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CULTURE OF GRASSES. 

 Br Thomas P. Turner, Eagle. 



As grass land, and old, luxuriant meadows are material features in a 

 farm, and add much to its value, the mode of making them cannot be too 

 well understood, as a grass can be found adapted to the soil, be it ever 

 so sterile or ever so fruitful. Those only are grasses which produce one 

 seed to each flower, and when rising out of the ground, have but one 

 seed leaf. Some grasses are best for sheep and goats, and flourish in 

 elevated districts ; others are calculated for dairy countries and marsh 

 lowlands ; others for a medium situation, and for fattening cattle. Some 

 yield most nourishment when cut green, others when in flower, and others 

 when the seed is ripe. Some grasses will yield a better after-crop than 

 others. Some seeds are dispersed by the wind while others drop when 

 ripened. 



It was long supposed, even by practical farmers, that the herbage of 

 pastures and meadows consisted of only two sorts of grasses — natural 

 grass and clover grass. Botanists first pointed out the number of dis- 

 tinct species of grasses which are to be found in natural pastures ; but 

 the number, the different soils, the merits and value of each sort, the 

 habits and culture, are of very modern date. Mr. Sinclair has probably 

 done more than any other person to bring the different varieties to the 

 test of experiment, and ascertain their relative value. He says : " There 

 are upwards of one hundred and thirty distinct species of grasses, besides 

 varieties, natives of Great Britain ; and there is no variety of soil inter- 

 mediate between the high rock or the blowing sand, down to the marsh, 

 the bof, even water itself, but is provided by the bountiful hand of Nature 

 with grasses peculiarly adapted to grow and remain permanent on each 

 particular soil and site. However similar many of these grasses may be 

 when in the state of swarth, or cropped turf, no two species will be found 

 to ao-ree on the following important points, viz : the time of the herbage 

 in the o-reatest perfection ; the quantity and properties of the nutritive 

 matter in spring, in flower, and when ripe ; the aftermath ; the property 

 of reproduction ; the rapid or slow growth after being cropped by the 

 scythe, or depasturing ; the luxuriance of the leaves when the culms are 

 in flower, and when the seed is ripe ; the nature of the soil which each 

 most affects ; and the degree of power which each species possesses of 



