GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 9 



to provide pasture for sheep. Differences of treatment 

 equally striking also arise in the laying down of perma- 

 nent pastures and in the management of the same. In 

 some localities the best permanent pastures consist of 

 a single grass. In others, the pastures are improved 

 as the number of the properly selected grasses grown in 

 them is increased. 



The fact remains, nevertheless, that there are certain 

 principles which will be found so frequently applicable 

 when applied to the growth of grasses as to render very 

 substantial aid to those concerned in growing them when 

 intelligently applied. Because of this the attempt to 

 formulate these, or at least the chief of them, and to 

 emphasize certain facts of general application, is not 

 only justifiable but it is in a sense a necessity. It is 

 thus very evident that those who grow grasses intelli- 

 gently must always stand upon the watch tower of care- 

 ful consideration while thus engaged. 



The more important of the principles which relate 

 to the growing of grasses are found in such phases of 

 the question as the following: — viz.. Adaption; place 

 for them in the rotation; preparing the soil to receive 

 them; seasons for sowing; methods of sowing; depth 

 to bury the seed ; methods of covering ; amounts of seed 

 to sow ; sowing with or without a nurse crop ; sowing 

 alone or in combinations; for hay or for pasture; the 

 grazing of meadows ; the grazing of pastures ; renovating 

 meadows ; renovating pastures, and the discussion of the 

 question of grasses as soil improvers. These will now 

 be discussed in the order named. But before doing so 

 it may be well to emphasize the fact, that these prin-' 



