Boning  Pastures. 
409 
Mr.  Blake’s  improvements  on  Brendon-hill  in  Somersetshire, 
inspected  by  me  many  years  since,  and  now  described  by  Mr. 
Acland.*  It  is  as  sour,  bleak,  and  backward  a country  as  can 
be  visited.  Mr.  Blake,  after  draining,  dressed  at  once  with 
100  bushels  of  lime  per  acre,  and  laid  the  whole  down  to  per- 
manent grass  ; giving  it  afterwards  50  bushels  of  lime  every  three 
years,  and  letting  it  by  auction  as  summer  pasture  to  low-country 
graziers.  The  increased  value  is  as  follows: — 
Acres. 
Rent  1802. 
Valuation  1832. 
Let  1849-. 
£. 
£. 
£. 
Venne  Farm  . . 
• • 233 
100 
115 
Out  of  which  . . 
. . 1G6 
365 
Cooksley  Farm  . 
. . 129 
.. 
45 
Out  of  which  . , 
...  95 
. , 
• • 
176 
The  improved  letting  included  tithe  and  taxes,  and  there  is  a 
further  deduction  of  12s.  6 d.  to  be  made  for  50  bushels  of  lime 
per  acre  every  third  year ; but  the  practical  success,  as  I have 
myself  seen,  has  been  long  complete.  The  wisdom  of  Mr.  Blake 
has  consisted  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  his  circumstances, 
and  he  has  given  an  excellent  example  for  his  Welsh  neighbours 
to  work  by.  The  profit  is  certainly  very  large.  In  Cheshire  we 
find  a very  distinct  but  equally  effective  mode  of  improving  grass 
land  : — 
§ 7.  Boning  Pastures. 
This  Cheshire  practice  consists  in  applying  an  extraordinary 
dose  of  bones  to  pasture  land.  “ For  pasture  land,  especially  the 
poorer  kind,”  says  Mr.  Palin, f “ there  is  nothing  equal  to  bone- 
manure,  either  as  regards  the  permanency  of  its  effects,  or  the 
production  of  a sweet  luxurious  herbage,  of  which  all  cattle  are 
fond.  Many  thousand  acres  of  the  poor  clay  soils  have  been 
covered  with  this  manure  during  the  last  eight  or  ten  years.”  The 
average  quantity  used  is  about  a ton  and  a half  to  the  acre  ,'  it  is 
therefore  a landlord’s  improvement,  on  which  7 or  8 per  cent, 
is  generally  paid.  Boiled  bones  act  as  long  as  unboiled  bones, 
retaining  the  phosphorus,  though  not  so  quickly,  having  lost  the 
animal  matter.  Boiled  bones  (1845)  cost  3/.  10s.  per  ton;  the 
outlay  then  was  5 guineas  per  acre,  sometimes  71.  or  8/.  “ I have 
known,”  says  a correspondent,  “ many  instances  where  the 
annual  value  of  our  poorest  clay-lands  has  been  increased  by  an 
outlay  of  from  71.  to  8/.  an  acre,  at  least  300  per  cent. : or,  in 
other  words,  that  the  land  has  been  much  cheaper  after  this 
outlay  at  30s.  than  in  its  native  state  at  10s.  per  acre;  with  the 
* Report  on  Somerset,  near  the  beginning, 
f Report  on  Cheshire,  vol.  v.  p.  89. 
