FOR TEMPORARY PASTURES 561 



3. Grasses and clovers for temporary pastures lasting from 

 three to six years : Grasses and clovers for permanent pasture. 



Mixtures for the longer leys and for permanent pasture have 

 a great deal in common, so that their composition may be 

 discussed together. Failure to establish a satisfactory long ley 

 or a permanent pasture may be due to the employment of bad 

 seed, wrong manuring, imperfect mowing or grazing, and other 

 causes, some of them beyond human control. Want of success 

 is, however, sometimes the outcome of the wrong choice of 

 plants for the ley, and to avoid failure on this account requires 

 very careful consideration, both in regard to the choice of the 

 species of plants to be used, and in the determination of the 

 amount of ground to be covered by each. 



It is obvious that the plants previously mentioned as suitable 

 for leys of one, two, or three years' duration are by themselves 

 quite unsuited for the longer leys and permanent pasture, in- 

 asmuch as in the third or fourth year they die out almost 

 completely, and the ground, under such circumstances, either 

 becomes bare or is rapidly overspread by weeds which take the 

 place of the disappearing grasses and clovers. 



In order to impart durability some of the permanent grasses 

 must be introduced into the ' leys.' 



Permanence is, however, not the only point to consider. It is 

 desirable that from the beginning to the end of the ley there 

 should be an uniform yield of produce, and not a high yield 

 during the first year or two, followed by a dearth in the later 

 years, or vice versa. This can only be attained by carefully 

 balancing the rapid-growing, short-lived plants with the more 

 permanent species, which are slow in growth, and do not give 

 their full yield until they are well established. 



When too great a number of rapid-growing, short-lived grasses 

 are introduced the yield at first is very heavy, but the small, 

 slow-growing, permanent plants are weakened almost beyond 



