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consideration, how the quality of the herbage of our meadows and 
pastures can be improved, by disestablishing inferior grasses, 
sedges, rushes, etc., and substituting in lieu thereof, a “swarth” 
composed of more serviceable and nutritious species. He has 
been justly held as a public benefactor, who could produce two 
blades of grass where only one grew before ; and I apprehend that 
he who could be instrumental in bringing about the change I have 
indicated, would be treading closely upon that individual’s heels. 
Being neither a chemist nor a farmer, I have sought information 
as to the comparative produce and feeding properties of the 
different grasses in the pages of the Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis 
which contains the full record of a series of exhaustive and care- 
fully-conducted experiments made at Woburn Abbey by Mr. 
Sinclair, gardener to the Duke of Bedford, early in the present 
century. The weight and qualities of only the superior grasses 
will be touched upon here ; the others will have merely a passing 
notice of their habitats or characteristic modes of growth, as the 
result of personal examination. The order observed will be that 
of the authorised London Catalogue of British Plants, 7th edition, 
1877. 
First in this list of the grasses undoubtedly indigenous here, is 
Anthoxanthum odoratum, the Sweet-scented Vernal Grass. 
It is of almost universal growth; hardly a field in the county is 
without it. Its chief recommendation is its early growth. Culti- 
vated alone, it does not succeed ; but it is eminently serviceable in 
forming a good turf when used in combination with other grasses. 
To this grass is chiefly attributed the agreeable odour of newly- 
mown hay. The comparative weight per acre of this and other 
grasses, when in flower, wi!] be found appended to this paper. 
Phalaris, or Digraphis, arundinacea. Reed Canaty-grass. 
A tall and coarse-looking grass, frequently five or six feet high ; 
found pretty generally in swampy places, by the edges of rivers 
and lakes. Of little value. The common “ladies’ garters” of 
cottage gardens is a striped variety of this species. Canary-seed 
