I suppose I ought to touch wood while saying that I have never yet had a failure in fifteen years of establishing leys. I very nearly had one, described in Chapter VIII, Making a Ley with a Mower, until I fed the field with what I am convinced is the one and only manurial secret of successful leys—an adequate supply of organic matter to the top soil. In considering the high proportion of failures which have been experienced by farmers, especially in the dryer areas of low rainfall, it is significant that organic matter is also the one essential which no official cropping expert or soil analyst ever advises, or measures, in his assessment of the needs of the soil when recommending to the farmer the chemical 'essentials' for the successful establishment of a pasture. If soil scientists would concern themselves with the organic content of the soil, and determine the minimum level essential to establish a ley, with no assistance whatever from artificial chemical aids, failures need never be, and expenditure on unnecessary fertilizers would be cut, while at the same time the life and productive ability of the ley would be greatly increased.

   A good farmer does not, of course, need a soil analyst to tell him whether his soil contains enough organic matter: his own feet and hands can feel the answer for him, and the friability of the soil behind the disc harrow or rotavator plainly indicates the readiness of the soil to receive the seed. But if he wants outside advice, let him ask for a measurement of organic content rather than chemical recommendations. Organic matter is the one stable factor, the quantity of which does not vary greatly from one month to another. A chemical analysis on the other hand can vary widely from one week to the next, according to soil temperature, moisture, and bacterial activity. This week you may be advised to apply 10 cwt. of basic slag an acre. Next week the phosphate status of the field could be adequate with no need to spend a penny on purchased fertilizers. (See Chapter VI —Natural Crop Nutrition.)

   So the preparation of the land for the ley requires, as its most valuable purpose, the building of the organic surface skin, into which the seed will be sown. And the place of the ley in the rotation should be at the point where the level of organic matter is at its highest. In my farming this is as soon as convenient after a dressing of farmyard manure or compost.

   The type of rotation into which the ley will fit depends on the extent to which you will come with me in relying on the ley for the entire feeding of the herd, and the amount of cropping which is being practised for the sale of crops additional to the needs of the cattle.

   If the cropping rotation is entirely for the feeding of cattle, whether for beef or milk production, then the ideal rotation is that described in Chapter V—Self-feeding for the Soil.

   What is there described as a sectional re-seeding of one field, putting each section through the rotation, kale, vetch-oat mixture, seeds (ley), may be used in separate fields instead of separate sections of one field.

   The rotation for maximum fodder production and soil fertility building is then:

       ALL-GREEN ROTATION: 
            1st year   Kale
            2nd year   Vetch-oat mixture
            3rd year   Ley
            4th year   Ley
            5th year   Ley
            6th year   Ley
              and to Kale again.

   Farmyard manure or compost is applied for either the kale or the oat and vetch mixture, whichever happens at the time to be the most convenient. Each crop benefits equally well—both being gross feeders of organic manures in a less decomposed condition. Then, one or two seasons later, the manure applied for the kale or vetch mixture has decomposed and changed to humus to bring the soil to its optimum condition for the sowing of the ley.

   This is a rotation that is specially beneficial in a dry climate, the only possible adaptation from any moister conditions being the use of a deeper-rooting, more drought-resistant crop in place of oat and vetch. For this purpose American Sweet Clover, Broad Red Clover, and Chicory would be ideal mixture; though few soils, however dry, will not grow more bulk of green food for silage from oat (or rye) and vetches than from any other crop, provided a dressing of organic manure can be given in the preparation of the seed bed—either for the oats and vetches mixture or the crop preceding it.

   Where straw crops are needed for bedding straw and feeding, or dredge-corn for cattle, pigs and poultry, this all-green rotation is merely modified by the addition of one or two straw crops between the ley and the kale, the kale and the vetches, or between the vetch mixture and the ley. If the kale can be cleared by February, there is time to fit in a spring cereal crop before taking an autumn crop of oats and vetches. If that is not possible, then the vetches must be followed with an autumn cereal which will be undersown with the new ley in the following spring.

   It is in our cultivations, in growing all other crops in the rotations, and in preparing for the ley that we effect great savings over the orthodox system, enabling us to spend that extra pound or two on the seeds mixture.

   The only time we need use the plough—and in consequence the operations made necessary by the effect of the plough—is in breaking the ley; and with the introduction of the rotary hoe it is now only when the ley is too wet, or too dry and hard for it, that we need use a plough even to break the ley. As there is more latitude in time for the breaking of the ley as compared with other crops, we can usually wait until the ground is in the right state for the rotary hoe before we break it. Though we are really concerned in this chapter with establishing the ley, now that I have referred to breaking the ley I may as well say here how that is done; for the process is so simple it will not take up much space to describe it.

   We merely choose a day when there is a reasonably dry surface to the ley, after it has been grazed down bare. The rotary hoe then goes in at about an inch deep and skims off the turf. A second time over with the rotary hoe then cuts off another inch of soil to mix with the turf. Third time over, the depth is increased to four inches and the finished seed bed is then ready for either kale or cereal.

   If the ley is sown with the oat and vetch mixture, or immediately the oat and vetch mixture has been sown, then usually once over the kale stubble with the rotary hoe is the only cultivation that is needed. A second stroke with the rotary hoe is in any case the maximum requirement on an oat and vetch stubble.

   Using disc harrows twice over is sufficient on all except the roughest or heaviest of land.

   When sown with the oat and vetch mixture we mix all the seeds together and sow with the grain drill. When the ley seeds are sown separately we use either the seed fiddle or seed barrow. I prefer the seed fiddle, which is by far the quickest way of sowing grass, clover and herb seeds, and (unless there is a strong wind when no attempt should be made to sow grass seeds at all except with a drill) it gives an even spread and avoids putting the seeds too deep.

   The best way of covering the seed is with the roller. Indeed, if the ground is at all rough after discing or rotavating, once over with the ring roller is wise before sowing as well, especially if the sowing is to be done on foot with the seed fiddle or barrow.

   Ley seeds must be left tightly embedded by the soil: and as both disc harrows and rotary hoe leave the soil rather too loose, rolling with either ring roll or flat roll is necessary as the final operation in sowing the ley.

   Where the ley is to be sown direct after cereal or kale crop—without a companion or nurse crop like oats and vetches or a straight cereal crop—then I like to fit in a green-manuring crop to be disced or rotavated in before sowing the ley. This makes doubly sure of good soil structure, ample moisture and a good content of organic nitrogen, as well as the phosphates released slowly for the new ley seeds by the decomposing green crop.

   American sweet clover or broad red clover are the best green legumes for this purpose if time allows for a good growth, i.e. eight or ten weeks. If there is not more than a month or six six weeks' margin of time before the need to sow the ley—then mustard is the quickest growing and cheapest green crop manure. But mustard does not gather atmospheric nitrogen, so should only be used when time is very limited ; and that need not be often, for the kale will be out of the way by the end of March, and the ley does not have to be sown before late August or early September.

   This means that the kale stubble can be worked and sown with the green crop in April; the green crop incorporated with the topsoil in late July or early August, leaving ample time to get the ley sown by the end of August if you are not too preoccupied with the struggle to save the cereal harvest.

   Never plough in the green crop. Seventy-five per cent of its value is lost by putting it right under where it will putrefy, instead of passing through a slow aerobic process of decomposition, assisted by oxygen-loving nitrifying bacteria which will prepare a warm and rich seed bed for the ley seeds. Ploughed under, the green crop is of no use to the ley seeds at all, and indeed, by the sponge-like action several inches under the soil, draws down the moisture that is needed on top to give the ley a good start. This is one of the greatest errors of the dry-land farmer. All his troubles and difficulties in ley establishment can be overcome by keeping the organic sponge on top.

   The best crop I know for building the fertility of a very poor field before sowing it down to a ley is sweet clover. I have written in another part of this book about the value of this legume in gathering nitrogen and contributing organic matter to the soil; the way I use it in reclaiming a poor field ready for a herbal pasture is as follows.

   Sow the field with 20 lb. an acre of sweet clover alone, or with H.1 short-rotation ryegrass at 18 lb. and sweet clover at 14 lb. an acre. The inclusion of ryegrass means that it can be grazed in an emergency, and sweet clover alone is not suitable for more than very limited grazing. The addition of ryegrass slightly reduces its value as a purely soil-improving crop, but it does give one the alternative of grazing.

   But my main object in using sweet clover in this way is to feed it back to the soil, and for this purpose alone the sweet clover is better on its own.

   The process of feeding the clover to the soil is, then, to mow it (with the swathe board taken off the mower) just before it comes to flower, and let it lie on the soil as a mulch. Allow it to grow nine inches to a foot high again, and mow in the same way, once more leaving the crop on the ground. Repeat this process as often as the crop grows up nine to twelve inches, until it is decided to prepare for sowing the ley.

   Then the last growth of sweet clover is disced or rotavated into the soil thoroughly enough to leave a seed bed fine enough for the small seeds of the ley. Then the herbal ley is sown (not later than early September) on the disced-in sweet clover. Spring-sown sweet clover will provide two mulches in the year of sowing, and two further mulches in the following spring, and summer before discing in the third crop of its second year in late July ready for sowing the new pasture in August. If Short-Rotation ryegrass is sown with it, you can, at a pinch (though it delays the build-up of fertility for the soil), take a cut for silage if you are short of other greenstuff.

   The above sweet clover fertility-building mulch is made doubly valuable if a dressing of organic manure can be applied before sowing the sweet clover, or at the time of discing in the last growth of sweet clover: for this multiplies greatly the bacteria which utilize the disced-in sweet clover.

   It is usually considered essential to inoculate (i.e. dress with a bacterial culture) sweet clover or lucerne before sowing on land which has not grown either of these crops in the few years preceding sowing. I have found that where the organic content of the soil is high, this is quite unnecessary. If there is any doubt about the adequacy of the organic content of the soil, it would be wiser to use the culture obtainable from the seedsman. But avoid this trouble in the future by building up the organic matter in the soil. 


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