THE MANAGEMENT OF OLD GRASS LAND 115 



their places. A heavy dressing of salt applied after weeds have 

 been cut will kill a lot of them, and an application of gas-lime 

 has been known to effect a surprising change in the herbage of 

 an inferior pasture. The folding of sheep thickly will also 

 produce marked benefit on poor upland grass if the animals 

 are at the same time fed with corn or cake. They should be 

 penned on the ground long enough to make it as brown as 

 a fallow, and then many weeds will be killed outright. This 

 practice differs very much in its effects from that of giving 

 sheep the run of the land. Whatever discourages the growth 

 of rough herbage encourages that which is better. It is equally 

 true that, however good a pasture may be, it has only to be 

 treated with a policy of masterly inactivity, and in time it will 

 revert to the waste condition of a moorland. 



A succession of wet summers is another fruitful source of 

 injury to pastures. The bulk of herbage forced from them 

 during warm damp seasons tends greatly to their impoverish- 

 ment, and some of the grasses which are more especially 

 adapted for dry soils will probably perish. Well-drained land 

 naturally suffers least. Land not well drained becomes sour 

 and unwholesome, and only the sedges and coarse water- 

 grasses survive. 



Hitherto nothing has been said about seed, and it may 

 be frankly admitted that with liberal management it is quite 

 possible to restore the fertility of some pastures without sowing 

 seed. But the remedy will take time, perhaps many years ; 

 and it is a penny-wise and pound-foolish procedure to 

 occupy a long period in making an improvement which might 

 be effected in a single season. The outlay beyond that 

 necessarily incurred in carrying out the improvements already 

 suggested is very trifling. In every case where the plant 

 stands thin on the ground it will pay to sow a few pounds of 

 the finer grasses and clovers per acre. I am acquainted with a 

 farmer who sows twenty pounds of grass seeds per acre every 

 autumn on an old pasture, because he has found by experience 



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