100 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



a hot dry summer has scorched the life out of a spring plant. 

 This is one of the many misfortunes to which the agriculturist 

 is liable, but it does not touch the point now under considera- 

 tion. 



Were all the land of the United Kingdom light, probably 

 the question would never have arisen. There would have been 

 a general consensus of opinion in favour of spring sowing. It 

 is the extreme difficulty of making heavy land ready for grass 

 seeds before the spring is too far advanced which renders the 

 state of the weather of so much more importance when sowing 

 grasses than when sowing any other seed. Sometimes it is 

 absolutely impossible to thoroughly pulverise a tenacious soil 

 until May is far gone, and then it is very risky indeed to put 

 in grass seeds. Thus an autumn sowing becomes imperative. 

 Having reached this conclusion, it is satisfactory to remember 

 that in addition to the chance it affords of making a thoroughly 

 sound seed-bed, the temperature of the land in autumn is 

 highly favourable to the germination of grass seeds, particu- 

 larly in the North of England. Further benefit is to be 

 derived from the clearing of successive crops of annual weeds, 

 most of which would have appeared among the grasses of an 

 earlier sowing. 



The danger of an autumn sowing mainly concerns the 

 clovers. Young grasses, especially of the stronger varieties, 

 will stand much winter cold with impunity. Not so the 

 clovers, although when established they also will endure 

 severe weather unharmed. But while young, a wet cold 

 winter will almost certainly make an end of them. A 

 retentive soil will foster a magnificent pasture containing 

 plenty of clovers when once the plants are matured, and 

 yet on such soils it will frequently prove most difficult to 

 obtain clovers from a sowing of seed in autumn. 



As to the best month for autumn sowing, it must not be 

 forgotten that grass seeds are peculiarly liable to be ' malted ' 

 under a burning sun when the ground is not moist enough to 



