140 IIORTUS GRAMINEUS \VOI3 U n N ENSl S, 



cultivated and submitted to careful experiment in the grass- 

 garden at Woburn Abbey, fifteen apparently distinct varie- 

 ties. The greater number of these have not stood the test of 

 reproduction from seed, but have merged into one or other 

 of the above-mentioned varieties. Mr. Neill, of Mansfield, 

 communicated six varieties, one of which proved identical 

 with Stickney's grass, and another proved to be the same 

 with the Russell ray-grass. Mr. Neill had first collected the 

 seeds of these from rich pastures, and by afterwards culti- 

 vating them in his garden obtained seed sufficient for farm 

 practice. 



Ray-grass, when not more than three years old, flowers in 

 the second week of June, and ripens the seed in about 

 twenty-five days after : as the plants become older they 

 flower much later, sometimes so late as the beginning of 

 August. 



For the following statements of the produce of the Whit- 

 worth ray-grass I am indebted to Mr. G. Whitworth. 

 "About eighty acres of rather thin poor 2vold-\a.nd, incum- 

 bent on chalk, was sown with the Whitworth variety and 

 clover, the former predominant. In 1819, the first season of 

 grass, the land kept some ewes and lambs until the 1st of 

 May, when it was shut up for mowing. The produce of hay 

 was fifty-four good waggon- loads, but thirty acres were 

 allowed to stand for seed, the produce of seed from two to 

 three quarters per acre. The pasture was laid in for about 

 four weeks, then stocked with five hundred lambs, which it 

 kept for seven weeks, and afterwards kept one hundred and 

 sixty lambs, with the help of a little hay given occasionally, 

 through the winter, and until the beginning of April, when 

 three hundred ewes and lambs were put in and did well 

 through the spring months." 



To the serious objections to ray-grass as a precursor to 

 wheat, Mr. Whitworth says, " that his variety is so tenacious 

 of life, that two or even three ploughings are necessary to 

 overcome the grass, otherwise the roots of the grass will 

 take up the nourishment of the soil, to the great injury of 

 the wheat-crop." 



