1905.] Improvement of Poor Pastures. 



609 



weight, and as a night's fast does no harm and increases the 

 accuracy of the live weight figures, the method of fasting before 

 weighing has been adopted in the Cransley and in most of the 

 other experiments. 



If a sheep contracts any disease, it is at once removed, and a 

 similar animal from a flock kept in reserve is substituted. 



From the total increase in live weight made by the sheep, the 

 improvement effected by the manures on the pastures is ascer- 

 tained. An estimate of the profitableness or otherwise of the 

 treatment is made by assuming that in every case 50 per cent, 

 of the live weight increase is mutton, and that the increase is 

 therefore worth 3fd. per lb. if mutton sells at 



The method outlined above has been carefully tested, and 

 under most conditions gives very satisfactory results, but there 

 are some pastures to which it is inapplicable. For the purpose 

 of measuring and recording the improvement produced in 

 pastures by different manures applied to small plots, it is pro- 

 bably the best that has been devised ; but the improvement as 

 measured by this experimental method is less than should be 

 obtained under the ordinary conditions of farming. On large 

 fields grazed alternately, and grazed by a mixed stock, the 

 improvement produced by manures should be considerably 

 greater than on the three-acre experimental plots. 



The field selected for experiment is about four miles south- 

 west of Kettering and 470 ft. above sea level. The soil is a 

 poor moist boulder clay which was formerly under the plough, 

 but for the last twenty years it has been in grass. The natural 

 herbage is very thin and poor, weeds occupying a great part of 

 the surface. When a botanical analysis of the hay was made 

 in 1900, the most common grasses were : — Rye-grass, crested 

 dogstail, golden oat grass, and red fescue. Cocksfoot, smooth- 

 stalked meadow grass, Yorkshire fog, and creeping bent were 

 also present on most of the plots. Red clover was fairly 

 common, and so were the small yellow " clover " (Medic ago 

 lupulina), and bird's-foot trefoil, but white clover was scarce. 



The land was manured for the first time in the winter of 

 1900-1901. The exact quantities of manure applied to each 

 plot in this and subsequent seasons are given in the table on 

 the next page : — 



F F F 



