SOWING GEASS SEEDS. 85 



be more than counterbalanced by losses in the grass plant, to say 

 nothing of the labour of patching it afterwards. 



The time for sowing grass seeds with corn wiU be either 

 immediately after the spring corn is got in, or when the autumn- 

 sown wheat is only two or three inches high. It is well un- 

 derstood that the less forward the cereal, the better the chance 

 for the grass. 



On heavy, and especially on rich land, the choice of corn is 

 open, It may be either barley, oats, or wheat, and the last-named 

 is always desirable for the grass. ^ For Hghter soils barley and 

 oats are often only available, and in this case oats are more 

 suitable than barley. Broadcasting the corn is preferable to 

 drilling, as the cereal and the grasses then come evenly and cover 

 the soil. 



There are instances when it answers well to cut the 

 oats green, and turn the crop into hay or silage. This method 

 of treating the herbage helps to keep down weeds quite as much 

 as when the oats are allowed to mature, and it takes far less out 

 of the land.^ 



Occasionally a field in autumn wheat is wanted for a per- 

 manent pasture, and there is no difficulty in effecting it if the 

 land be clean enough, and the grass seeds can be sown before 

 the wheat is too high. In favourable weather the seeds may be 

 put in even as early as the middle of February, as the corn will 

 defend the young grass from injury by frost. Should the wheat 



' I have teen most successful from an April sowing on a thin plant of wheat, and 

 Mr. Clare SeweU Bead in a recent letter says : ' I never find any difiiculty in obtaining a 

 plant of seeds, even in May, when sown with wheat, for then the ground is firm and the 

 surface soil very fine. Often when the seeds fail in barley, the headlands round by the 

 gates have a good plant, because there is fine mould on the surface and a solid bottom.' 



^ A well-known Scotch agriculturist says that he ' considers the best method of 

 sowing to be with about two bushels of oats, to be cut gi'een before there is any kernel. 

 There is a large crop of useful fodder, the small seeds have beneficial protection while 

 they requii-e it, annual weeds are kept down, and the grasses get relief by the early cutting 

 at the stage most suitable for them to have full possession of the soU.' He adds : ' 1 

 have sown down one hundred and sixteen acres in this way. The same grasses, sown at 

 the same time and sometimes on parts of the same field, but with the oats allowed to 

 ripen, have proved decidedly inferior.' 



