The following essay,‘The Ox-Pasture’ won
the £500 first prize in the Kenneth Allsop Memorial Competition
Judged by a panel composed of David Attenborough,
John Fowles and the Sunday Times editor.
It was printed in the Sunday Times
The Wye flows gently beside a meadow we call the ‘Ox-Pasture’. This land saw no plough in my father’s day, nor will it do so in my lifetime. On warm Summer evenings I may wander over there simply to watch cattle feasting on the luscious grass. Mellow sunlight burnishes chestnut-brown hides as, looping their tongues around the fragrant shoots, they tear juicy mouthfuls from the turf before, fat and sated, lying cud-chewing beneath the willow trees.
Just bury your face in a sweet succulent handful of this grass and you’ll savour all Summer’s goodness. The vigorous perennial rye-grass (Folium perenne) gives abundant leafy crops year after year. Then there’s broad-headed Cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata) a hard-stemmed grass with deep growing roots which can tap moisture running in the cracked soil six-feet below. Walk onto the damp boggy parts of the field and you’ll come upon Timothy grass (Phleum pratense) whose luxuriant soft-leaved heads thrive in all but the driest summers; and look – there’s delicate multi-headed Meadow Fescue (Festuce pratensis).
Further searching reveals a few wild strands of Needle-leaved fescue, soft Yorkshire fog and feathery-headed Tufted Hair-grass. Small-leaved white and red clovers yield their energy and protein to grazing animals; and there’s even a place for some dandelions and comfrey – drawing minerals from the deep soil to add a rich supplement to the nutrition.
It’s so peaceful here in the lee of a dense hawthorn hedge that orange-tip butterflies and small tortoiseshells move freely in the sheltered air. Ladybirds, lacewing larvae and green-brindled crescent moth caterpillars hide among the leaves; wrens and hedge sparrows are busy in the tangled branches while a lapwing rises from the marshy ground to glide in a wide circle before accelerating upwards.
I wish all the farm could be left as natural as the Ox-Pasture but we must have enough income to support our growing family. Every year, on other fields, a new grass ley is undersown to the spring barley, following on from root crops. Cattle are run on the new grass but they never seem settled or contented when grazing. I think they simply get bored, every mouthful of standardised Italian rye grass must taste the same, no herbs to flavour it – what my old father used to call ‘green water’. Let cattle loose in the Ox Pasture though and it’s a different matter – heads down and no messing about. Within days the cows are putting on flesh, coats gleaming, eyes sparkling; you can almost hear milk flowing into their udders. Who thought beasts had no sense of taste?
The Ox-Pasture is kept as permanent pasture for sound economic, as well as environmental reasons, and it makes a positive contribution to the overall management of the farm – never becoming mud-bound in wet summers because its mature fibrous root system forms a thick protective layer that stops hooves penetrating the fragile soil infrastructure. A new grass ley, on the other hand, has no depth of roots and after heavy rain cattle will compact the ground excluding air from the soil. Even worse, last summer we had a young heifer die from bloating on a new ley. She guzzled on soft wet grass and clover, gas got trapped in her stomach, and she lay dead within an hour. That wouldn’t happen on an old pasture where coarse stems of Cocksfoot and Timothy, as well as bits of dead weed, ensure that gases don’t build up in the stomach.
Why are most agricultural advisors so totally committed the idea that it’s always advantageous to replace old pastures? Well, results from test plots on agricultural testing stations usually show that you can get rather higher yields from Italian rye-grasses (we always take a good cut of silage from the new ley and pack it down ready for winter feeding.) However, there’s other things to consider, so there’s no need to be forever ploughing and resowing meadows just for the sake of very marginal gains. Consider the hidden costs – tractor diesel, ploughman’s wages, grass seeds, oil- dependent nitrogen fertilisers, replacement cost when a heifer dies of bloat . . . .
Permanent pastures do have to be tended properly to maintain the right balance of plants, but this costs very little. A rough harrowing in March to pull out dead leaves and grass, follow this on alternate years with either a light dressing of organic fish-meal or a load of muck and chopped straw from the barns. Earthworms up-end the straw and pull it below ground making funnels which allow air and water deep into the soil, aerating and refreshing below the surface. Every five years give a dusting of lime to prevent excess acidity. And that’s all there is to it – cheap in terms of money, time and energy requirements. Even in late autumn, the Ox-Pasture still looks fresh no matter what summer brought – be it flood, drought or storm – and out-grazes all other meadows on the farm!
Our natural pasturelands are worth so much to us and to our descendants, so why do we not cherish what is beneath our feet? This is a great natural reusable resource which can be replenished year after year at minimal cost. Not only is prime agricultural land disappearing beneath the urban sprawl at the rate of 60,000* acres per year, but many beautiful pastures which remain are being sacrificed in the mistaken belief that old grassland is always less productive and profitable than new. A permanent pasture has often taken generations to settle into a pattern of growth which makes the most efficient use of prevailing conditions in its particular location. Some rarer plants and herbs within its may not show obvious advantages when measured by a crude yardstick such as gross yield of dry matter produced, but often have less obvious benefits like disease resistance, or the ability to withstand adverse weather conditions (drought or flood). The plants have achieved a balance among themselves and with their dependent animal population, and will maintain this with only the minimum of husbandry.
So many pastures have already been lost that certain birds are beginning to suffer, but as least I know that lapwings will continue to nest safely for years to come in the old turf of the Ox-Pasture by the gently flowing Wye.