106 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



Whenever this happens it is wise to let a man go over the 

 ground two or three times, and cut these tufts down. The 

 new growth will afterwards be eaten close. 



It is unquestionably sound practice to mow a permanent 

 pasture the first year after sowing, and on some soils it may 

 be advisable to mow in the second year also. The loss to the 

 land must, of course, be restored, either by a liberal dressing 

 of farmyard manure, in autumn, or by artificials rich in 

 phosphates and potash, applied in spring. 



In the early management of autumn-sown grasses, the 

 object to be kept constantly in view is the promotion of free 

 growth before winter sets in. Topping the young grass with 

 the scythe and rolling will prove advantageous to the plants 

 in helping them to cover the ground and become firmly 

 rooted. Immediately the growth begins in spring mow once 

 more, and a final rolling is also essential. After an autumn 

 sowing it is especially necessary to cut the hay crop very 

 early. When it is carried, cattle may be turned in to graze, 

 but sheep had better be kept off until the following year. 



Several of the finer grasses, if permitted to seed while 

 young, are so weakened that they die, and on some soils 

 they appear to perish more readily than on others. This 

 does not show that such grasses should be excluded from a 

 prescription for a permanent pasture, as some writers affirm. 

 It would be just as reasonable to say that because certain 

 varieties which revel in a dry soil disappear after a succession 

 of wet summers, therefore they ought to be omitted. A 

 pasture is laid down that it may yield nutritious herbage, not 

 that seed may be saved from it. Grasses which require three 

 or four years to attain maturity— and there are varieties which 

 do not reach their highest vigour in less time — must of 

 necessity be weakened or destroyed by producing seed in the 

 first or second year after sowing, just as animals are per- 

 manently stunted by allowing them to reproduce their species 

 at too early an age. 



