^ THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Vol. XII, No. 8. 



NOVEMBER, 1905. [NEW SERIES.] 



FORMATION OF PERMANENT; PASTURES. 



The Selection of Seeds for Laying down Land to 

 Grass — continued. 



Since cheapness must be a chief qualification for a seeds- 

 mixture intended for land that no longer pays for ploughing, 

 and since no kind of inferior seed is so bad as inferior grass seed, 

 it is clear that the problem of the mixture resolves itself largely 

 into reducing to the lowest safe limit the number of seeds which 

 we sow. I am not an advocate of what farmers call " thin 

 sowing." I am quite aware of the sorry results that in practice 

 have followed attempts to calculate the number of seeds required 

 in the case of such crops as wheat, and I know that nothing 

 short of experience can settle the actual numbers of grass and 

 clover seeds that will give the best result, but I believe that we 

 are at present without this experience. I, at least, cannot find 

 any evidence of it that satisfies me, and I suspect that our present 

 practice of sowing " plenty good seed," while it may produce a 

 good pasture, does so at unnecessary cost, and at the expense 

 of a heavy " infant mortality " in the plants we sow. 



The number of seeds required must depend above every- 

 thing else upon two factors : (i) on the plants composing 

 the mixture, some of which, like rye-grass, white clover, and 

 rough-stalked meadow grass, may occupy a great deal of space,, 

 and others, like crested dog's-tail and golden oat-grass, very 

 little ; (2) upon the tilth and condition of the soil. In the 

 case of such small and delicate seeds, and with plants of such 

 indefinite growth, it will readily be granted that ten million seeds 

 in one case may produce a better surface covering than twenty 

 million seeds in another. 



OO 



