Eeport on Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. iil 
home products from an augmented home supply. To the indi- 
vidual fanner, however, who is quick and enterprising, the very 
immobility of farmers in the aggregate is an advantage. He 
need not fear that the whole country will change its farming 
policv simultaneously. The commercial spirit, which readily 
adapts itself to the times, is possessed by comparatively few ; and 
the few gain by striding in advance of the footsteps of the manv. 
Assuming onlv, for the present, that in the majority of cases 
an increase of the permanent pasture of the farm is a desirable 
object, and that the farmer is not ignorant of the benefits of a 
change in this direction, there are several considerations, anv one 
of which may affect his willingness or ability to deviate from 
his usual system of cultivation. Besides the natural habit of 
many English farmers, there are not a few who are wanting in 
the necessary skill and managerial ability to readily alter their 
practice to suit special occasions. The order of working to which 
they have been accustomed they have pursued for a length of 
time. The whole parts of the machine, so to speak, have 
become adjusted to one another, so that they find no dilEculty in 
continuing their usual course. Each has by experience attained 
an accurate knowledge of the capabilities of his own farm. 
He knows precisely what amount of stock it will carry, how 
many acres of turnips or hay will sustain the usual number of 
animals kept, and how many men and horses are required to 
do the usual work. And as an alteration in the proportions of 
his crops on a large scale necessitates new calculations as well 
as an increased effort, he prefers to continue the routine he has 
always practised. 
Then there are manv persons so enamoured of a special rotation 
of cropping — say the four-course — that to extend the period of 
artificial grasses appears to them a violation of all the true prin- 
ciples of scientific farming. The four-course system is their 
only ideal of modern practical agriculture, the test by which 
they judge the claim of others to be admitted into the 
" hierarchy of agriculture — to borrow a Disraelian epithet. A 
course of cropping which has been found highly beneficial in 
some of our most famous corn-growing districts is supposed 
to be the onlv legitimate svstem to be pursued by intelligent 
farmers ever^"where. It took a Ion? time to establish the general 
merits of the four-course rotation ; and, however powerful the 
reasons may now be for diverging from the time-honoured pre- 
cedent, it will probably take a corresponding length of time 
before any other svstem becomes equally as general in the 
country. The philosophy of the four-course shift of alternate 
white and green crops is well understood. It is perhaps the 
best natural system of cropping, and of maintaining the fertilitj 
