129 



Temporary Pastures. 



Although a large proportion of the cultivated soil of the United 

 Kingdom is perfectly adapted for being laid away to pasture, it 

 is unquestionably true that certain soils do not take kindly 

 to permanent grasses. There are also cases where the absence 

 of fences and the lack of funds to make them, the cultural 

 preparations, and the expense of the seeding, combine to place 

 the creation of a permanent pasture out of the question. In 

 relation to this subject I pubhshed a short paper some years 

 ago which had this question for its title : ' Is there no Alterna- 

 tive ? ' As an answer I ventured strongly to press upon the 

 attention of agriculturists the necessity of adopting the system 

 of alternating grass with corn and roots as a means of enabling 

 them to work with less capital and of reducing the labour bill by 

 at least one-third. Mr. Clare Sewell Eead has given the sanction 

 of his high authority to this practice by pubhcly stating that he 

 considered it to be the only possible way of meeting the present 

 conditions of agriculture. 



Several of the reasons why some land wiU not grow a satis- 

 factory permanent pasture are very ably stated by one of the 

 greatest French agricultural authorities, Monsieur H. Joulie, in 

 his essay on ' Permanent and Temporary Meadows and Pastures,' 

 for which the Soci^t^ des Agriculteurs de France awarded him a 

 gold medal. He says : ' At first the grass plants find a soil suit- 

 ably dressed with farm-yard or other manure, that is to say, con- 

 taining all the elements necessary for their growth. So they grow 

 vigorously. But little by little the soil becomes more compact, 



