80 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSTS. 



been brought in the compost were carefully cleared out; and 

 the rolling was repeated to keep the surface compact. The 

 plants grew vigorously, until a continuance of unfavourable 

 weather, in the end of June, checked their growth. On the 

 first week of July the produce was cut and weighed : it 

 amounted to one-eighth more than the produce of the ground 

 in its original state, but which had been eaten off by 

 sheep in the spring ; the after-math of the seedling grasses, 

 however, weighed one-fifth less than that of the natural pas- 

 ture. A very slight dressing was applied in the month of 

 November, and the whole was well rolled ; this operation 

 was continued at favourable opportunities, till April, 1815, 

 The grass was cut and weighed in the first weeks of June 

 and August, and again in the middle of September ; the 

 total weight of these three crops exceeded that of the old 

 turf, exactly in the proportion of 8 to 9. 



It is therefore evident, that the results of the two modes 

 of experiment here adopted agree in confirming the opinion, 

 that a five years' course of the more impoverishing annual 

 crops may be taken from land of the nature above described, 

 without unfitting it for the reproduction of the superior 

 natural grasses. 



The first, or that of ascertaining the nature of the soil 

 before and after undergoing the impoverishing course of 

 crops, proves, that the loss of decomposing animal and vege- 

 table matter, is the principal injury it sustained, which it is 

 evident may be supplied by manure, though not in one 

 season. The produce of the different annual crops, grain, 

 and bulbs, were all heavy, except that of the last crop of 

 wheat, which was very inferior. 



The different grasses and other plants, which compose the 

 produce of the richest natural pastures, are in number 

 twenty-five. From the spring till the end of autumn, there 

 is not a month but is the season of luxuriance of one or more 

 of these grasses. Hence proceeds the constant supply of 

 succulent herbage throughout the season ; a circumstance 

 which but seldom happens in artificial pastures, where the 

 herbage consists of two or three plants only. If the best 

 natural pastures be examined during various periods of the 



