224 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOB U R N K N SI S. 



autumn or spring, and a liberal use of tfie roller, when the 

 ground is in a suitable state to benefit by it. But suft'ering 

 the seedling plants to perfect their seed before the crop is 

 collected, is doubtless not the best practice : in all my 

 experiments, the results were decidedly in favour of this 

 opinion. A top-dressing should never be applied without 

 sowing some of the seeds along with it ; once sowing will 

 never be found efficient to form the most valuable sward in 

 the shortest space of time, on a light dry sandy soil. 



Should the mode of depasturing, instead of mowing the 

 first year's crop, be still preferred in any case, I may be 

 permitted once more to remark, that nothing weakens or 

 retards the growth of grasses so much, as cropping them 

 close at the time their first tender shoots appear in the spring. 

 From various trials it appeared, that close cropping the 

 produce of this soil early in the spring, and late in autumn, 

 was much less injurious to its old sward than to seedling 

 grasses. When a given space of the same species of grass 

 was cut close to the roots towards the end of March, and 

 another space left uncropped till the last week in April, the 

 produce of each space being afterwards taken at three 

 different cuttings, the produce of the space that was left 

 uncropped till the latter end of April, exceeded that of the 

 early-cropped space in the proportion of 3 to 2 ; in one 

 instance, during a dry summer, the last cropped space 

 afforded a produce superior to that of the early cropped 

 space, as 2 to 1. In all these trials, the produce of the 

 early space consisted of four crops, and that of the latter 

 three. It appears, therefore, that no stock should be ad- 

 mitted to seedling grasses, till after the time of their coming 

 into flower. 



