5i6 

 ductive soil 



TJic Country Gentleman s .Maj^^arjine 



has been recklessly buried 

 throughout Great Britain in embankments, 

 and wasted in, as well as under, spoil heaps, 

 where it can never be recovered, will never 

 be known ; and in relation to this wilful waste 

 it would seem as if in the present depressed 

 state of the railway market, shareholders 

 were experiencing the verification of the old 

 prophetic proverb, " Waste not, want not." 

 Whereas, had all the original surface-soil been 

 carefully preserved, and relaid over the slopes 

 in combination with judicious drainage, much 

 excellent food-producing land for the support 

 of man and beast would have been restored 

 to the country; and our railway banks, instead 

 of exhibiting the appearance of weedy wastes, 

 w^ould have been converted into scenes of 

 fertility and beauty. 



2. Sowing with improper seed mixtures 

 has, so to speak, intensified the bad results of 

 imperfect soil - surfacing, by producing a 

 vegetation comparatively worthless in itself, 

 and at the same time calculated to feed and 

 spread fire with rapidity. In the early days of 

 railway formation furze or whins were 

 frequently sown on the banks, but their 

 facility in taking fire soon led to 

 their entire abandonment ; and although 

 among common native plants the natural 

 grasses stand next to whins in the possession 

 of these dangerous fire-spreading properties, 

 the most unsuitable of these, in mixture with 

 the commonly cultivated clovers, are almost 

 exclusively sown for imparting a verdant 

 covering to the ill-prepared bank surfaces. 

 In the earlier sunny days of spring, before the 

 withered foggage of the natural grasses be- 

 comes overpowered by the growth of their 

 young leaves, it is highly fire-catching, and 

 also in droughty summers, when it becomes 

 withered and dry, although clovers and other 

 dicotyledonous plants still retain their green- 

 ness and freshness unimpaired. ^^■hite 

 fibrous-rooted grasses, which have little hold 

 of the ground, such as the common ryegrass, 

 become also dried up much sooner than those 

 deep-rooted sorts, like the creeping soft-grass 

 (Holcus mollis), yet all are bad, and should 

 have no place in railway bank seed mixtures ; 

 for even casual observers must have noticed 



how the spreading of withered grass-devour- 

 ing flames, have been checked and turned 

 aside on reaching a patch of red, white, or 

 yellow clover, bird's-foot trefoil, yarrow, and 

 even such weeds as the perennial nettle, per- 

 ennial field thistle, and niany others. Hence, 

 for banks, when the surface-soiling has been 

 so imperfectly performed as not to admit of 

 regular rotation cultivation, perennial red clover 

 should be permanently sown where the soil is 

 tolerablygood and sufficiently dry; white, yellow, 

 and hybrid clovers, where it is somewhat in- 

 ferior; the common bird's-foot trefoil, yarrow, 

 and the milk vetch, in high and dry places ; 

 the greater bird's-foot trefoil in wet or marshy 

 parts ; and, if we look at the natural verdure 

 by railway sides, in the chalky districts of Eng- 

 land, sainfoin, lucerne, burnet, and even the 

 yellow melilot, or spiked shamrock, recom- 

 mend themselves for dry calcareous soils, 

 and most of these may be advantageously 

 sown in mixtures, although all the requisites 

 for their successful growth may not be pre- 

 sent. Owners of railways adjoining planta- 

 tions would therefore do well to discourage the 

 growth of natural grasses in them, by sub- 

 stituting mixtures of the] above mentioned 

 plants, or planting others having like fire- 

 resisting properties. 



3. The total neglect of after-cultivation and 

 manuring is far from being excusable, even 

 although the surface-soiling may have been 

 insufficiently applied. Wherever the soil is 

 capable of growing any of the above mentioned 

 useful plants, they will be greatly improved, in 

 the first place, by the eradication of all 

 rampant-growing weeds, such as ragwort, 

 thistles of different kinds, docks, and others, 

 before they commence to flower, by which the 

 hurtful spreading of their seeds over the banks 

 and adjoining fields or ground will be pre- 

 vented ; and next, their increase in growth 

 will always much more than repay the proper 

 application of suitable portable manures. 



4. The over delay in cutting such crops 

 as are grown on railway banks is a great • 

 cause of fire-spreading ; and even within the 

 precincts of populous towns, losses and alarm ■ 

 by fire were not unfrequent in course of the 

 past summer, and great as well as long-con- 



