20

FORMING MEADOW AND PASTURE LAND.

Clover and Trefoil per acre; the land was previously cleaned as far aspossible with the plough and harrows, and the Feeds sosvn and coveredin the usual way. In the month of October following, a most prodigiouscrop of annual weeds of many kinds having grown up, were in bloom, andcovered the ground and the sown grasses; the whole was then mowedaud carried oh" the land, and by this management all the annual weed*were at once destroyed, as they do not spring again if cut down when inbloom. Thus, whilst the stalks and roots of the annual weeds were de-caying, the sown grasses were getting strength during the fine weather,and what few perennial weeds were amongst them were pulled up byhand in tht Ir young sta^e. The whole land was repeatedly rolled, toprevent the worms and frost from throwing the plants out of the ground;and in the following spring it was grazed till the latter end of March,•when it was left for hay, and has ever since continued a good field ofgrass.

" Several meadows at Roehampton, belonging to the late E. Gold-smid, Eso,,, were laid down with two bushels uf Meadow fescue-grassand fifteen pounds of mixed Clover, and sown in the spring along withone peck and a half of' Barley, intended as a.shade to the young grasses-The crop was thus suffer -d to grow till the latter end of June, and thenthe corn, with the weeds, was mowed and carried off the land; theground was then rolled, and at the end of July the grasses were »omuch grown as to admil good grazing for sheep, which were kept thereonfor several weeks. It should be observed, that the corn is to be mowedwhilst in bloom, and whtn there is an appearance of, or immediatelyafter rain ; which will be an advantage to the grasses, and occasionthem to thrive greatly.

*' I sowed some fields for the same gentleman in autumn in the sameway, and found them to succeed equally well."

The abov" remarks are part of a communication I gave six year*since to the Society of Arts, for which I was honoured with their prizemedal; and I have great pleasure in transcribing it*, as I frequentlyvisit the meadows mentioned above, and have the satisfaction of hear-ing them pronounced the best in their respective neighbourhood-.Thus are my opinions on this head borne out by twelve years experi-ence. Let the sceptic compare this improvement with his pretendedadvantage of a crop of Barley.

It should be observed that our agricultural efforts are intended onlyto assist the operations of nature, and that in all our experiments weshould consult the soil as to its spontaneous produce, from whencealone we can be enabled to adapt, with propriety, plants to proper si-tuations. The kinds of selected grass-seeds that are at this time to bepurchased are few, and consist of Lolium perenne ; Festuca pratcn$is$Alopecurus pratensis$ Dac\.y\\s glomeratus; Cynosurus cristatw j withthe various kinds of Clovers : and it is not easy to lay down any ruleas to the mixture or proportion of each different kind that would best

* See Transactions of the Society of Arts, vol. xxvii, p. 70.

all ;