242 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



The same quantity of cock's-foot 



grass is combined with - -37^ grains of saline matter ; 



of meadow-fes- 

 cue is combined with - - 27-5^ ditto. 



The tares and white dover contain, therefore, nearly one-third 

 more of water than the natural grasses, cock's-foot and meadow- 

 fescue. The white clover is remarkable for the superior quantity 

 of extractive and saline matters it affords, in proportion to the 

 woody or indigestible matter. The excess of water or superfluous 

 moisture, in tares, and the small proportion of extractive and 

 saline matters they contain, must render them a less valuable food 

 in the early part of spring, when the weather is cold and moist, 

 than in the latter part of that season, or in summer. If some of 

 the natural grasses were combined with the tares, it would correct 

 this over-succulency of their nature. The annual species of grass 

 appear to be the most proper for this purpose, merely because they 

 soonest afford a supply of herbage from the time of sowing. The 

 field brome-grass {Bromus arvensis), and common barley, have 

 their nutritive matters, and the proportions of water to that of 

 woody fibre in their substance, more opposite to those in the 

 composition of tares than most other grasses, and tlierefore pro- 

 mise to be the most useful. 



The different species of the natural grasses differ less from each 

 other, in the composition of their nutritive matters, than they do 

 in general from the different species of clover or vetch. But in all 

 the numerous trials I have made on the nutritive matters of the 

 proper grasses, I could never find two species perfectly agree in 

 the proportions of mucilage, sugar, gluten, bitter extractive, and 

 sahne matters, of which their nutritive matters consisted. To 

 detail the results of all these processes would pi'obably be more 

 tedious for the Agriculturist to read, than they were to the con- 

 ductor of the experiments in the performance. What has just now 

 been stated may be sufficient to shew, in some measure, the degree 

 of importance that is to be attached to the properties in question, 

 when making a selection of the most valuable grasses for perma- 

 nent pasture, or indeed for any other purpose for which they are 

 useful. The followincr s^^rasses are selected from those of which 

 figures have been given in the foregoing pages, as being superior 

 to all others in one or more of the valuable properties before men- 

 tioned : in nutritive qualities, early growth, produce, reproductive 



