Laying Down Land to Permanent Grass.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1833, 17 May 1886, Page 3

Laying Down Land to Permanent Grass.

(Continued)

Nine yean ago, circumstances led me to lay down to permanent pasture certain porlions of land ; and 1 did as most otinrs have done, ordered the ordinary mixture for permanent pastures from one of the best a»eJ merchants. My first attempts were ou a piece of arable laud of six acres, and a piece of wood land—the underwood, after having been eat down, being fed off with sheep. The piece of wood land eonld not be mown, and therefore was fed off with sheep. I saw in (he wood land a grass I had not specially noticed before, and therefore got a hoek on gracses to find out the name, and found it was timothy, or caUtail ; this led to my finding out that there was a great difference in the feeding properties of the numerous grasses, and in my next attempt I ordered the grasses for myself, sti'l ordering, as recommended by seed merchants, a a large quantity of strictly permanent rye grass. This I watched carefully. When it eamd to flower and seed, the proportion of other grasses was so small that the pasture mqht have been taken for rve gran alone. I noticed in my pastures the the deterioration, so much complained of by others, and was determined to find out the canae, and Inekily for myself purchased Sinclair's book. I gradually learnt to know all the most valuable grasses in nearly all stages of their growth, and found that, howtret cental I was in my orders, and from whatever seed merchant I ordeied my seeds, the percentage of rye grass, soft woolly grass and other bad grasses and weeds, was beyond all belief. In order .the more carefully to teat the recoils, I fenced off a small portion of sens of the newly sown meadows. I found in a piece of 8) feet square about six plants of cocksfoot, one foxtail, two meadow fesene, fire or six crested dogstail, and the rest rye graas, soft woolly grass, perennial clovers, and weeds. I then got an introdnetion to Mr Cairn there, and by means of his able help and valuable information, was enabled to make closer experiments. From these I carat that good seed was most difficult to get; and to illustrate bow difficult. I will give some ef my experience. I had five aeree of very valuable land I wished to sow with permanent grass for seed ; the land was not only very good, bnt very highly manured, and absolutely clean, having been a hop garden. I divided this field into three parts, one to be sown with cocklsoot, the second with meadow fesene, and the third with rough meadow grass. I ordered, with special care, the three kind) of seed from one of the greet seed merchants, and looked forward next year to a good crop of seed, not suepecung that when seed was especially ordeied ot a particular kind from a firm of repute, it would be anything but good, but after a few weeks’ growth, although I was satisfied that the cocksfoot was true, my suspicions were arooacd about the others, and I sent some of the seed that was left to be examined by Ur Carrnthera. To my great amazement I was toid that the meadow fescue was all rye grass, and the rough meadow grass all smooih meadow glass. There was nothing left for it fcut in the beat way possible to destroy ail the grass and resow it. Tbe question might be fairly asked, Why not prosecute the firm for damages 7 The answer is this, Unless a purchaser of seeds suspects the seller, and has witnesses, it is difficult to prove the dishonesty. The seller may pay back a portion of the money charged for the seed rather than riak the exposure. It is not easy to make him pay consoqneutiai damages. For my own instruction, and that of my friends, I divided a lot of four acres of clean poor land into five stripes, and sowed foxtail, cocksfoot, cats tail, crested dogstail, and meadow fescue separately m each strip ; the foxtail was sown very thick, at the rate of 501bs per acre, but only a few plants came up. The cocksfoot came op fairly; the catetail very well ; the crested dogstail was a very thin plant, with four-fifths soft woolly grass, and the meadow fescue half rye grass, while a piece of land left unsown grew no gras* I afterwards had. the seed examined, and found only 35 per cent, of the crested dogstail good, and 20 per cent, of the foxtail. I have, since these experiments, never sown any seed except after the sample had been examined by Mr Carrnthers, and have iu consequence, obtained tesnlts most satisfactory to myself. By farther experiments I have found that it is not sufficient to trust to having only the samples supplied by seedsmen examined, as they have been commonly better than the balk ; and also that it is not sale to have only some sacks of seed examined, but every single sack must he examined separately, and the seed taken from different parte of each sack ; me sack ought then to he sealed, and locked up, and an agreement mt-'de with tbe seed merchant, that the seed is to he returned if tbe result of the examination is not sufficiently satisfactory. Many purchasers of seed no doubt may object to so much trouble, but I can assure them—and tbe results of Mr Carruther’s experiments will corroborate wbat I say—that it is useless attempting to lay down land for permanent pastures unless tbe greatest care is taken with the seed. I regret to say that there is no seed merchant I would trust sufficiently to nee hie teed without Mr Carrnther’s examination. These remarks may be thought too •ercte, bnt it must be remembered that this ie my personal experience, and not only mv experience on my own land, but on that of many others.

To make myself certain on this matter, 1 requested i friend of mine to order the mixtuiM from four of the greatest seed merchants in England, and to take * fair example out of each and fasten them in a packet. These four I sent to Mr Car rathe rg (or examination, and the report was nearly the same in each csss—a fair amount of :eed», the bulk consisting of sp-called perennial and Italian rye gnu. I have no doubt that Mr Carrathers will personally Le able toexp'ain the results of his examinations better than I can. I bad occasion this ye»r to examine some newly laid down land in South Wales ; and in two eases, although the mixtures were supplied by two of tbe beat seed merchants, the balk was rye grass. On the (state ol a gentleman in Kent, who had laid down upwards of 150 acres about thirteen years sgo, there is hardly a good (trass to be (ound, except a little cocksfoot aad creeled dogstail, probably blown by the wind, or dropped by birds. A tenant of mine having purchased a permanent grass mixture from one uf the large aeetlsen. at a coat of 35s per acre, mowed the laud sown witii the seed, and at mv request Mr (Jarruthers inspected the s'ick. and gave the following result of tbe . x-*m 1 na tionuf tbe hay, tbe clovers being exclude 1 from the estimate : -Cocksfoot 12, meadow fescue 3. aweet vernal 3. crested dogstail 8 rough meadow grass 6. g. 1 ien oat grass 1, soft creeping grass 2, couch grass d. woolly soft grass?, oat* 3. barley 11. brome grass 2. an.l r/e trusses 211 ; t< til 1005.

If we «rciuue Uie oats and barley, together with the worthless gramu ■ which may posaibyhaie been is the ground, and treat the lemai nog individual gra«aes as if they were pounds, we nave the following remarkable and instructive result :—slbs of good grasses, at at average tost of ‘.tl per lb, would cost •bout LI 6a Sd , and 9111‘ia of rye grass, at Hd a lb, wuold come to L 3 I7s 7d ; making a total oI L 7 8a lOd. The 9761bs of mired few panaaoent paatnra, at 9i per lb. •oat LM Ua ; making on the data anpplied by the hay. a difference of LB9 9a Id between Me nil Talna of the aeada and tha priee paid ta tha seadanun foe tha nurture. But thia "* poonda ia nothing eomP®* •• Ml lots vbn tbs oooMooraiiil dewgiie tekwinle aaeonol. 1W land from which thia rod was taken fc»*t MMOMtly aoma Mo my owl! haado. I bova aowo a oonridanbk qaantity of faad maaa aaad on it; bat I bare foand in ***** **?•** * others, where originally a large ol rye grata had bean sown, it ia ’•J I* to gat other gratae* to grow. I ■Mooanre to tha oonaintwa that rye graaa ia —*** *• or halation to the soil, an •fWMt ha vhfch that* on many to support ■a. olihoggh othota, donbtleaa. an ready lo