PERMANENT PASTURES. 397 



In the South, the autumn months would be more suit- 

 able for sowing the seed. In the North, the hazard of 

 losing the seed, through dry weather, would be lessened 

 by sowing half the quantity one season, and the other 

 half the following season ; but such hazard to seed sown 

 on new land is not very great. 



At the end of the first season or the second, accord- 

 ing to the extent to which the brush has been destroyed, 

 sheep should be introduced and the goats moved on to 

 fresh feeding grounds, as browse, with some grass, is 

 the natural food of the goats, and grass is the natural 

 food of the sheep. The latter will also prevent the 

 bushes and young trees from regaining a foothold on 

 such pastures and will so crop down weeds that the 

 grasses sown will before very long make clean and ex- 

 cellent pasture. 



When grasses are sown >thus on areas of "slashed 

 over" forest lands, which have been run over by fire, or 

 amid the standing and fallen dead timber of the fire 

 swept forests yet uncut, the germination is so sure 

 and the growth so rapid that these may be readily trans- 

 formed into pastures, by simply sowing the seed and 

 introducing live stock to graze upon the land. In 

 clearing timber lands, if they are thus laid down to 

 grass, they at once become productive and will continue 

 so until broken- with the plough, and without the neces- 

 sity of applying fertilizers for several years at least. 

 Meantime the stumps, if of the hardwood, will in time 

 decay and leave the land ready for the plough without 

 "entailing any considerable labor in their removal. This 



