WEEDS OF AGRICULTURE. 347 



generic character, is as follows : Flowers unisexual, im- 

 bricated ; calyx of one leaf; corolla wanting. Female 

 flowers with an inflated three-toothed nectary; stigmas 

 three ; seed three-sided, enclosed in the nectary. The 

 flowers, or the seed, will at once enable the farmer to 

 distinguish every species of sedge from the true or 

 proper grasses. 

 We once examined a sample of meadow hay said to pos- 

 sess very fattening properties, in which was found an incon- 

 siderable quantity of the carex incurva, but the superior per- 

 manent pasture grasses constituted the bulk of the hay : it 

 also contained a considerable portion of burnet (poterium. 

 sanguisorba). The warm or stimulant nature of the burnet 

 as a winter food, combined with turnips, will readily account 

 for the superiority of this hay, without the agency of the 

 curved-leaved sedge, which was here in too small a quantity 

 to affect the quality of the hay either way. 



To the above list of pasture weeds many other plants 

 could be added, if any good were likely to result from their 

 being enumerated here ; but as they are only occasionally 

 found, and the foregoing being destroyed or eradicated out 

 of pastures, these will be found harmless, — we shall there- 

 fore pass them over. In the low flat lands bordering on the 

 Isle of Thanet, a very noxious weed infests some of these 

 valuable pastures : this weed they call spurt-grass. It is 

 the scirpus maritimus, or salt marsh club-rush. 



The means to be adopted for the extirpation of these 

 noxious weeds in pastures, must be regulated by the na- 

 ture of the soil, and the comparative prevalence of the 

 weeds. In good pasture land, where, from accident or 

 neglect, these weeds in part have insinuated themselves^ 

 hand-weeding may most advantageously be had recourse to , 

 and particularly for the larger weeds, such as thistles, rag- 

 weed, docks, and knap-weed, it vail be found the best tem- 

 porary remedy. Should the coarseness of the pasture have 

 been occasioned by too frequent haying, then depasturing: 

 closely for two or three years, with a good top-dressing of 

 dung-compost applied in the early part of the spring, or late 

 in the autumn, with strict attention to hand- weeding, will 

 be found effectual to recover the pasture and extirpate the 



