CHAPTER XV.
ON THE MANAGEMENT OF PERMANENT PASTURES.
However good our meadows and pastures may be, it is but natural that we should wish to keep them in good condition, and, if not so good, our object should be to improve them.
We have already adverted to weeding as a requisite in the improvement of meadow; we are equally clear upon the subject of draining. On both of these points, however, we have met with opposition. The farmer who considers that all is hay that he can get together in a rick, may look more to mass than quality, though even here we are inclined to think that if we take hay and pasture together, the more grasses and the less of rubbish we can get a field to grow, the greater will be our produce in quantity and quality.
With regard to draining, we are told that it takes the goodness out of the meadow; but if we have a meadow on clay—we will suppose lias or Oxford clay,—with only a few inches of a stiff soil at the surface, we shall find that those few inches are the only available root ground. Drain, and then we shall soon see that air will follow the water: this united, air and water will decompose plant-feeding matter never before reached.
Now, where the mistake has been made is, that from this time the herbage gets less and less coarse, and perhaps in some seasons would not produce the weight of hay; but what there is both of hay and grass would be much improved, and would become capable of carrying better stock.
The following reply[3] of Mr. Bailey Denton to some objectors to draining in Middlesex is, we think, much to the point on this important subject:—
Mr. Denton stated that he had been recently over the estate of Lord Northwick, near Harrow, in company with the noble lord and some friends and tenants. On that occasion the question of the reluctance of hay farmers to drain the land was discussed, and the farmers said that as they always had a great deal of custom in London for hay, of whatever quality it was, they did not seek so much for quality as for quantity, and consequently did not think it worth while to drain the land for feeding purposes, although they admitted that draining made the herbage sweeter and better for cattle. The present system, under which the grass-land of the Harrow district had been cultivated for many years, alike impoverished the hay farmers and the land; and he was of opinion that if drained, the latter would produce grass of a much better quality, and equally as much in quantity. He thought a good plan would be to feed off part of the land and put the other into hay.
[3] Discussion Royal Agricultural Society, March 21, 1863.
If asked what would be our criteria as to the necessity of draining, we should say stagnant water at any time.
Plants, however, afford evidence to be depended upon; as thus take the indications of a few weeds common to wet meadows:—
| Sedges | - | Show a want of thorough drainage. | - | Full drainage certainly required. | ||||||
| Rushes | ||||||||||
| Bull-pates and other coarse Grasses | - | |||||||||
| Devil’s-bit Scabious | Perhaps partial or grip drainage may do. | |||||||||
| Buttercups (R. acris) | ||||||||||
| Lousewort | - | Perhaps less haymaking and more manure is indicated, and draining may be done without. | ||||||||
| Field Orchids | ||||||||||
| Cowslips | ||||||||||
| Moss | ||||||||||
Now, as regards very wet meadows, it is found that they are seldom if ever manured; for, just as I was told as regards some of the low lands on the banks of the Yeo, in Somersetshire, that it did not pay to manure them; so one might easily imagine that where the land is full of water, and perhaps of moist humus, manure would not tend to the increase of good grass, though it might to that of thistles and buttercups.
Meadows that are sufficiently sound to yield tolerable hay are too much worked to this end, and are, we think, getting poorer. The Cheshire pastures offer a good example of the effects of greed in this matter. A century ago we feel sure its grass-producing powers were far beyond what they are now. Grass is gone in hay and bones and cheese, but for generations the farmer has gone on depasturing to make manure; but as it will be seen, on reflection, that cattle can only deposit as manure, matter which they have taken from the field and converted into manurial substance, they cannot add any new material: so then this method of restoration must fail at last. Another restoration employed in this county was that of using their salt as a top-dressing. This, as it killed all the coarse grass, and so converted it into manure, recovered the pasture, by, out of bad and rough grass, growing good ones; but this too would fail in time. Hay, the framework of growing cattle, and cheese, have gone on converting the phosphates and the bone matted of the soil into their substances, and it is now found that returning this in the shape of bones and superphosphates is rapidly effecting an improvement.
Hence, then, we would recommend less of greed in haymaking. Do not ripen the grasses too much before cutting. Don’t trust to grazing for restoring the phosphates and other ingredients of the hay, but bring them in the shape of manure.
Use heavy rollers in spring to smooth and consolidate the soil; replant the roots thrown out by worms; mat the turf more thoroughly together; and crush larger but useless plants.
There is, then, less difference between the cultivation of pasture and of arable land than would at first be thought.
Drainage, acts of husbandry, amelioration of soil by rubbish of all kinds where too tenacious, manuring them by farmyard dung, or, failing this, such artificial manures as bones, superphosphates, guano, nitrates, soot, &c.,—these are the sheet anchors in the improvement of our pastures; and by these we should realize the hope of making two blades of good grass grow where one did before.