50 CHAPTER 5. 



best condition. Inferior soils, or even the best natural soils if badly 

 cared for, produce inferior grasses. Hay grown on such soils is usually 

 hard as distinguished from firm, over-dry, and deficient in colour, aroma, 

 nutriment, and herbage. 



There are also very poor upland soils, which, especially in dry seasons, 

 grow very little grass. Some are so poor that they will not produce 

 grass sufficient for haymaking. 



It must be remembered that there can be no nutriment in grass except 

 what it extracts from the land. Therefore poor land, or land in bad 

 heart, must grow poor innutritious hay. 



Some soils produce grass not merely of inferior varieties, but bad of 

 the sort, which is easily recognised in hay by a peculiar sour appearance 

 and taste, and often by a darker colour. The smell, if any, may probably 

 have an odour of turpentine. 



Hay grown under trees is readily known by the long, lanky fibres of 

 its grasses, by its lightness, softness, and absence of aroma ; except when 

 grown under fir trees, when a smell of turpentine may be detected. It 

 is very objectionable. 



84. Lowland hay. 



Lowland hay is known 1st. By the coarseness of the stems of its 

 grasses, by the broad leaves of its undergrowth, and by a large admix- 

 ture of coarse herbage and weeds. 2nd. The direction of the stems and 

 leaves is not well preserved. It is a tangled mass. 3rd. The colour is 

 darker than that of good, well-saved upland hay though the latter, if 

 heated or badly saved, may be dark. 4th. It has a stronger and less 

 delicate aroma. 5th. The texture is more woolly ; and the sample, 

 though each leaf or stem may be coarser, yet feels more soft or less firm. 

 Altogether it lacks the firmness, crispness, cleanliness, freshness of 

 appearance, and delicacy, both of substance and aroma, of good upland 

 hay. Lastly, lowland hay is at once recognised by the absence of the 

 best grasses, which will be presently described as characteristic of upland 

 soils. 



85. Of the grasses which compose good upland hay. 



The Stems or Flowering heads denote the grasses. 



The leaves, which surround those heads, are not easily recognised. 

 Therefore we look to the stems as indicating the grasses. According to 

 the prevalence or otherwise of certain stems, so will be the quality of 

 the hay. 



No. 1. Rye-grass (Lolium perenne) grows naturally on most good up- 

 land soils. It contains much nutriment. It is also found on poorer soils 

 if dry, but on such it dwindles in size. 



It is also extensively cultivated as an artificial grass on lands under 

 rotation. The hay made from it is good for horses. The variety known 

 as Italian is often grown with sewage. Here it becomes coarse, and, 

 though valuable for cows, is unfit for horses. 



