdle off a strip on the side of the field on which the 

 strongest winds blow, and then remove the hurdles after the seed 

 had fallen or been blown across the field. I am led to suggest 

 this from having observed how cocksfoot spread in the southerly 

 portion of the Alghope field from a strip cut ofE for planting. I have 

 noticed the same effect in the Glebe field. In the Cottage Park 

 large grasses have appeared from cows and horses being fed on 

 hay of tall grasses, and the land having been dunged. In cases 

 where the winds are not strong, it would probably answer better 

 to enclose a strip of about an acre in the middle of the field, and 

 then shift the hurdles each year. By this process the whole field 

 could be cheaply re- seeded, and, as I have elsewhere shown, 

 letting up the grass would destroy the moss, which commonly 

 exists to a greater or less degree in nearly all old pastures, and 

 would heavily re-seed the enclosed portion, as letting up the 

 grass opens the ground and favours the germination of the seed. 



