Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. 609 
would be solved, if farmers would but learn that grasses, 
although they exhaust the land to the same extent, are of very 
different feeding values, some being almost worthless, and that 
grass-land is as capable of improvement when properly farmed, 
in the same ratio as, if not in a far greater ratio than, arable land. 
The practice which I have followed in laying down pasture, 
and which I have tried to urge on others, is diametrically 
opposed to the plan of leaving land to cover itself with pasture. 
No doubc in time a pasture could in this way be formed ; but 
the elements of the pasture would be the grasses and weeds of the 
hedgerows and roadsides, and especially those whose seeds 
were smallest and lightest, and so easily carried to the vacant 
ground. If the farmer is an intelligent cultivator of the soil, 
and realises that different grasses have very different values, 
he could not be satisfied with such a method of " selection." 
The whole object of the practical farmer is to interfere with 
Nature's " selection " of seeds ; and by the employment of the 
best varieties of grain, roots, fruit, hops, &c., to make the most 
of his farm. But is he to stop short here ? And should his 
pastures not receive the same care in selection and cultivation 
as his other crops ? 
Nevertheless, this method has its advocates even amongst the 
ablest and most learned farmers of England. With a view of 
confirming my own opinion and convincing others, I have 
separated two portions of fields on which lucerne has been fed 
off; the stock on one portion having been very highly fed, and 
on the other but moderately. I have also a plot sown with 
good grass, and another unsown, but now covered with the so- 
called natural grasses, to which stock have not had access. All 
who have seen these plots are as strongly convinced of the 
necessity of sowing good seed as I myself am. 
I wish especially to impress on my readers that the result of 
my experiments thus far has been that I have laid down to 
permanent pasture, without encountering the period of deterio- 
ration which has hitherto been the universal experience of 
farmers ; but that, instead, my meadows have gone on from year 
to year improving and increasing in their productivity for 
breeding and fattening purposes. 
VOL. XVIir. — S. S. 
