ON ENGLISH WATER MEADOWS. 93 



the weight of the crops, but makes the hay all the more rough and 

 unpalatable. Naturally the meadows are for the most part wet 

 and overshoe, and in consequence are cliarged with noxious 

 water in the subsoil. The plants and herbage, as may be inferred, 

 consist mostly of semi-aquatics — such as vernal stargrass, sweet 

 vernal grass, sprits, rushes and marsh marigold. Where 

 drainage has been more or less carried out, Timothy or catstail 

 grass has been grown with great advantage. It produces a 

 heavy crop, and is highly nutritious either as a forage or pasture 

 plant. It does not appear to have become appreciated according 

 to its value on the south side of the Tweed, and we believe Scot- 

 land possesses a better strain of it. The botanical name is 

 somewhat meaningless, and may have led to mistakes. 



Water has been styled weak liquid manure, but the water 

 from healthy moorland wastes, sterile upland ground, and deep 

 peaty bogs where it may have remained stagnant for long periods, 

 if not positively noxious, has little fertilising power, and such is 

 the character of much of the waters among the little hills of 

 Eenfrewshire. Still water meadows are a part of the creed of 

 the dairy farmer of the west ; pastoral husbandry is more of an 

 industry than corn-land, the meadows are the most profitable 

 acres on the farm, and the "bog-hay" is a valuable acquisition 

 for winter provender to the dairy stock. It is harvested in July, 

 and carried in August from the tramp cole before the commence- 

 ment of the corn harvest. Part of this hay is passed through 

 the chaff-cutter ; it is then boiled along with turnips, and with 

 the addition of a little bean meal, it is served up as a mash to the 

 dairy cows. The vales where the meadows abound are naturally 

 fertile, having been "water- fed" for periods no saying how long, 

 and as much as four tons of hay an acre have been obtained from 

 the best of them in favourable seasons. 



The above is by no means an encouraging picture of the 

 meadows of the west of Scotland, but we must say in truth it is 

 only descriptive of the worst classes, for there are many improv- 

 ing farmers who have drained out the sour water, and put a 

 better face on them. The irregularity and brae-set condition of 

 many of them, requiring as they do a heavy expenditure in 

 drainage and other requirements, are too costly, we would say, for a 

 tenant with the security of a nineteen years' lease. We improved 

 a small part of a meadow we owned in Eenfrewshire, and our 

 successor in the farm was advised by a skilful farmer in that 

 neighbourhood to drain and reclaim another piece of marshy 

 ground and convert it into a meadow. The cost in both cases 

 amounted to about L.24 an acre, which, including the purchase- 

 price of the land, would not repay itself in a lifetime. On the 

 same property we had a pond of stagnant water four feet deep, 

 from which there was no outfall. We quarried a hard flinty rock 



