UORTUS GUAMINEUS WOBURN EN SIS. 149 



{angustifoUa), but the panicle is spear-shaped, loose when 

 in flower, and contracted so much when in seed as to resem- 

 ble a spike, and is of a whitish-grey colour ; it is essentially 

 distinguished from the others by the larger valve of the 

 blossom being furnished with a minute awn, which rises a 

 little above its middle, and reaches to the top of the valve ; 

 the awn is straight, and pressed close to the back of the 

 valve. 



The above characters of distinction, and the figures which 

 are afterwards given to illustrate them, were taken from 

 plants raised from seed on the same soils that the plants 

 were found naturally growing on, and on different soils ; the 

 characters of the wild plants were compared with those of 

 the cultivated ones, and what remained constant after these 

 changes of circumstances are the above. It is easy to 

 conceive the change that takes place in the general appear- 

 ance of a plant when brought out of a wet ditch and culti- 

 vated on a dry exposed soil, or from under the shade of 

 trees on a poor sand, and planted out on a rich loam with 

 full exposure to the sun and air. Characters, therefore, 

 that change with these changes of circumstances, tend 

 more to perplex than enlighten, and may therefore be better 

 omitted. 



Experiments. — At the time of flowering, the produce 

 from an active peat soil is 17,696 lbs. per acre. 



At the time the seed is ripe the produce is 19,057 lbs. 

 per acre. 



The produce of latter-math is 2,722 lbs. per acre. 



The Rev. Dr. William Richardson has introduced this 

 variety of the agrustis stolonifera to the agricultural world 

 under the name of florin, and has shown its merits and pro- 

 perties, deduced from his own experiments, in a variety of 

 publications on the subject, to which the reader is referred. 

 It is greatly superior, in point of produce and nutritive 

 powers, to the other varieties of the agrostis stolonif'era 

 which have been enumerated ; this will be manifest on 

 referring to the details of experiments made upon them, as 

 given under the head of grasses natural to moist soils. 



