168 Early Fattening of Cattle, especially in Surrey and Sussex. 
effected on the loams and friable marls of the New Red Sand- 
stone, where a yearly tenant of 300 acres has sometimes sown 
40 acres or 50 acres with grass in a single year, and seen it 
grow into good turf in five or six years, without special or 
expensive farming. Young pasture in the Weald must be 
carefully nursed till the ground is well covered with sod, and 
the seeds should be sown on land well fallowed and heavily 
manured. There are several methods, and the objects to be 
attained in each of them are to have the land clean and 
full of condition at the time of sowing, and to sow at the 
end of summer on a stale surface. Foul land may be sown 
with tares for folding, and then deeply ploughed, or smashed 
up with the steam cultivator, to lie through the winter ; or it 
may be sown with the most approved root-crop (early turnips, 
perhaps), and folded before Michaelmas, and then laid up 
with a deep furrow for the winter. Or a clean stubble may 
be selected. But in any case deep cultivation in dry weather 
should precede the winter previous to sowing the grass. The 
land should then be heavily manured during hard frost with 
well-prepared dung, which need not necessarily be ploughed 
under in spring. A capital piece of turf was lately formed on 
poor clay after very deep cultivation and winter manuring, 
without subsequent ploughing. In the absence of deep-rooted 
weeds, the land was kept clean by surface cultivation till July. 
A great deal of raw yellow clay had shown itself at the surface, 
but the manure, frost, and protracted weathering, from October 
till July, corrected this ungenial earth, and the seeds were sown 
in this last-named month in a firm but not a hard-bound surface 
of fine mould. The young plants grew vigorously. They were 
manured in winter, and presented a most promising appearance 
in spring, tillering well, and producing stout, strong stems, with 
vigorous roots, which had laid well hold of the ground. The 
grass was mown the first summer, lightly fed with cattle in 
autumn, and again manured the following winter. 
If a piece of turf is required for carrying out the plan of home- 
grown beef, either as a run for the calves or cows, it can be 
obtained quickly, at a cost of two years' rent and plenty of 
manure. 
