108 PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY PASTURES 



After every care has been exercised in selecting suitable 

 grasses and clovers, and a plant has been established, the 

 herbage of any piece of grass will eventually depend on the 

 after-management. If a field which has been judiciously sown 

 be divided into several portions, and each portion is subjected 

 to distinct and continuous treatment for successive years, a 

 decided difference in the herbage of the several parts will 

 become manifest. Certain manures encourage the growth of 

 certain grasses, and indirectly effect the destruction of those 

 species which are not benefited, by enabling stronger neigh- 

 bours to choke them. Only those who have carefully observed 

 the results obtained in the late Sir J. B. Lawes's experimental 

 grass plots will adequately realise the importance of applying 

 suitable manures, not merely for the purpose of augmenting 

 the crop, but as a means of maintaining or destroying some of 

 the grasses. 



Manuring is not the only way of effecting changes in 

 the character of a plant of grass. Some varieties are specially 

 adapted for grazing, others for making into hay. A fine old 

 pasture which has been fed for many years will often yield a 

 miserable crop of hay, and may be utterly ruined by being 

 mown for several consecutive seasons. Conversely, a meadow 

 which has been mown for years and kept in condition by 

 annual top-dressings may prove altogether unsatisfactory as a 

 pasture. Grazing gives all varieties of grasses, except a few 

 which will not bear treading, a full chance of existence ; while 

 haying fosters the growth of those grasses which come to 

 maturity at a particular period of the year. Some of the most 

 valuable pasture grasses are often entirely absent from good 

 old meadow land. It is therefore desirable as far as possible 

 to reserve meadow land exclusively for mowing, and pasture 

 land for grazing. 



On the following page is a statement showing the weights 

 of hay obtained from a young pasture under different manures 

 in successive seasons. 



