110 PEEMANENT AND TEMPOEAEY PASTUEES. 



hand, however good a pasture may be, it has only to be treated 

 with a policy of masterly inactivity, and in time it will revert to 

 the waste condition of a moorland. 



A succession of wet summers is another fruitful source of in- 

 jury to pastures. The bulk of herbage forced from them during 

 warm damp seasons tends greatly to their impoverishment, and 

 some of the grasses which are more especially adapted for dry 

 soils will probably perish. Well-drained land naturally suffers 

 least. Land not so well drained becomes sour and unwholesome, 

 and only the sedges and coarse water-grasses survive. 



Hitherto nothing ha,s been said about seed, and it may be 

 frankly admitted that with liberal management it is quite possible 

 to restore the fertility of a pasture without sowing seed at all. 

 But it will take time, perhaps many years, and it appears to me 

 to be a penny-wise and pound-foolish procedure to occupy a long 

 period in making an improvement which might be effected in a 

 single season at a very trifling outlay beyond that necessarily 

 incurred in carrying out improvements already suggested. In 

 every case where the plant stands thin on the ground I am 

 persuaded that it will pay to bush in a few pounds of the finer 

 grasses and clovers per acre. I am acquainted with a farmer 

 who sows twenty pounds of grass seeds per acre every autumn 

 on an old pasture, because he has found by experience that when 

 he omits doing so there is a difference of a ton of hay per acre in 

 the cut of the following year. The seed may either be sown 

 before the grass starts growth in February, or immediately the 

 hay has been cut in June. February is, however, a very good 

 time. On damp land preparation should be made by an applica- 

 tion of salt to the most weedy parts, and a severe dragging over 

 the entire surface. A well-mixed compost of lime, the contents 

 of ditches, and any other available rich material, should be 

 distributed over the whole meadow, and the seeds can be sown 

 on any day when the ground is dry enough to permit the roller 

 to be used. The meadow should then be laid in for hay. And 

 after the crop is cut cattle may be allowed to depasture the 



