108 PEEMANENT AND TEMPOEAEY PASTUEES. 



to cure itself, uncut, in the open fields, demands but brief notice 

 here, and I cannot speak from personal experience of the practice. 

 It appears to be similar to the method pursued on the Eocky 

 Mountains, but there it is supposed to be possible only at great 

 altitudes. I understand that the fields are fed off by winter 

 stock early in the spring up to the end of April ; then the grass 

 is laid in as if for hay, but is left uncut all the summer, and 

 stock are not permitted to graze until December. The animals, it 

 is stated, do so well on the dry grass that cows feeding on it give 

 as good butter as in the spring of the year ; that the frost makes 

 the grass sweet ; and that the herbage shoots very much earher 

 in the following spring, because it is protected by the brown 

 growth of the previous year ; also that when mixed with the 

 old grass, it is much more wholesome and sustaining food. The 

 inducement to adopt this system is that all expense and anxiety 

 of haymaking are avoided. Some farmers actually let their grass 

 fields stand untouched from May until February or March of the 

 following year, when the stock are turned out of doors. No 

 doubt the practice supplies a great deal of food at a time of year 

 when it is most scarce, and this food is specially prized for the 

 early-calving cows. The whole system is, of coui-se, contrary to 

 all the recognised canons on which grass land is managed in 

 other parts of the country. 



