96 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



If the plant is evidently aU right, there can be no doubt 

 that it will abundantly pay to give a top-dressing of farmyard 

 manure, or some good artificial, to help the young grass into 

 vigorous growth. Bare spots caused by the laying of the corn 

 or from any other agency must be lightly broken, sown, and 

 rolled down again. It will be quite necessary to look these 

 patches over in the following spring to see that they have passed 

 safely through the winter, otherwise they must be sown once 

 more. 



Should the failure be total, it will generally be impossible 

 to smash a hard stubble, and get it clean, fine, and firm by the 

 first or second week of September ; and therefore it is usual to 

 defer re-sowing until the following spring. On two or three 

 occasions I have risked sowing grass seeds on an unbroken 

 stubble, after the manner common with Trifolium. In each 

 case the stubble was unusually clean, and directly the corn 

 was carried, a heavy drag was put over the land and the 

 seed was bushed in. The success was very marked indeed, 

 but I do not feel justified in drawing large inferences from 

 a few experiments of this kind. 



A pasture sown with corn wiU not, after the corn is cut, 

 be in the same condition for grazing as when grasses are 

 sovsm alone. In the latter case the care and attention that 

 can be devoted to the plant through the summer make all 

 the difference. After a showery season horned stock can 

 sometimes be turned on to a stubble containing young grass 

 without infiicting serious injury. But if there are occasional 

 instances of this kind there can be no doubt about the folly 

 of permitting sheep to graze it. Sheep bite extremely close, 

 and with a snatching movement which uproots an immense 

 number of young plants that have not sufficient hold to 

 bear the strain. Another fact is worth consideration. Both 

 cattle and sheep, if allowed to graze too soon, are apt to 

 pick out certain grasses and clovers for which they have a 

 partiality, leaving others to seed or to develop into ugly tufts. 



