IMMEDIATE APTEE-MANAGEMENT OF NEW PASTUEES. 93 



a man go over the ground two or three times, and cut these tufts 

 down. The new growth will afterwards be eaten close. 



In the early management of autumn-sown grasses, the object 

 to be kept constantly in view is the promotion of free growth 

 before winter sets in. Topping the young grass with the scythe 

 and rolling will prove advantageous to the plants in helping them 

 to cover the ground and become firmly rooted. Immediately the 

 growth begins in spring it will be worth while to mow once 

 more, and a final rolUng is also essential. After an autumn 

 sowing it is especially necessary to cut the hay crop very early. 

 When it is carried, cattle may be turned in to graze, but sheep 

 had better be kept off until the foUomng year. 



Several of the finer grasses, if permitted to seed in a young 

 state, are so weakened by it that they die, and they appear to 

 perish more readily on some soils than they do on otliers. This 

 does not show that such grasses should be excluded from a pre- 

 scription for a permanent pasture as some writers affirm. It 

 would be just as reasonable to say that because certain varieties 

 which revel in a dry soil disappear after a succession of wet 

 summers, therefore they ought to be omitted. A pasture is not 

 laid down that seed may be saved from it, but that it may yield 

 crops of hay and nutritious food. Grasses which require three or 

 four years to attain maturity, and there are varieties which do 

 not reach their highest vigour in less time, must of necessity be 

 weakened or destroyed by producing seed in the first or second 

 year after sowing, just as animals are permanently stunted by 

 allowing them to reproduce their species at too early an age. 



The opinion is widely entertained that the critical period of 

 a pasture is the third or fourth year after it has been sown. But 

 if a pasture begins to fail about that time, it is probably attri- 

 butable to mismanagement and starvation. No farmer supposes 

 for a moment that he can for several years in succession take 

 much off" arable land and put nothing on it. Yet this is a very 

 common delusion concerning grass land. And I say most em- 

 phatically that the man who thinks it reasonable to treat either 



