AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. 275 



The kind of grass-seed for an American lawn or park we have a very decided opinion about, 

 and can speak from some experience. We would discard entirely all the crested "dogstail 

 avenas and fescue grasses" of England, as entirely unnecessary and useless here. The 

 very best quality of compact sod can be obtained by sowing equal parts by weight of Poa 

 pratensis, (green or blue grass,) Trifolium repens, (white clover,) and Lolium perenne, (rye 

 grass.) We prefer this to any mixture of other grasses. After being once well set, it 

 should be remembered that a lawn can only be kept beautiful by repeated mowing, and occa- 

 sional top-dressing, and cleaning with an English lawn rake, which are made expressly for 

 this purpose. In England they are also regularly swept with a broom at stated periods. 



For good mowing, an English riveted-back lawn scythe is also indispensable. — Penn. Farm 

 Journal. 



Preparation of Grass Lands. 



From a report on "grass crops," submitted to the Farmers' Club of Concord, Mass., we 

 make the following extract respecting the reclamation of lands intended for grass: We 

 would also say that it has been our experience in reclaiming meadows and swamps, that to 

 produce a large crop of good grass it is necessary that the land be well and thoroughly 

 drained, and have a good dressing of sand or gravel, or a large portion of the same in the 

 compost manure applied before and after seeding. Otherwise, however well-manured, there 

 will be a weakness of the straw, which will cause it to fall and rot before it has time to grow 

 to be a full crop. 



We have also examined the crops of grass grown on meadows reclaimed in various ways, 

 and in our opinion the too-common practice of burning the entire top soil is a bad one. 

 Although the first crop will probably be good, the land and after-crop will be much larger 

 and better without the burning than with it: burning leaving a tendency to moss and wild 

 grass. 



There are acres of this burnt land in our own town, that, after one or two seasons, have 

 run back to wild grass, and which it will require nearly twice as much manure to keep in 

 good condition than it would if it had been reclaimed in a different manner. 



On the Cultivation of Clovers and Grasses at the South. 



We copy the following memoranda relative to the cultivation of the clovers and grasses at 

 the South, from the address of Col. Isaac Croom, of Alabama, before the Agricultural Asso- 

 ciation of the slaveholding States : The opinion which has long and extensively prevailed, 

 that clovers and the artificial grasses are incompatible with a Southern climate, exerts a 

 blighting influence on the industrial hopes of the South ; and no labor can be more usefully 

 bestowed than in showing its fallacy — none more grateful to the aspirations of the Southern 

 planter. The important question to be decided, then, is, Whether the cultivation of clovers 

 and the artificial grasses is practicable in a Southern climate? If this question shall be affirm- 

 atively established, observation and experience will indicate the most suitable varieties; 

 and besides, it will assure a basis for future improvement and prosperity without limit or end. 

 From the result of numerous and varied experiments made in different sections, we have no 

 doubt that red clover will flourish at the South as well as at the North, by the use of car- 

 bonate and sulphate of lime, and other proper means, in a soil naturally or artificially good ; 

 that this plant is not so much dependent, in fact, upon climate as upon a suitable soil and 

 proper food. 



Twenty-five years ago the same erroneous opinion we are combatting farther South pre- 

 vailed in Virginia, that clover would not grow in the light, sandy, acid soils of the tide-water 

 districts of that State. This error has long since been exploded, and by the use of marl and 

 gypsum red clover is now extensively and profitably grown there. The consequence has been 

 an entire revolution in their agriculture. Coming farther South, it has, during the same 

 period, been found both practicable and profitable, where the proper means have been used, 

 to grow clover on the alluvial soils of North Carolina similar in their texture and composition 

 to those of Virginia, just described. 



