THE JOURNAL 
OF THE 
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 

Vol. Vil. No. 2. SEPTEMBER, 1900. 

A CONTRIBUTION TO OUR KNOWLEDGE OF 
Petite INP UPNCE “OF MANURES ON LEE 
BemaeNKoak ~COMPOSHRMON (OR) Eh Hr R= 
Pvc OL Het RMANENT GRASS=EAND: 
In carrying out experiments on the improvement of per- 
manent grass-land one cannot but feel that it is, on the 
whole, unsatisfactory to rest content with the mere weighing 
of the produce. In passing the crop of a series of plots over 
the weigh-bridge one is often conscious, from various indica- 
tions, that the quality or feeding property of the different 
lots is very varied, and one wants to lay hold of some scale 
that may be utilised as a test of quality. Variation in quality 
of the mixed herbage of a meadow may be indicated by 
many signs. Weight, aroma, and cclour all tell something; 
and such laboratory tests as chemical analysis and digestive 
determinations are not without their value. Given a suffi- 
cient number of animals and other satisfactory conditions, 
the quality of herbage can be best determined by a 
series of feeding experiments. These, however, are much 
too tedious and expensive for general adoption. Finally, 
there is the method of botanical analysis, which consists in 
separating carefully selected samples of the herbage into the 
constituent plants that collectively form the mass. 
Few forms of investigation of a simple type are more 
interesting than the study of the increase or disappearance 
of plant-species in grass-land under the influence of definite 
manures. It isa line of research that the investigators at 
Ib 
