On Laying down Land to Permanent Grass. 
243 
land so fenced off. By calculating the proportion of the plot thus 
fenced off to an acre, or to the whole field, he could have deter- 
mined the proportion of good and bad grasses in his pastures, 
the real value per pound of the seeds purchased, and the extent 
to which the crop coincided with the seeds recommended in 
Mr. Martin Sutton's book. In all the pastures a large proportion 
of inferior grasses has been used, but a careful perusal of the 
reports makes it evident that the failures have been greatest 
where the proportion of these inferior grasses has been greatest. 
The mixture employed by Mr. John Hemsley, ' Journal Royal 
Agri. Soc' 1875, vol. xi. (page 476), approaches nearest to 
my idea of what such a mixture should be. He avoids the 
excessive quantity of perennial rye-grass, and leaves out entirely 
the Italian rye-grass. 
Mr. Finlay Dun makes the following statement, which sup- 
ports the conclusions at which I have arrived : " land long 
under grass always fouls, especially when rye-grass is with the 
clovers."— (I.e. p. 491). The dying out of the rye-grasses 
permits the growth of weeds which fill up the spaces left 
vacant, and this process takes place equally in perennial 
pastures as in grass laid down in alternate husbandry. 
I give in the following Tables a detailed account of the 
number of seeds per acre used of each kind of grass and clover 
in all the mixtures mentioned by the different gentlemen, whose 
reports have given sufficient data to work upon, and it will be 
observed how persistently large quantities of rye-grass are used, 
and how very small the amounts of the four coarser and better 
grasses are. 
1 take it for granted that the lists of seeds in these reports, 
written by some of the best agriculturists in England, may be 
taken as a fair representation of their practice ; many others, I 
fear, make no selection at all, but trust to seed-merchants to send 
what pleases them best. 
It will be seen by comparing the number of permanent grass 
seeds given in the annexed tables ([)p. 244—250) how far they fall 
short of the 40,000,000 individual plants which Sinclair ascer- 
tained to be the number in one acre of good established pasture. 
From my examination of the principal works on the art of 
forming pastures, and of the trade pamphlets of the principal 
seed-merchants, it will be seen that none exclude rye-grass 
entirely from their mixtures, and that in no case is the universal 
failure of newly formed pastures, after the first year or two, 
ascribed to what I conceive to be its true cause ; and as it is 
to this cause, and this cause only, that I attribute the failure of 
newly formed pastures, I will now endeavour to show how my 
own experience led me to arrive at this conclusion. 
R 2 
