Ill 



out horizontal sliools with two diverging points like the 

 antenna of an insect. 



Yet, from these promising verdant sods, not a single blade 

 arises which cattle could bite. Towards June, a croud of 

 huno'ry hair like panicles arise, forming Avretched meadows, 

 and fit for nothing else ; as to after-grass, the Poa trivialis 

 never makes the slightest attempt to throw up an3% 



For seven or eight years I have never been without dis- 

 tinct plots of this grass, which shew a miserable contrast with 

 other (even the condemned) grasses ; I have tried root and 

 seed plots of it under irrigation, without success, though 

 here I expected much from it ; but I have already said too 

 much on the subject of a grass that does not possess a single 

 good quality which I have been able to discover. 



XIV. Cynosurus cbistatvs. 



Of the Crested dogs tctil I shall say little, satisfied with 

 what is admitted by one of the writers, who throws a por- 

 tion of its seed into the mixture he recommends to farmers. 



This gentleman admits that the Ci/nosurus cristatus has little 

 blade — that its seed stalks are too hard for cattle — that it 

 has scarcely any after-grass ; he should have told what are 

 the qualities for which he recommends it. 



That he has given a fair character of the Crested dog's tail, 

 1 have proved by repeated experiments ; in the North of 

 Ireland, we know its panicles but too well, under the name 



VOL. XI. Q of 



