EXPERIMENTS ON THE GROWTH OF PLANTS. 201 
Plots. 
1. Meadow and pasture grasses . . . . . . « 66 
2. Cereal grasses—Corn crops. . . . « « + - 16 
. Papilionaceous plants. . . . . . . .. . 30 
2 Green’ fceding crops 60°... eel 3 8 a) eles 190 
p necmentiveretables /). 0. a ee te ib ID 
Economic and medicinal plants . .. . . . 16 
SP MORS ete thw Oe pMeiles wet letive Ash, lots) Baylt's PE 
8. Flowering, ornamental, and other plants . . . 50 
’ Total 212 
1. Tut GrassEes.— These may be very conveniently divided into the 
following groups. 
a. Grasses of value in meadow and pasture. 
6. Grasses which are but pasture or agrarian weeds. 
ce. Grasses which indicate certain conditions of soil, climate, &c. 
As regards the plots of grasses generally, I may state that last year these 
consisted to a great extent of two sets, one planted five years before, and a 
new lot now just coming to perfection, the difficulty of keeping species un- 
mixed, and other circumstances attendant upon growing specimens in small 
plots, rendering frequent renewal absolutely necessary. As respects the 
purity of a crop, the older beds offered some most interesting observations, 
as they show how in a short period one species may be entirely lost, and the 
ground be taken possession of by others; hence the following :— 
Original Crop*. Possessed by 
Phleum pratense. Arrhenatherum avenaceum. 
Alopecurus pratensis. Dactylis glomerata. 
Lolium Italicum Poa pratensis. 
perenne. Poa pratensis and others. 
Cynosurus cristatus. Holcus lanatus. 
Poa trivialis. Poa nemoralis. 
Three beds, side by side, have become mixed in the following manner. 
Triticum caninum. Wheat | Last year. Hordeum murinum. 
1. 
1. 2. 3. 
Observations of this nature are interesting in a practical point of view, as, 
from cultivation or the want of it, meadows are constantly changing their 
contents, good grasses gaining the ascendant in the former, and bad in the 
latter. In my plots, bad grasses, that is those of a poor feeding quality, 
_ take possession of plots originally sown with better kinds; this arises from 
_ the circumstance of the general poverty of the soil, which is assisted by these 
__ erops never being depastured like those of meadows, but on the contrary are 
left to perfect themselves for the teaching of the students, and consequently 
are annually cut down as ripened or seeded grasses, thus affording a practical 
example of the injury arising from exhausting crops, besides showing that 
} * These and most of the older beds have this year been occupied by totally different crops, 
_ the old crops of grasses being gradually destroyed. 
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