Report on Laying down Land to Pei'manent Pasture. 44? 
when the artificial grasses are giving way and dying out, and 
before the natural grasses indigenous to the soil have become 
thoroughly established. The benefit to be derived does not 
usually set in until the sixth or seventh year ; that is, if we 
consider the first two years as only so much artificial grass as 
might be obtained in the usual way in a rotation of crops. 
It is evident, therefore, that the change is accompanied by con- 
siderable outlay of capital, the profit from which is not imme- 
diate, as in the case of corn or root-crops. It is not one of those 
processes which turns in the ready penny and gives quick re- 
turns. One has to labour and to wait before any profit on 
the outlay is realized. Many farmers are not prepared to in- 
vest capital in the soil which shall be inactive for more than 
a season, or to incur a heavy expenditure in any one direction 
for the sake of a permanent improvement. Often, indeed, 
there is a lack of capital — an all-sufficient excuse ; — and even 
tenants who are possessed of ample means will not invest them 
unless they have ample security ; tenants from year to year, espe- 
cially, cannot be expected to undertake the trouble and expense of 
making permanent pastures without aid from the landlord, or with- 
out protection of their investment. Even with compensation for 
unexhausted improvements, should the farmer be compelled to 
leave his holding at the critical stage in the third or fourth 
year of the newly laid pasture, he might probably receive very 
inadequate repayment, from the difficulty of appraising the im- 
provement. Under a yearly tenancy it is clearly the duty of 
the landlord to take a large share of the expense. One witness 
in the following reports (Mr. D. Christy) says : — " It will 
scarcely answer the purpose of any farmer to lay down permanent 
pasture without the landlord's assistance " (p. 488). Another 
(Mr. Peter Purvis) says : — " I should decidedly say that, as a 
general rule, no occupying tenant can do so [lay down old 
arable fields for permanent pasture] advantageously, as it will 
take a life-time to make good old pasture out of old arable land, 
and at such an expense as no tenant, even upon an ordinary lease, 
would encounter " (p. 488). These are possibly extreme opinions 
of the expense and difficulty of forming permanent pastures, 
and appear to be founded on exceptional experience. It is certain, 
however, that the proper laying down of land to permanent 
grass is everywhere accompanied with considerable labour and 
expense, and the operation is of that prospective character that 
demands assistance from the landlord or protection to the 
tenant. Mr. John Coleman says that, in laying down land 
to grass, it is the custom in some parts of Yorkshire " for 
the landlord to provide seeds and manure, charging 5 per 
cent, on the outlay, and of course claiming the land as grass 
