THE MANAGEMENT OF OLD GRASS LAND 105 



their places. A heavy di-essing of salt applied after weeds 

 have been cut wiU kill a large proportion of them, and an 

 application of gas-lime has been know^n to effect a surprising 

 change in the herbage of an inferior pasture. The folding of 

 sheep thickly will also produce marked benefit on poor upland 

 grass if the animals are at the same time fed with corn or cake. 

 They should be penned on the ground long enough to make 

 it as brown as a fallow, and then many weeds wUl be killed 

 outright. This practice differs very much in its effects from 

 that of giving sheep the run of the land. Whatever dis- 

 courages the growth of rough herbage encourages that which 

 is better. It is equally true that, howe^'er good a pasture 

 may be, it has only to be treated with a policy of masterly 

 inactivity, and in time it wiU revert to the waste condition of 

 a moorland. 



A succession of wet summers is another fruitful source of 

 injury to pastures. The bulk of herbage forced from them 

 during warm damp seasons tends greatly to their impoverish- 

 ment, and some of the grasses which are more especially 

 adapted for dry soils will probably perish. Well-drained land 

 naturally suffers least. Land not well drained becomes sour 

 and unwholesome, and only the sedges and coarse water- 

 grasses survive. 



Hitherto nothing has been said about seed, and it may 

 be frankly admitted that with hberal management it is quite 

 possible to restore the fertihty of some pastures without sowing 

 seed. But the remedy will take time, perhaps many years ; 

 and it is a penny-wise and pound-foohsh procedure to 

 occupy a long period in making an improvement which might 

 be effected in a single season. The outlay beyond that 

 necessarily incurred in carrying out the improvements abeady 

 suggested is very trifling. In every case where the plant 

 stands thin on the ground it will pay to sow a few pounds 

 of the finer grasses and clovers per acre. A farmer I am 

 acquainted with sows every autumn on an old pasture twenty 



