142 COMMON WEEDS 



Yarrow (Achillea Millefolium), and 3 per cent of Knap- 

 weed (Centaurea nigra). In another case a Somerset 

 pasture carried 63 per cent of Ribgrass and 8 per cent 

 of other weeds. Mr. Carruthers concluded that of the 

 fourteen pastures he visited, not one " is so good as it 

 might easily be made. The extraordinary abundance 

 of such objectionable grasses as Yorkshire Fog and 

 Meadow Barley-grass in some of the pastures is sur- 

 prising." He further says, " A plant of Nature's 

 sowing on his (the farmer's) farm, where it should not 

 be, is a weed to be eradicated. ... In laying down 

 land to pasture, as in sowing fields with wheat or any 

 other crop, we must try to surpass Nature. We must 

 bring together the most nutritious perennial plants 

 which will supply palatable food for stock as far as 

 possible all the year round, and we must exclude the 

 weeds and worthless grasses which we have found too 

 abundant in natural pastures." 



A later investigation into the composition of the 

 herbage of several types of pasture and meadow land, 

 especially fine old pastures in the Market Harborough 

 district of Leicester and Northampton, has been made 

 by Mr. S. F. Armstrong. His conclusions are of con- 

 siderable interest, and the more important points 

 deserve notice here. They are as follows : l 



1. That white clover and ryegrass form by far the 

 greater part of the herbage of the best grazing lands 

 both old and recent in the English Midlands and that 

 the next most abundant species on these pastures are 

 usually crested dogstail, fiorin (A. stoloniferd], and rough- 

 stalked meadow grass. 



2. That the herbage of the inferior types of grass land 

 in the same districts consists very largely of bent grass 



1 four. Agric. Sci., December 1907. 



