Tlie Agricultural Lessons of " The Eighties." 281 
The better management of cows, and the improved manipu- 
lations of milk, must thus be considered to have been one 
among the important lessons of the " Eighties." 
4. Permanent Pastures. 
One important matter has been pressed upon our attention 
in a particularly marked manner during the decade, although 
the movement started about 18G9. Mr. Mechi and Mr. James 
Howard were both, in their time, advocates for breaking up 
pasture land, and many of us can remember when one proposed 
means for developing the resources of British agriculture was 
the ploughing up of our pastures. With the fall in the price of 
corn, which assumed an acute form from 1880, increased atten- 
tion was given to the laying down of land to pasture. Precisely 
those soils which were hardest hit by the fall in wheat were the 
most suitable for grazing, and hence every one has been advo- 
cating the laying down of clay land to pasture. The change is 
well illustrated by comparing the proportion of land in various 
crops, or in grass, upon 100 acres of average land in England as 
between 1869 and 1889. The average result throughout the 
country shows that on 100 acres of land the following changes 
of cropping have actually taken place : 
1869. 
1889. 
Acres. 
Acres. 
. 146 
94 
. 79 
7-1 
. G-4 
65 
All green crop9 . 
. 11-4 
10-1 
Rotation grasses and clover . 
. 86 
11-5 
Permanent pastures 
. 432 
£07 
. 7-9 
4-7 
100-0 
1000 
These figures, while indicating a steady revolution in favour 
of pasture lands, also show that the British farmer does not act 
precipitately, but gradually alters his methods over long periods 
of time. 
"We have learned a good deal more about grasses than we knew 
formerly, and there is a greater anxiety to sow both the right 
descriptions of seeds and good samples of the same. Still, 
taking all matters into consideration, I question whether we know 
more about the best way of laying down land to pasture now 
than we did ten years ago. Twenty years since it was well 
known that land should be clean and in good heart when sown 
away, and that a good mixture of grass seeds and clovers should 
be used, and sown, either with or without a crop, in Spring or. in 
