64 PASTURES AND PASTURE PLANTS CHAP 



injurious to pastures, especially in low-lying valleys and irrigated lands. Their 

 hills, which make the surface of the pasture uneven, and so prevent close and 

 economical mowing, must be levelled with a light harrow after the crop has 

 been taken, or in winter while the pasture plants are dormant, very old and 

 hard ones being broken up with a fork. The moles are easily destroyed by 

 setting in their runs skilfully prepared mole-traps or foods treated with Nux 

 Vomica (Strychnos Nux-vomica). 



Seeding Old Pastures 



Seeding. — Given a tolerably fertile soil, chiefly occupied by inferior 

 grasses, a pasture may be very much improved by the introduction of more 

 nutritive species by seeding. 



Selection of Seeds. — Clover, Timothy and Yarrow seeds are heavy and 

 smooth, and readily find their way to the soil through the herbage of a 

 pasture, as also do those of Cocksfoot, Meadow foxtail and Tall fescue by 

 means of the upward-directed stiff hairs of the seed-covering ; and fortunately 

 White clover, Timothy, Cocksfoot and Yarrow are the species principally 

 required for improving most pastures. 



Method of Sowing. — About ^ of the quantity of seed required to form 

 a new pasture should be sown after harrowing; and the sward must then 

 at once be firmly rolled down. On damp lands it is well to apply a good 

 dressing of compost before sowing. 



In the case of meadows, seeds can be bushed in before the grass starts 

 into growth in spring, directly the hay-crop has been carried during June, or 

 in early autumn. 



Water-M eado ws 



Method of Treatment. — Water-meadows are ordinarily grazed during 

 the summer, and folded or, less often, mown in the following spring. The 

 water-furrows must be thoroughly cleaned in autumn ; and several successi\e 

 overflows should be given during the winter. 



Hay-Makixg 



Clearing the Land. — Since the "bottom-herbage'' is always thicker 

 than the top in a good meadow, it is most important to set the mowing 

 machine as low as possible ; and this can only be safely done when stones 

 have been picked off the land early in spring. 



Early Cutting. — Not only do most pasture plants become hard and 

 depreciate in nutritive value and digestibility with age, but the ripening of 

 seed weakens them and seriously lessens their aftermath. Indeed, if some 

 of the less robust grasses be allowed to mature seed while young, or for 

 several years in succession when thoroughly established, they disappear 

 altogether from the land, leaving gaps to be filled with worthless and, possibly, 

 noxious indigenous herbage. Hence the crop, especially in the case of young 

 meadows, should be cut before the earliest species have formed seeds, even 

 though the produce is liable to shrink proportionately slightly more than 

 would that of older growth. 



The following table, arranged by Mr. W. Carruthers from data amassed 



