MEADOWS are properly low grounds on the banks of rivers, which, being kept moist by their situation, and also occasionally flooded by the rise of the waters, are best adapted for the growth of grass, and are generally mown for hay. Some meadows of great extent, belonging to a community or district, in which every inhabitant has a right to send his cattle to graze, under certain regulations, are never mown.
When the number of those who have a right of common pasture is not very great, they frequently agree among themselves to abstain from depasturing the meadows in spring, and, dividing them into portions, each makes hay of his share ; after which the cattle are admitted in common for the remainder of the season. Thus a common meadow is converted into a Lammas meadow, that is, a meadow which becomes a common pasture after the let of August, this being the time when it is supposed that all the hay has been made and secured.
When meadows are private property they become much more valuable. The flooding is encouraged or prevented, according to circumstances, and in many cases artificial irrigation is adopted, [IRRIGATION.] If they are exposed to be too often inundated, they are protected by dams and sluices.
The herbage of low wet meadows is generally coarser and less nutritious than that of those which lie higher : hence upland hay, as it is called, is preferred for the hotter sort of cattle. Good grass land, to which the floods never rise, is often called meadow land when tho natural herbage is permanent, and frequently made into hay.
Upland meadows are very valuable wherever there is a demand for good hay. A considerable degree of attention is required to make them most productive. Not being annually recruited by flooding, they would soon degenerate if some pains were not taken to keep up their natural fertility. This may be done in various ways : the most obvious is to recruit them frequently with the richest animal and vegetable manure, which, being spread over the surface at a time when showers are abundant, that is, either early in spring or immediately after midsummer, is washed down to the roots of the grass. A rapid growth is thus produced, which is soon perceived by comparing the appearance of a meadow which has been manured with that of one left in its natural state. It has been asserted by many agricultural authors that the produce of hay is greater when the meadows are mown every year, provided they be occasionally manured, than when mown and depastured alternately. But the productiveness of a meadow depends entirely on the circumstances of soil and situation. A meadow, the soil of which is naturally of a rich nature, and adapted to produce fine grasses, may be mown year after year without any perceptible change in the quality of the hay ; while another of inferior quality requires to be occasionally cropped close, to check the growth of the coarser grasses, and to allow the finer to rise. As to the effect of taking off the bay by mowing lt, compared with that of the bite of cattle, there is little difference, except that in pasturing the grass is repeatedly cropped close to the ground as soon as it rises to such a height that the teeth of the cattle can sever it.. It consequently spreads by the roots, and the pile becomes closer. The urine of the cattle greatly promotes luxuriant vegetation in rainy weather, but in hot dry weather it does more harm than good. The dung, when dropped on the grass, is of little or no value compared with what it would be if mixed up with straw, earth, or peat, or diffused through water in,a tank. It is therefore an excellent practice to employ women and
children to collect the fresh dung in the pastures, and to carry it to a heap of earth where it may be covered up, or to a tank where it may be diluted with water.
Of late years the practice of soiling has been extensively adopted ; that is, all the grass is mown and carried every day, in a green state, to cows or horses tied up in a stable. By this means all the advantage of mowing for hay is obtained, besides an abundant supply of rich manure, which can be applied to the land in a liquid and diluted state, when its effect is powerful and certain. So much more fodder is pro duced from the land by the system of soiling, that arable fields are converted into artificial and temporary meadows, in which the different species of greases are sown, in order to be cut green or made into hay ; and when, from the nature of the soil, the herbage deee nerates, the field being ploughed upspin is greatly improved by this change of cultivation. [0 eass-Lasn. I When a natural meadow has been neglected, and the grass is of an inferior quality, and mixed with rank weeds and moss, it requires much care to restore it to its original fertility. In most cases the shortest method and the best is to plough it up, clean and manure it (luring a course of tillage, without taking very exhausting crops from it, and then to lay it down again in a clean and enriched state, by sowing the beat sort of grass seeds ; or, which is preferable, by inoculating, or planting in it small tufts of grass from some rich meadow, which will soon increase, and produce a new and improved sward. But where the soil is a very stiff clay, with only a small depth of good mould over it, there is some danger in breaking the old sward, for it will take a long time and much manure to reproduce a proper covering of grass. In this case it is a preferable practice to scarify the meadow, by means of instruments which do not go deep, but only tear up the surface. If this is done early in spring, when the ground is moist, and the-whole surface is brought to resemble a fallow field, good grass seeds may be immediately sown. If rich manure, mixed with limo or chalk, be then spread over the land, and the whole well harrowed and rolled, the old and young grass will" spring up together, and show a wonderful improvement in a very few months. It is prudent to mow this renovated meadow before the seeds of the grasses are formed, contrary to a common notion that in a thin meadow the Bead should be allowed to shed, in order to increase the number of plants. The notion is good, but it should be done by sowing seed produced on other ground: for the ripening of the seed tends to exhaust the soil. If the grass be cut before the flower is faded, the mote will soon spread, and produce a new and improved sward.
It must be observed that it is not indifferent what cattle are turned into the meadow after hay making. horses invariably produce coarse weeds by their dung and mine ; cows may be depastured in autumn, as long as the surface is dry ; but sheep are far more advantageous, and may be kept in the meadows at all thrice, if they are not too wet for the health of the sheep, and if there is no danger of their having the rot.