86 PEEMANENT AND TEMPOEAEY PASTUEES. 



be very backward, however, or stand thin on the ground, the 

 sowing had better be deferred for a time. In the event of the 

 land being at all foul, hand-hoeing must be resorted to, and this 

 will open the ground for the grass seeds. The necessary har- 

 rowing and rolling will be beneficial to the wheat plant. 



Notwithstanding all that has been said in favour of sowing 

 rape with grass seeds, I cannot recommend the practice. In- 

 stances can doubtless be cited where no injury has resulted from 

 it. But the great objection remains that it necessitates feeding 

 off the crop by sheep, and, when the rape is ready, the grasses 

 are rarely estabhshed sufficiently to bear grazing. The animals 

 eat the hearts out of some plants, pull up many more, and 

 altogether do a lot of mischief to a young pasture. 



Autumn Sowing. — Many writers have vexed their souls 

 over the relative merits of spring and autumn sowing without 

 advancing the problem any nearer to a solution. It cannot 

 be solved at all by generahties, although the attempt has often 

 been made. For practical ends it may be disposed of here by 

 accepting necessity as our guide, and then perhaps there need 

 be little or no controversy about it. The decision largely 

 depends upon the possibility of working heavy land in a wet 

 spring. Sometimes autumn sowing is resorted to when a hot 

 dry summer has scorched the life out of a spring plant. This 

 is one of the many misfortunes to which the agriculturist is 

 liable, but it does not touch the point now under consideration. 



Were all the land of the United Kingdom Hght, probably 

 the question would never have arisen. There would have been 

 a general consensus of opinion in favour of spring sowing. It 

 is the extreme difficulty of making heavy land ready for grass 

 seeds before the spring is too much advanced, which renders the 

 state of the weather of so much more importance when sowing 

 grasses than when sowing any other seed. Sometimes it is abso- 

 lutely impossible to pulverise a tenacious soil sufficiently until 

 May is far gone, and then it is very risky indeed to put in 



