Report on Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. 481 
first harrowed, then the seeds sown and rolled in. In hoth cases there is 
promise of a good set. As to the after-treatment of young seeds, I intend, 
upon the field seeded down with rape, to apply, in a month's time, when the 
seeds are well up, Ij cwt. nitrate of soda, 2 cwts. mineral superphosphate, and 
2 cwts, kainit, per acre. Then, in the month of August, taking advantage of 
dry weather, before the rape gets too big, I shall put on sheep, having an 
allowance of cake daily ; and I shall continne this next year, taking care 
not to graze too closely, or to have the sheep on in very wet or frosty weather. 
Next spring I shall repeat the dressing of artificial manures, and apply 8 or 10 
loads of dung when it can be spared. 
On the other field, which is a very stiff clay, I propose to apply 10 loads of 
good dung per acre on the wheat-stubble, and then probably mow once ; after- 
wards grazing with sheep, also getting cake. The objection to cattle, except 
in dry weather, at this stage is their too great weight. I can produce no well- 
kept figures showing the profits of my altered system ; but I am fully con- 
vinced that, upon such land as I have been dealing with, where marl and clay 
preponderate, and where there is but a veiy small proportion of gravel or sand, 
it pays much better to graze than to plough. 
Newly laid-down pasture certainly does not, after the first two or three 
years, produce a large crop of grass, unless it is repeatedly helped by manure 
of some kind ; and my experience leads me to the conclusion that there is no 
plan so effectual or so profitable in making new turf productive as the con- 
sumption upon it by stock of feeding-stuffs possessing a high manurial value. 
It is hence my custom to use in this way, all through the year, large quan- 
tities of decorticated cotton-cal^e, malt-dust, and other similar stimulating food. 
I prefer to keep under cultivation such land as is best adapted for the 
growth of green crops and com, and which can be worked with a moderate 
amount of horse-labour. It is most unprofitable to plough poor clay soils ; 
}\o matter hoiu low the rent, it does not pay. The difference in the value 
of the crop and the cost of producing it on such land, as compared with 
good arable soil, will amount to many pounds per acre ! I grant that if put 
down in grass, such land may not at first do much ; but, at any rate, the 
heavy yearly expense of tillage is saved. And I need hardly add, that the 
increased cost of horse-flesh and the enhanced price of agricultural implements 
tell with greater force upon the unfortunate cultivator of strong clay land. 
The above remarks do not altogether apply where the land is laid out for 
steam cultivation, and the climate is more suitable to the growth of corn. 
With regard to artificial grasses under rotation, it has for many years been 
the custom here to leave the seeds down about every alternate course for two 
or three years, according as the plant remained good or indifferent ; and where 
the land so treated becomes in any degree foul, it is simply ploughed up about 
Midsummer and fallowed for wheat. But now that the proportion of tillage- 
land is much reduced, and is no more than sufficient to produce a plentiful 
supply of roots and straw for wintering the increased number of cattle and 
sheep which 1 am enabled to keep, my seeds remain down a shorter rather than 
a longer period. 
Upon well-established old turf, equally with more recent pasture land, I 
can speak most confidently of the surprising benefits arising from the "trough- 
ing " upon it of cattle in summer and sheep in winter, with the several kinds 
of food already named. Some of my fields by this system, combined with 
occasional dressings of nitrate of soda and mineral superphosphate, have been 
in six or eight years transformed from sour second-rate herbage to first-class 
feeding land ; the grass seems to grow at all seasons and in all weathers. I 
admit that my outlay for feeding-stuff's and manures is very high ; but now 
that beef and mutton and dairy-produce are making extra prices, it all comes 
back again. 
William T. Caerington. 
