JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c November i 6) was, 
POULTRY AND PIGEON CHRONICLE. 
NEGLECTED PASTURES AND WASTE LANDS. 
( Continued from page 438.) 
The best and most economical means of renovating exhausted 
farms which have been abandoned by their occupiers or left upon 
the hands of their proprietors in poor condition now deserve 
attention. To illustrate this matter we cannot do better than 
support our experience by the writings of Sir J. B. Lawes, whose 
opportunities for a long period in the manuring and cropping of 
his experimental plots at Rothamsted give him the means of 
supplying the information which is required by the home farmer. 
In describing “an abandoned farm” he says: “Not far from 
where I live there is an unoccupied farm. It consists of rather 
more than 300 acres of fairly good but rather strong land. The 
land is almost all arable, and the late tenant sold almost every¬ 
thing, his system of cultivation being to grow one corn crop 
after another until the couch grass put a stop to his operations. 
As I walked over field after field I thought, if it had been my 
misfortune to have to be the owner of this farm, what should I do 
with it now ? It is quite certain that nothing short of two years 
of summer-fallowing would make it sufficiently clean to grow 
corn, and when the land was clean there would be a further large 
outlay required for manures, as after two years’ fallowing it 
would be poorer in condition than at present. I came to the 
conclusion that the plan I should adopt would be to leave the 
land as it was, and without attempting to clean it : that I should 
put a flock of sheep upon the farm, feeding them with plenty of 
decorticated cotton cake and folding them at night. At Rotham¬ 
sted our experiments upon pastures show that the quantity of 
herbage depends almost entirely on the manures which are 
applied, and not upon the seed which is sown. As each field was 
folded over I should harrow in a small quantity of white Clover 
seed, also Cocksfoot, Meadow Foxtail, and one or two more of the 
best grasses ; but I should trust to the manures and time to eradi¬ 
cate the weeds and couch grass and produce a good pasture. The 
distinction between this plan and that which most people would 
have adopted would consist in my spending but little or nothing 
upon tillage and everything on manure. I should turn the enemies 
who had taken possession of the land to the best account I could, 
and should expect to improve them off the surface as soon as I 
had finished the more vigorous-growing grasses with the proper 
weapons to effect this end. Whether the land should remain 
eventually as pasture or as a mixed arable and pasture farm 
would be a question to be decided in future.” This is extremely 
satisfactory coming from such an authority, and greatly en¬ 
couraging to any agent or home farmer under the like circum¬ 
stances. But we shall show next some instances where persons 
have actually succeeded acting upon these ideas. 
We have given Sir J. B. Lawes’ statement as to what he would 
do to renew and renovate land which had been al'owed to run 
to waste, and as far as condition was concerned thoroughly ex¬ 
hausted ; we will now, however, give illustrations, some of which 
have occurred within our experience, which will at the same 
time show how much in accord with Sir J. B. Lawes’ ideas as to 
what should be done has been done with the greatest benefit. In 
reading Mr. James Howard’s essay on “ Laying Down Land to 
Permanent Pasture,” as published in the Journal of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England for 1880, we noticed that especial 
mention is made of the advantage of sowing Sainfoin or Lucerne 
on land laid, down to grass, in order that a crop of great value 
may be obtained before a permanent turf could be derived from 
sown grass seeds. Mr. Howard says that, “Although Mr. Martin 
Sutton does not favour such a plan of proceeding, yet, from the 
beautiful carpet of green my field presents this spring, I have 
every reason to be satisfied with the experiment.” 
Some years ago we were visiting a farm in a southern county 
for the purpose of making a valuation of the tenant’s claims for 
seed and tillage on quitting. The farm was on the chalk forma¬ 
tion, and the land on the surface a hazel loam, the farm alto¬ 
gether being in very fair condition as to culture. But what we 
wish to note specially is, that we found one field of twelve acres 
one mass of couch all over. On remonstrating with the tenant as 
to the foul condition of the land, he replied with rather an heroic 
remark that the crops yielded by this field were of more value to 
him than those obtained from any other field on the farm. Upon 
further inquiry it turned out that ten acres of this field was in 
Sainfoin, and two acres near the farm premises was in Lucerne. 
Now the subsoil being chalk the Sainfoin and Lucerne gave great 
crops of hay and fodder, the Lucerne in particular giving three 
cuttings in the year. The tenant claimed that the couch-covering 
was an advantage, that the Sainfoin and Lucerne derived their 
nourishment entirely from the chalk subsoil, and the couch during 
winter protected and gave an earlier growth in the spring, and 
also retained the moisture in summer for the deep-rooting plants 
which were fed (when not laid up for cutting) by cows only. 
The sheep kept from the land, because hungry breeding ewes, 
would eat out the crowns and buds of the deep-rooted plants, 
which would then perish, and that when fed the rug of couch 
gave a full bite at all times for the dairy cows, On full con¬ 
sideration of this statement we could not deny the teuant the 
advantage which he claimed from his double and valuable crops 
both of hay, green fodder, and pasturage. Our principal object, 
however, in naming this matter is to show if the value of the 
couch was important in connection with these deep-rooted plants, 
how much better it would be to have a thick mat of the most 
nutritious and best sorts of pasture grasses in addition to the 
Sainfoin or Lucerne, and instead of the couch grass. We had 
always been of opinion that in endeavouring to obtain a per¬ 
manent turf upon chalk or limestone subsoils it would be ad¬ 
visable to sow Sainfoin and permanent pasture grasses combined 
as a proper and judicious mixture, for the Sainfoin would be sure 
to yield full crops before the grasses were fully established. 
We have next to quote from a letter which appeared in the 
Agricultural Gazette in January last from a Mr. James Ellis, 
The Gynsills, near Leicester, who, after having specially referred 
to Sir J. B. Lawes’ letter on laying down foul land to pasture, 
says, “ I know that he is right in the advice he has given as to 
the cheapest method of changing land filled with couch grass and 
other weeds incident to arable into useful turf. My father was 
a successful farmer, and I heard him repeatedly say that his ex¬ 
perience was against spending money in cleansing land intended 
for permanent pasture. I took a small farm in very bad con¬ 
dition when the Leicester and Buxton Railway was opened. 
About an acre of foul stubble was cut off from an arable field 
and had to be added to a pasture. Instead of spending money 
on labour and seed I dressed this acre with 4 cwt. of Peruvian 
guano, which at that time contained 14 per cent, of ammonia. 
In four or five years the couch was replaced by white Clover and 
finer grasses, and at this time no one can tell that this land is not 
an old turf field. About the year 1870 my sisters had a small 
field of arable land thrown on their hands ; it was near the 
village, and could be easily let if in pasture for £3 per acre. It 
was full of couch, Thistles, Mare’s-tail, and the lesser Convolvulus. 
My sisters had no ploughs or agricultural horses, and to hire for 
fallowing would be troublesome and expensive. I said, * Manure 
the land and pull up the Thistles ; leave the rest to Nature.’ For 
three years the land was dressed with about 2 cwt. of mineral 
phosphate and 1^ cwt. of nitrate of soda per acre, put on in the 
spring and grazed by cows fed on cake. The result was mar¬ 
vellous. In four years the land grazed nearly a cow per acre from 
May to October. At the end of six years a flower show was held 
in the field. The Judges, one of whom was a well-known 
seedsman, said that there was one person who ought to have 
had a prize, and that was he who seeded this field. I was 
present, and replied that it was Nature’s own seeding. The hand 
of man had sown nothing, and further, that if anyone would 
find a field in this neighbourhood I would undertake to produce 
a like result, however full of weeds the field might be, if I could 
graze and manure it as I choose for seven years. In 1876 I came 
into the possession of a very poor farm near a quarry which is 
worked for road stone. Most of the farm was completely worn- 
