462 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 15, 1854. 
our conviction that farmers are awahening to the importance 
of pasture cultivation, and that they are ignorant of even the 
elementary principles of such work. Take for example manure. 
They are generally ignorant of what to use, or how and when 
to apply it to the land. Gladly do we bear testimony to a 
growing desire for information. One of the most pleasant 
things—certainly one of the most useful—in our connection 
with technical education is the consultation hour before an 
evening lecture, when anyone wanting advice on special sub¬ 
jects comes to us, and we are glad to say among such appeals 
for help pasture treatment crops up with more and more 
frequency. The most difficult matter in connection with this 
interesting work is to induce our pupils to grasp the full 
importance of persistent and thorough use of manure. 
Our Staffordshire client has sound soil, which will carry 
sheep admirably all winter, yet was ignorant of the true value 
of sheep on such land. Sheep folding on pasture had never 
entered into his scheme of management, and when we advised 
him to turn to it at once for his young pastures he proposed 
to use sheep netting, and to take each meadow in drifts or 
sections extending right across the meadow, and so passing the 
sheep over the pasture. We had to insist upon small folds, a 
hurdle to a sheep or its equivalent—6 feet in length of netting, 
the duration of each fold to be forty-eight hours, and the sheep 
to have nourishing trough food in the folds. It is only in this 
way that the soil can be stored with fertility, the young plant 
well nourished, and a steady improvement maintained. No 
matter how well a flock is fed, if it wanders at will over a large 
part or the whole of a meadow there can be nothing like an equal 
distribution of fertility. We met with an example of this upon 
the Leicestershire estate. A dry knoll in a 20-acre meadow 
had its herbage of that rich green hue, which at this season of 
the year so surely betokens sustained fertility of soil, while the 
general aspect of the herbage surrounding the mound was 
the brown dead appearance which is an equally certain indica¬ 
tion of soil poverty. In answer to our inquiry as to the cause 
we were told that the sheep always went to the dry mound 
at night. It is so in any other pasture; they will go always 
at night to dry soil or the most sheltered spot. Sheep folds 
will be used for about half the young pasture, and for the 
other half there will be a dressing of chemical manure about 
the la't week of next February. We hope in due course to 
say something about the result here. 
It is important that there should be no mistake about 
winter sheep folds on pasture. They are only possible on 
such mixed soil or on uplands with sound pasture that will 
not become a mud puddle under a two-nights fold. By all 
means turn the flock to full account in this manner; it is an 
embodiment of true economy. But wherever pasture is suffi¬ 
ciently extensive to afford a choice then apply sheep folding 
and dressings of chemical manure alternately, only taking 
especial care that all the pasture has an atmual dressing by 
one means or other. 
For a test of thoroughness go over pasture now. If it is 
fresh and green there is a fair residue of fertility in the soil, 
the work has been well done, the same process of folding or 
the same quantity of manure will suffice next time. But if 
the herbage is brown there can be no doubt of soil exhaustion, 
and if anything like systematic folding or manure dressing 
has been tried it has been inefficient. Tbe folds were too 
large, the sheep badly fed, or the folding too brief. If much 
was used there had not been half enough of it—forty cartloads 
an acre is not a load too many. Or if chemical manure had 
been applied it was deficient either in quality, quantity, or in 
some essential constituent. How to apply a remedy in the 
latter case is a common difficulty. Pay no heed to the would-be 
adviser who comes down upon you with soil analysis or a lot 
of scientific jargon. Get pure manure from a reliable source. 
keep to a well balanced proportion of nitrogenous and mineral 
constituents, increasing the quantity of all, because your soil 
is evidently so poor that it requires special treatment. Once 
get it right, and then ordinary practice will answer well 
enough. 
WOEK ON THE HOME FARM. 
The dairy cows are now kept in the yards day and night. Of green 
food they have a moderate quantity of Giant Drumhead Cabbage with 
the addition of some Carrots. The best meadow forming the bulk of 
food with some crushed Oats at milking time. Such feeding is 
altogether better for the cows, and better for the milk and butter, than 
when they are kept late on pasture, the herbage at best now being low 
in quality and unfit for the dairy herd. Store beasts may answer upon 
it, but it should not be forgotten a falling off in condition is often 
traceable to beasts being compelled to clear up the fog, to being kept 
out upon pasture altogether now exposed to heavy rain, frost, and cold 
cutting wind. The poor beasts show plainly enough how naturally they 
seek shelter. Turn them into a strange pasture, and when they are full 
they will be found wherever there is a hedge or trees to break the force 
of cold wind ; unerring instinct leads them there, and we should apply the 
hint given so unmistakeably by affording them a hovel, or better still a 
hovel and well enclosed yard for shelter. We have only to feed them 
there at night, and they will always gather about the gate at dusk 
waiting to be let in. 
Sheep folding is going on briskly upon White Turnips, Rape and 
Mustard. A run by rail on November 6th from King’s Cross to 
Grantham enabled us to see what an abundance of green food and roots- 
there is for the sheep this winter. Some late sheep dipping which we 
came upon on the following day was allowed to pass muster as the 
weather was open and mild. Under ordinary circumstances it would 
have been a month too late, but we are bound to say better late than 
not at all, because of the sufferings of undipped sheep all winter. The 
wool is a colony of parasites, and the ticks with their heads buried in 
the skins of the sheep cause them so much irritation that they 
incessantly rubbing and never at rest. How can they thrive under 
such punishment? This is just one of the matters of detail requiring 
timely attention as going to promote health and high condition in the 
flock. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Poisonous Plant In Pasture (J'. <?.).—Your statement is too 
vague to enable us to give definitive advice. The plant which appears 
in your field in autumn and is poisonous to cattle is probably the 
Meadow Saffron (Colchicum autumnale), well known as being injurious 
to stock. It is easy of recognition, as it has Crocus-like pale purple 
flowers in the autumn, followed in spring by large dark green sword- 
shaped leaves, with which appears the oblong fruit borne on a long slender 
peduncle which springs from the deeply buried bulb. If you recognise 
the plant from this description as being that causing the mischief in 
your meadow do not attempt digging up its bulbs, as they are so deep 
down in the soil as to render the work difficult, uncertain, and expensive. 
The best way is to pull up the leaves and seed stalk in the spring before the 
seed ripens. By repeating this once or twice this pest is destroyed. We. 
may add that the leaves are dead when the flowers appear. If you have 
not noticed the leaves drive in a few pegs close to some of the flowers 
when they appear, so as to be certain of the leaves when they come in 
spring. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Oamden Square, London. 
Lat.61° 32'40" N.; Long. 0° 8' 0" W;: Altitude, 111 feet. 
Date. 
9 A.M. 
In the Day. 
a 
‘S 
P4 
1894. 
November. 
Barometer 
at 32°, and 
1 Sea Level. 
Hygrometer. 
Direc¬ 
tion of 
Wind. 
Temp, 
of soil 
at 
1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
Sun. 
On 
Grass. 
Inchs. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
Incha. 
Sunday .. 
4 
29 924 
52*7 
50-1 
S W. 
52-1 
58-4 
50 0 
85'4 
46-0 
— 
Monday .. 
5 
29S31 
55-7 
63-2 
S.W. 
51-2 
59-6 
50-9 
64 7 
47-3 
0-010- 
Tuesday .. 
6 
30T91 
42-1 
42 1 
N.W. 
51 0 
55-2 
41-3 
73-4 
38-2 
— 
W ednesday 
7 
29-912 
54 9 
620 
S. 
49 9 
58-0 
41-9 
74-2 
37 1 
0-450 
Thursday.. 
8 
29-635 
45 9 
43 2 
w. 
49-9 
521 
44-3 
80 1 
41-4 
0021'- 
Friday ,. 
9 
2 -733 
44'9 
43-2 
s.w. 
18-0 
53-6 
39 9 
60-0 
35-0 
0-034 
Saturday .. 
10 
29 587 
510 
50-2 
s.w. 
48 7 
55-6 
44-3 
80-3 
43-1 
0-072. 
29 845 
49-6 
47-7 
50 1 
56-1 
41-7 
740 
41 2 
0-587' 
REMARKS. 
4th.—Sunny almost throughout, and very mild. 
5th.—Overcast day, With slight showers between 3 and 5 r.M. ; fine evening. 
6th.—Misty early, sunny all day ; fair night. 
7th.—Cloudy mornings, but gleams of sun between 11 and noon, overcast from 1 P.M., 
occasional spots of rain after 3 P.M., and almost continuous rain from 5.30 P.M., 
to midnii^ht; very heavy at 6.3 P.M. 
8th.—Bright sunshine almost throughout, but a heavy shower about 3.15 P.M.; bright- 
evening. 
9th.—Dull and generally misty, with frequent drizzle. 
10th.—Bright sunshine till about 2 P.M., rain from 4 to 5 P.M. ; bright moonlight 
evening and night. 
A mild wet week.—G. J. Symons. 
