THE MANAGEMENT OF OLD GRASS LAND 113 



the loss of bulk in the first instance results in a net gain, for 

 the aftermath will be the greater, and the pasture will not be 

 damaged for future seasons. Where grasses perish, the gaps 

 are almost certain to be filled by worthless or noxious forms of 

 vegetation, and thus the herbage diminishes in value so long 

 as a false system of management is pursued. 



Another source of injury to pastures arises from the 

 manner in which grazing is conducted. It should not be 

 necessary to repeat so trite a remark as that land is never 

 enriched by the droppings of cattle fed exclusively upon its 

 herbage, but, on the contrary, must by degrees become the 

 poorer for supporting the lives and increasing the weight of 

 the animals which graze upon it. In milk and flesh the land 

 yields its produce in highly concentrated forms, and without 

 external aid the process of exhaustion must of necessity go on. 

 But when the herbage consumed is supplemented with cake, 

 corn, roots, hay, or other extraneous food, benefit is conferred 

 on the pasture in addition to the advantage which the animals 

 derive from it. The improvement will, of course, be gradual, 

 and its progress be regulated by the quantity and the quality 

 of the additional food supplied. In this extra feeding of 

 grazing animals there is a simple and economical means of 

 enriching a poor pasture, and the increased weight of the 

 stock is an immediate if only a partial return of the outlay. 

 Agricultural chemists tell us, and their analyses are supported 

 by experience, that animals only assimilate one-tenth of the 

 nutritious qualities of cake or other highly concentrated 

 feeding stuffs, and that the remaining nine-tenths, after 

 passing through the cattle, are available for vegetation, in 

 a form specially adapted to meet the requirements of plant 

 fife. This explains the marked improvement which is always 

 observable when grass is depastured by cake-fed cattle — an 

 improvement superior to that effected by a dressing of 

 farmyard manure, because none of the valuable elements are 

 lost by fermentation. And this fact suggests the economical 



