WEEDS OF AtJRICULTUUE. 325 



The seeds arc triangular, bright brown, and heavy ; and so 

 near the size of red clover seed, that they cannot be sepa- 

 rated by sieves. In some seasons we get good ripe seed from 

 clover eddishes, and this is always free from docks, because 

 these weeds do not form a second seed-stem in the same 

 summer; but I am afraid that maiden seed (seed from the 

 first growing) is rarely quite free. But this really seems to 

 be a point of inexcusable neglect, because the dock plants 

 are sufficiently large and conspicuous to be either drawn or 

 spudded, before the clover is too high to walk in. 



Dock seeds do not infest corn samples ; it rarely happens 

 that they are seen even in barley, because the turnip fallow 

 is quite capable of rooting them out. If otherwise, and they 

 are suffered to seed in the barley crop, it must be very bad 

 farming, because no weed can be more distinctly seen when 

 weeds ought to be pulled out. 



5. TALL OAT-LIKE SOFT GRASS (hokus avenaceus), 

 or Tall Oat-grass (avena elatior). Calyx smooth ; bar- 

 ren floret lowest, with a sharply-bent prominent awn ; 

 fertile, one shghtly elevated, scarcely awned ; leaves 

 rather harsh ; root knotty ; flowers in June and July. 



This grass is a noxious weed in arable lands, though not 

 so in pastures; indeed, as an ingredient of permanent pas- 

 ture, it possesses sufficient merit, in respect of early growth 

 and produce, to entitle it to a place in the most valuable 

 pastures — such, however, as are never intended to be con- 

 verted to tillage. Mr. Pitt includes this among the twitch 

 grasses, but its roots do not creep in like manner ; they are 

 properly tuberous, and, increasing in the soil, they are hard 

 to destroy. These tubers often subsist in great quantity 

 where there may be but little conch, but at least as much 

 fallowing is required to remove them. In fact, as the bulbs 

 may not all hang to the congeries of fibres to which they be- 

 long, many loose ones, though ever so lightly covered with 

 soil, will escape ; it being manifest, that such small things can- 

 not be picked out, excepting as they hang to something. 



This weed has been found very prevalent in some parts of 

 the North of England ; but wherever it prevails, it ought to 



