Farming of Cumberland. 



273 



former years. This is only a recent practice in several parts of 

 the county, and is hardly known in others, but is very properly 

 gaining ground. When sown grasses are well kept down in the 

 early part of the year, the stock fed thereon returns sufficient to 

 the soil to keep it nearly in the same condition ; but if suffered 

 to run to seed, every root and stem is doing its utmost to accom- 

 plish the provisions of nature, in drawing sufficient from the soil 

 to bring its seed to maturity in its accustomed season. It is sur- 

 prising in what a short space of time the pasture can thus be 

 irremediably injured. A week or ten days of under-stocking at 

 that season is such a costly oversight, that even manuring is 

 hardly sufficient to restore the loss till after the next breaking up 

 and resowing. F. Featherstonhaugh, Esq., of Kirkoswald, most 

 judiciously practises manuring his seeds, immediately after har- 

 vest, with a rich compost of steeped soil and rotten dung, and is 

 amply rewarded in the hay and pasturage of the following years. 



Bailey and Culley say, " We were informed that, in 1752, no 

 person in the county had thought of sowing a field down with 

 clover or even hay seeds ; and that Philip Howard, Esq., of 

 Corby, was the first who sowed a field with clover." Half a 

 century after the above date, very little seed grasses or clovers 

 were sown, while now it would be rare indeed to find an instance 

 of omission. There was an old saying that " twitch is the mother 

 of grass and some time after the period last alluded to, the adage 

 was acted on by leaving the land, after repeated crops and no 

 cleansings, to recover itself to grass in the best way it could,* and 

 wretched pastures were the inevitable result. 



Few, if any of the old pastures that have ever been under the 

 plough, are able to retain their contlition without occasional aid, 

 and it would be an act of follj^ in our wet climate, to plough 

 such now. The best restorative of exhausted pastures in Cheshire 

 and some other counties is crushed bones ; probably, for want of 

 example nearer home, these have been little tried here. But the 

 experiments of the author with bones on old grass j have not 

 been attended with successful results. Lime is the usual restora- 

 tive or stimulant on old pastures, and if the application is liberal 

 (from 180 to 300 imperial bushels per acre), and the period since 

 the last liming not less than twenty years, the effect is generally 

 remunerative. 



* Formerly Cumberland soils had the reputation, among farmers, of being 

 " grass-proud," that is, being disposed to run to grass, under all circumstances. 

 This would still be the case if the weeds were all left in the ground, as then. 



t W. Browne, Esq., of Tallantire Hall, writes on this subject:—" I may venture 

 to remark that I have tried ground bones as a top-dressing both to old pastures 

 and to meadows without any visible result, though in two cases I covered them 

 with some compost. Ploughed in they answer admirably, and I notice their effect 

 on the pasture when laid down for years after." 



