PREFACE. 



Distinguished Agriculturists and Farmers agree in opinion, 

 that the knowledge of the comparative merits and value of all the 

 different species and varieties of Grasses, and, consequently, of 

 the best mode of cultivating them, is very much behind that of 

 the other branches of Practical Agriculture. 



Rye-grass {Lolium perenne) was, till lately, the only species 

 employed for making artificial pastures : it was indebted most 

 probably for this distinction, to its property of ripening an 

 abundance of good seed, and its ready growth in most kinds 

 of soil. 



The first mention that I find made of ray-grass in early books 

 on husbandry, is in " The Mystery of Husbandry, Discovered and 

 Laid Open, by I. Worlidge, 1681." " Ray-grass," says he, " by 

 which they improve any cold, sour, clay, weeping lands, for 

 which it is best, but good also for drier upland grounds, espe- 

 cially stony, light, or sandy lands, which is unfit for sainfoin, 

 hath the precedence of all other grasses" — these are, " sainfoin, 

 lucerne, clover, tares, spurrey, and trefoil," which include all the 

 plants he mentions as grasses. The account of ray-grass thus 

 concludes : — " Four acres of this grass hath yielded twenty 

 quarters of seed and fourteen load of fodder, besides the spring 

 and autumn feeding, whereon six or eight cattle usually grazed." 



There is no account of any other species of perennial grass 

 being cultivated, till about forty years since, when meadow cat's- 

 tail (Phleum ■praleme) was partially recommended for cultivation ; 

 and lately the culture of cock's-foot (Dactylis glomerata) has been 

 considerably extended, so as to supersede the use of rye-grass in 



