THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



2GI 



aftord the well-known substances so much used 

 as food for man and beast. Tbc grasses are mostly- 

 insipid and devoid of any peculiar taste, and some 

 are fragrant when dry. They are the most simjjly 

 constructed of all vegetables, having neither 

 thorns, stings, tendrils, bracteas, or prickles, or 

 any other appendages. The plant is mostly simple 

 in our own country; in others, it is divided and 

 branched. 



Gramineous herbs are such as have a long 

 narrow leaf with no footstalk ; the tribe is divided 

 into corn, and grasses, which differ merely in 

 the bulk of the seeds, which form the basis of 

 our aliment, and nourish the winged creation. 



The greater part of the grass plants are confined 

 to the use of permanent pastures ; the natural 

 qualities and habits, joined with the effect of soil 

 and climate, reduce the number of useful grasses 

 to a very small amount, when compared with the 

 large numbers that exist. Some are very coarse, 

 and wholly innutritions, and are refused by all 

 kinds of ruminant animals ; many are puny in 

 habit, and diminutive in growth, and the seed is 

 scanty, and the plants do not appear in vigour for 

 some time after the seed is sown ; while others 

 appear quickly,'and decay gradually, after enduring 

 for a time, and often disappear altogether, or yield 

 a very scanty produce. In modern husbandry, 

 grasses are used for three purposes : for hay, in a 

 croj) of one year; for pastures, in two or three 

 years, in alternation with green crops; and for 

 making permanent meadows, in imitation of old 

 pastures. For the first purpose, which is mostly 

 followed on the best land, the plants are most use- 

 ful which grow readily, and produce the greatest 

 number of stems, without running to height in a 

 smaller number, and yielding a coarse produce. 

 For the second purpose mentioned, of being two 

 or three years in grass, after the first year's crop is 

 cut for hay, the above-mentioned quality is required, 

 along with a stoloniferous creeping habit, and a 

 nature both perennial and persistent. For per- 

 manent meadows, the quickly productive quality 

 is not so very essential, though nevertheless still 

 valuable : the persistent perennial quality is abso- 

 lutely necessary, with an ample produce of seed to 

 be annually shed, and a very strong reproductive 

 power from the roots and stolons. A nutritious 

 quality is also required, and a fair produce of juicy 

 succulent leaves, in order to afford a grateful herb- 

 age to the animals that live and fatten on the 

 verdure of nature. But observation has long since 

 found, that the bounty of nature has not placed 

 every quality in any one single plant ; that some 

 one enjoys a property in which others are wholly 

 deficient, and that a mixture of plants is seen to 

 be provided by nature itself, in arranging this class 

 of its productions for the destined purpose. The 

 observation of man is therefore required to select 

 the plants that are suitable to his purpose, which 

 necessary discrimination can be the result onli/ 

 of long experience and of very patient investiga- 

 tion. 



The Romans cultivated forage or herbaceous 

 plants, for the purpose of being used as green fod- 

 der for animals in the stalls, and for being made 

 into hay. The plants of lucerne and cylisus are 



specially mentioned, and others may have been 

 used, though sunk by the superior value of the 

 two that are recorded. When the use of printing 

 had become diffused in the sixteenth century, the 

 records of agriculture show, that modern practice 

 was copied from the Romans, and subsisted upon 

 their example, which may have lived through the 

 dark ages after their dominion of the island, and 

 reintroduced by the writings on agriculture. The 

 use of forage plants appears along with other prac- 

 tices in the early records of Britain. The first 

 practical work (by Fitzherbert, in 1532), mentions 

 the mowing of grass, and forks, and rakes, but no 

 artificial plants are noticed. Clover, sainfoin, and 

 lucerne were introduced by Weston, Hartlib, and 

 Blythe, and was specially honoured by a volumi- 

 nous previse by Yarrangton in 1G63. In I669, 

 Worlidge mentions ray grass in "a treatise on 

 husbandry," and writes thus — " Ray grass im- 

 proves any cold, sour clay, weeping grounds, for 

 v.'hich it is best; but also good upon dry uplands, 

 and stony, light, sandy grounds ; precedes all other 

 grasses, endures the summer drought, rises early 

 in the spring ; not easily overstocked, and becomes 

 sweet by being eaten down ; often hght for mea- 

 dow hay, is best for horses or sheep, being hard ; 

 a good winter grass ; sown with two bushels on an 

 acre, better in three bushels, with nonsuch ; being 

 a thin spring grass, arises little the first year, suc- 

 ceeds the falling nonsuch, and thickens upon it. 

 Four acres thus sown, have yielded 20 quarters of 

 seed, and 14 loads of fodder, besides spring and 

 autumn feeding, when six or eight cattle usually 

 grazed." Nourse, in 1700, writes in his work 

 " Compania Felix " — " It is a spiry, benty sort of 

 grass, an improvement, of like continuance with 

 clo^'er, and thrives best on cold, wet, and gravelly 

 grounds ; is not so much in vogue as clover and 

 sainfoin." 



This is the first accountof grass plants being used 

 artificially, and along with nonsuch or yellow clo- 

 ver. This practice had been continued with no 

 deviation, and at this time it constitutes the 

 greater part of modern grass farming. Within the 

 last half century, some few grass plants have been 

 brought forward into notice, and with some suc- 

 cess. 



Our experience has exceeded thirty years in the 

 use of grass plants in a crop of hay for one year, 

 and for one and two years of succeeding pasture, 

 and an extensive and very varied practice has re- 

 duced into a small number the grasses that suit 

 the farmer's purpose. In the order of value, the 

 plants are 



1 . Ray grass 



2. Meadow-fescue 



3. Meadow catstail 



4. Cocksfoot 



5. Foxtail 



6. Dogstail. 



This arrangement is grounded on the results of 

 practice, and the following descriptions are given 

 from experience, without any botanical language 

 or statement of chemical analysis. The first con- 

 fuse the apprehension, and the latter mislead the 

 judgment; being introduced as lights, they only 

 Rer\'e to darken the progress. 



KAY GRASS. 



The ray-grass plant has the flowers aggregate on 



