NATURAL HISTORY. 93 



aiid the crested dog's tail, began soon after. In 17GG, the 

 London Society for the Encouragement of Arts offered pre- 

 miums for the collection of the seeds of some of the grasses 

 then found growing wild, such as the meadow foxtail, the 

 meadow fescue, the sweet scented vernal grass, <fec., and in 

 17G9 the same society offered additional rewards for farther 

 mvestigations and experiments on the culture and comparative 

 value of the natural grasses. But little was done, however, 

 till the experiments undertaken by the Duke of Bedford, in 

 1824. 



In this country the extensive and practical cultivation of the 

 natural grasses seems to have been commenced at an earlier 

 date than in England, for Jared Eliot, writing about the year 

 1750, speaks of the culture of Timothy as having been adopted 

 sometime previously. Indeed, the necessities of our rigorous 

 climate compelled attention to this branch of husbandry soon 

 after the establishment of the colony, in 1620. The climate of 

 England, on the other hand, admitted a greater degree of reli- 

 ance on the wild luxuriance of nature, and this mode of man- 

 agement was brought over by the first settlers and attempted 

 for some years, the few cattle they had being kept on poor and 

 miserable swale hay, or often upon the hay obtained from the 

 salt marshes. The death of their cattle from starvation and 

 exposure was of very common occurrence, and not unfrequently 

 the farmer lost his entire herd. The treatment of animals now, 

 as they were treated during the whole of the first century of 

 the colony, would make the owner liable to prosecution for 

 cruelty. This treatment was, in part, owing to the poverty of 

 the settlers, but more, probably, to the ideas and practices in 

 which they had been early trained in a diflcrent climate. For- 

 tunately for the poor dumb beast a more enlightened policy 

 now governs the mass of men, and this policy has led to greater 

 care and attention to the cultivation of the grasses. 



But in this country, the culture of the natural grasses takes 

 the precedence in point of time from the causes already indi- 

 cated, and the minds of men are so influenced by the routine 

 of ordinary practice, that the introduction of clover in the early 

 part of the last century met with great prejudice, which is now 

 nearly, if not quite extinct. 



Red clover, though not properly included in the family of 



