TEMPORARY PASTURES 113 



husbandry, so that Avhen corn does not pay and stock is profit- 

 able, or vice versa, each occupier may obtain benefit from one 

 branch of his business. The grazier would be profited in being 

 able to winter his own stock instead of selling it to make 

 a winter's manure for the arable farmer. On the other hand, 

 the arable farmer would not then, as now, be compelled to 

 sell his stock immediately his roots were exhausted, or pay the 

 grazier to summer the animals for him. When neither arable 

 nor pastoral farms yield a profit, the system I am advocating 

 has the merit of reducing expenses to a minimum. 



The speciaUsing of agriculture has been carried to 

 injurious excess. Great arable farms, without enough pasture 

 to keep half a dozen cows, and large grazing farms that are 

 wanting in sufficient arable to grow straw and roots for winter 

 consumption, should both be regarded as evils. The admirable 

 system, pursued in Lancashire and in Scotland, of annually 

 laying away in artificial grasses a proportion of each farm 

 for a period of three or four years, is so successful that it is 

 surprising the practice has not long since been adopted aU over 

 the country. 



On midland and southern farms the custom long prevailed 

 of sowing Broad Clover alone, or in occasional instances with 

 an admixture of Rye Grass. The more profitable method is, 

 however, gradually advancing in favour, and every year an 

 increasing number of farmers find that the best results are 

 obtained from clovers combined with such heavy-cropping 

 grasses as Cocksfoot, Foxtail, Timothy, and Rye Grass. I am 

 fully persuaded that the general adoption of short-term leys 

 will prove to be a substantial gain. In itself the system of 

 temporary pastures is good, and a means of good, for it opens 

 up a superior method of farming which can be conducted with 

 a smaller capital than is necessary for the management of a 

 purely arable farm. 



The assumption that there is no alternative between the 

 old four-course system and laying down land to permanent 



