498 Report on Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. 
Conclusion. By Morgan Evans. 
It remains now to sum up the evidence contained in the fore- 
going interesting Reports ; and although, on the whole, there i& 
considerable unanimity of view, there are points on which great 
differences of opinion exist. 
It appears to be the general practice of those who have laid 
down permanent pasture to select for the purpose the loamy 
retentive portions of the farm, and to continue the cultivation of 
the lighter, more easily worked barley-soils as arable land ; but 
in a few instances light land, having a tendency to become 
thin by continual cropping, or from being on a hill-side difficult 
of cultivation, has been converted into permanent pasture. There 
are, however, many poor light soils that will grow under liberal 
treatment good green crops, and afterwards cereals, in the rotation, 
that cannot be converted by any reasonable amount of expendi- 
ture into good grass land. Under these circumstances, and 
where the land, as is frequently the case, differs greatly in 
character on the same farm, the better and more retentive soils- 
appear to be the most desirable to lay down to permanent 
pasture. 
There are three important points in the formation of new 
pastures ; (1) the draining of the soil ; (2) the mechanical pre- 
paration of the soil ; and (3) the manure to be applied in the 
preparation of the seed-bed. 
As to the first point. Colonel Rigg, Messrs. James Howard, 
J. Marshall, H. Browne, and W. Stewart, among others, main- 
tain that grass land cannot be too thoroughly drained, and that 
it requires to be at least as well drained as arable land. On 
the other liand, Mr. J. Coleman does not " believe that grass land 
needs to be so uniformly dry as arable ground " (p. 460). Mr. 
C. Stephenson thinks moor-lands may be over-drained ; whilst 
Mr. Egan is not in favour of drainage, being confident that much 
land in his district " has considerably deteriorated in value by 
too much drainage " (p. 485). Where views so directly opposed 
to each other are entertained by experienced men, it may appear 
presumptuous to decide between them. On the whole, I am 
inclined to believe that grass land does not require to be drained 
as thoroughly as arable land, and that it may even be possible 
in light porous soils in a dry climate to over-drain the land. 
Although in corn-land any excess of moisture which is un- 
favourable to the particular cereal sown is a direct loss to the 
only plant which exists at the time, and on which the success of 
the cultivation depends, a comparatively wet soil under grass is 
not precisely in the same predicament, for all grass is not one 
grass. Some grasses flourish in damp soils ; and although thc^ 
