Science and Practice in Farm CultivationBuckman, James
Science
Science and Practice in Farm Cultivation
Buckman, James
Agriculture
Sedges } Show a want of }
Rushes } thorough drainage. }
Bull-pates and other } } _Perhaps_ partial }
coarse Grasses } or grip drainage } Full
Devil’s-bit Scabious } may do. } drainage
Buttercups (R. acris) } _Perhaps_ less } certainly
Lousewort } } haymaking and more } required.
Field Orchids } manure is indicated, }
Cowslips } and draining _may_ }
Moss } be done without. }
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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