138 IIORTIIS GllAMINEUS WOBUHNENSIS, 



abundance of seed, which is easily collected and readily 

 vegetates on most kinds of soil, under circumstances of dif- 

 ferent management ; it soon arrives at perfection, and pro- 

 duces in its first years of growth a good supply of early herb- 

 age, which is much liked by cattle. These merits have, no 

 doubt, upheld it till the present day in practice, and will 

 probably, for some time to come, continue it a favourite 

 grass with many farmers. But the latter-math of ray-grass 

 is very inconsiderable, and the plant impoverishes the soil in 

 a high degree, if the culms, which are invariably left un- 

 touched by cattle, are not cut before the seed advances 

 towards perfection. When this is neglected, the field after 

 Midsummer exhibits only a brown surface of withered 

 straws. 



Let the produce and nutritive powers of ray-grass be com- 

 pared with those of the cock's-foot grass, and it will be 

 found inferior in the proportion nearly of 5 to 18 ; and also 

 inferior to the meadow fox-tail in the proportion of 5 to 12 ; 

 and inferior to the meadow fescue in the proportion of 5 to 

 17. In these comparisons, from which the above proportions 

 arose, it was necessary to omit the seed crops for the truth 

 of comparison. 



But as the seed of the fox-tail is often defective, and the 

 plants of the fescue (festuca pratensis) do not arrive at per- 

 fection so soon as those of ray-grass ; their superiority, as 

 above, is somewhat lessened with respect to their value as 

 alternate husbandry grasses ; for permanent pasture, how- 

 ever, the above proportional values will be found true, as ray- 

 grass is but a short-lived plant, seldom continuing more than 

 six years in possession of the soil, but is continued by its 

 property of ripening an abundance of seed, which is but 

 little molested by birds, and suffered to fall and vegetate 

 among the root-leaves of the permanent pasture grasses. 

 But cock's-foot grass perfects an abundance of seed, and the 

 plants arrive at a productive state as soon as those of ray- 

 grass; hence its superiority, as above, is equally great for 

 permanent pasture and the alternate husbandry ; which is 

 not so precisely the case with the fox-tail grass and meadow 

 fescue. One peck of ray-grass, with 14 lbs. of clover, per 



