Management of Grass Land. 
171 
years, was certainly not worth more to let than 2O5. per acre on 
the lighter, and 30s. on the stronger land ; but after ten years' con- 
tinuous pasturing, with occasional manurings and top dressings, 
it became worth 50s. per acre all round. 
Having endeavoured to lay it down as an established fact 
that no grass land will maintain itself unimpaired without the 
farmer's aid, I will venture to prescribe a mode of treatment 
which aims higher than mere maintenance. 
On first-rate grass land there is comparatively little to be done. 
Deep alluvial soils contain such store of the elements of plant- 
growth, and are for the most part so easily penetrated by the 
roots of the grasses, that many years' successive pasturing seems 
to produce but little change in the quality of the herbage. But 
even here there are gradations of goodness. If the occupier 
caiefully scrutinizes his fields in early spring, he will find 
backward patches, and in early autumn places that turn brown 
before the rest. These evidently want helping up, and in mid- 
summer he will generally meet with places more or less avoided 
by the cattle, when making their regular grazing rounds. In all 
these cases a slight dressing of the mixture hereafter mentioned 
may be put on at any time, being perfectly harmless to the cattle 
if accidentally taken up with their food. No dressing, however, 
should ever be applied in droughty weather. Where a piece 
has grown coarse from not being eaten, it should be switched 
over with the sycthe, in order that the tillage may quickly reach 
the roots of the grass. In this way the land may be kept up to 
its full producing power. 
There is in the country a large quantity of grass land, which 
is not considered feeding-land, but yet will fatten young heifers 
or small Irish beasts, if the occupier is not in a hurry, and does 
not put them too thick on the ground. This kind of land is the 
most inviting to the improver ; and if the occupier cannot screw 
up his courage to face the whole at once, he should till 10 acres 
well rather than 20 in a half-and-half way. Let him give a 
sufficient dressing to change the character of the herbage at once, 
so that he may have one field at least on which he can finish off 
his forward beasts. Mr. Lawes, on his experimental grass plots 
at Rothamsted, first taught the world that on a piece of old 
pasture, neither very good nor very bad, different kinds of tillage, 
repeated on the same ground for a few successive years, will pro- 
duce as many different kinds of crop as there are kinds of tillage 
used, the character of the plants in the difTerent plots varying 
as much as the quantity and quality of the produce. It is quite 
safe to assert that any occupier may, if he pleases, convert his 
grass into feeding-land ; and though it will not always pay to do 
so, there are very many thousand acres on which it will pay well 
