98 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



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 

 attributable to mismanagement and starvation. No farmer 

 supposes for a moment that he can for several years in suc- 

 cession take heavy crops off arable land and put nothing on 

 it. Yet this is a very common delusion concerning grass land. 

 And I say most emphatically, that the man who thinks it 

 reasonable to treat either a new or an old pasture on that 

 principle deserves to find it deteriorate in quantity and in 

 quality also. Liberties of this kind are sometimes taken with 

 a rich old pasture, and the injury may not at once be 

 apparent ; but it is most unreasonable to expect that a young 

 pasture will become established under the starving system and 

 at the same time yield heavy crops. 



One cause of the early deterioration of some new pastures 

 is no doubt traceable to grave faults in the prescription of the 

 grasses sown. Too many farmers are content if they can only 

 see ' something green,' without bestowing a thought as to 

 whether the ' something ' is good or bad. So long as men will 

 only pay about half the value of a first-class prescription of 

 permanent grasses and clovers, dealers will be prepared to 

 supply so-called permanent mixtures, consisting mainly of 

 annual varieties of Rye Grass, Yorkshire Fog, Tussock Grass, 

 and other cheap seeds utterly unsuitable for the purpose. 



In a subsequent chapter reference is made to feeding an 

 old pasture by supplying the animals upon it with cake, and 

 there is no better means of enriching the land. But if the 

 plant cannot be safely fed off until about eighteen months 

 after sowing, obviously some other means of stimulating the 

 pasture must be adopted, and this is why I strongly advise a 

 top-dressing of farmyard manure after corn is carried, or as 

 an alternative an application of artificial manure in spring. 



The llothamsted and my own experiments at Kidmore 

 have demonstrated a fact which I am anxious to emphasise. 



