MOSSES AND FERNS 331 



weed. Digging 1 it out or killing it by salting seems the 

 remedy. Plantains and weeds in the meadow are eaten 

 in pastures pretty well. The daisy (Heliopsis helian- 

 thoides) is a bad weed in eastern meadows and pastures. 

 It thrives in soils deficient in lime and fertility, and will 

 not persist in rich soils well grassed. The remedy there- 

 fore is to add to fertility and crowd it out, meantime 

 cutting before it seeds. 



Mosses and Ferns. In northern latitudes on moist 

 land there is often rank growth of ferns and large-grow- 

 ing mosses, which so completely occupy the land that 

 there is no space left for grass. These are most trouble- 

 some on rather poor land deficient in lime. The remedy 

 for moss is drainage, lime and enriching. Ferns may be 

 slowly killed by repeated mowings or they may need 

 thorough cultivation following deep plowing. 



British people are great students of pastures. They 

 grow large numbers of grasses, clovers and other 

 plants together, believing that by such means they 

 get the most good. They may be right for their own 

 localities, though it would seem that the highest quality 

 in a few plants would.be more useful than more medi- 

 ocrity. With the view to determining the relative value 

 of different species of grasses, and of different species 

 of plants other than grasses upon the permanent pastures 

 of England, the Royal Agricultural Society appointed a 

 commission, which, after investigating the subject for 

 several years, reported that in different pastures the spe- 

 cies of cultivated grasses ranged from n to 100 per 

 cent, of legumes from zero to 38 per cent and miscel- 

 laneous plants, so-called weeds, from zero to 89 per cent. 



