62 PASTURES AND PASTURE PLANTS chap. 



seeding by mowing, since the very fact of animals permitting them to mature 

 seeds while neighbouring species are bitten down closely, is conclusive evidence 

 of their unfitness for pastures. 



Enriching Pastures 



Origin of Weeds. — In most cases the presence of noxious weeds is 

 directly due to the land being starved ; and it is obviously useless to expend 

 labour and money in endeavouring to improve the herbage by seeding until 

 this defect be remedied. 



Droppings of Stock. — Too general an impression prevails that the 

 droppings of stock fed on the herbage of a pasture alone are sufficient to 

 maintain its fertility ; but it should be unriecessary to point out that thus there 

 is a continual drain on the land for the production of meat, milk, etc., and 

 that the soil must consequently grow poorer year by year. 



Undoubtedly the most economical method of manuring a pasture is that 

 of heavily stocking it with animals receiving liberal rations of cake (preferably 

 decorticated cotton), corn and other foods, as not only is the cost of cartage 

 saved, but the droppings are richer in fertilizing constituents than is ordinary 

 farmyard dung, because there is no waste by drainage and much less by 

 volatilizing than when manure is stacked in heaps. 



Farmyard Manure. — Beyond its manurial constituents, farmyard dung 

 abounds in valuable humus-forming matter, which is most important in 

 ordinary soils. It should, to avoid risk of rendering the herbage impure, be 

 applied to pastures only after the last autumn cutting ; though liquid manure, 

 which usually gives the best results on grasses, may be used even when the 

 plants are in active growth. 



Liquid Farmyard Manure. — Liquid manure made from fresh dung 

 contains so many seeds of White and Red clovers, which have passed through 

 stock undigested and without losing their germinating power, that its 

 application is equal to a light seeding of these species, though, of course, 

 there is the risk of a like proportion of noxious weed seeds being intro- 

 duced. 



Selection of Artificials. — Sir John Bennett Lawes and Sir J. H. 

 Gilbert's famous experiments demonstrate that while nitrogenous manures, 

 such as ammonium-salts and nitrate of soda, are most beneficial to grasses, 

 potash and phosphoric acid produce the most profitable crops of leguminous 

 plants ; that the application of any fertilizer, by increasing the luxuriance of 

 some individual plants, more or less reduces the total number of species ; that 

 " if artificial manures are largely or mainly relied upon, certain descriptions of 

 herbage will be unduly forced at the expense of others ; and also that the 

 character of development of the plants will be materially affected. In order 

 to maintain a due admixture of herbage on grass-land mown for hay, farmyard 

 or stable dung should be liberally applied ; and it is also conducive to the 

 same end to consume the second crop on the land with cake or corn. The 

 more a good condition of the herbage is induced and maintained by such 

 means, the more safely may some increased luxuriance, and so increased 

 produce, be obtained, by the judicious use of artificial manures. Provided 

 dung be liberally used, it will not as a rule be necessary to apply potash 

 artificially ; but phosphates may advantageously be used as basic slag, and 

 nitrogenous manure in the form of nitrate of soda, which, however, should 

 seldom be used at the rate of more than i cwt., or at most i| cwts., per acre." 



