832 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III* 



5192. Panicum sanguinale, E. B. This species is strictly annual; and from the results of this trial> 

 its nutritive powers appear to be very inconsiderable. 



5193. The grasses which ajf'ord the best culms for straw plait are, according to Sinclair, as follow : 



For lieath or moor soil. Festuca ovina, duriuscula and hor- Moist soils. Agrostis canina, fascicularis, canina mutica," 



ttiformis, Nardus stricta. stolonifera angustifolia, stolonifera cristata, alba, stricta. 



Dry soils. Cynosurus cristatus, poa angustifpUa, hordeum repens, poa nemoralis, angustifolia. 



pratense, anthoxanthum odoratum, agrostis lobata, spica Cereal grasses. Wheat, spelt-wheat, rye and oats, have 



ventl, flavescens and vulgaris mutica, avena pubescens, fes- been sown on poor soils, and cut green and bleached, but 



tuca heterophylla. are found inferior to the above grasses for the finest plat. 



5194. The period for cutting the cuhns is when they are in blossom. They are bleached by pouring^ 

 boiling water over them, in which they remain ten minutes, and are afterwards spread on a grass plat for 

 seven or eight days. Sinclair found letting the culms remain in hot water from one to two hours required 

 only two or three days bleaching. When bleached they are taken up, washed clean, and put in a moist state 

 in a close vessel, where they are subjected to the fumes of burning sulphur for two hours. Green culms, im- 

 mersed for ten minutes in a strong solution of acetic acid, and then subjected to the sulphureous acid gas, 

 are bleached perfectly white in half an hour. Green culms, immersed for fifteen minutes in muriatic acid, 

 diluted with twenty times its measure of water, and then spread on the grass, became in four days as per- 

 fectly bleached as those culms which were scalded and bleached eight days on the grass. The texture of 

 the straw was not in the least injured by these processes. The application of the sulphureous acid gas to 

 the moistened culms, even after scalding and bleaching on the grass, had, in every instance, the effect of 

 greatly improving the color, and that without being productive of the smallest injury to the texture of the> 

 straw. {Bort. Gram. Woh. 2nd edit. 427.) 



5195. To imitate the 'Leghorn plait in the most perfect manner , the straws should be plaited the reverse 

 way of the common English split-straw plait. In the English plait, the straws are flattened by a small 

 hand-mill made for the purpose, but the Leghorn plait has the straws worked without flattening, and 

 pressure is applied after the plait is made. These two points are essential to be observed by those who 

 wish to rival the finest Leghorn manufacture. By reversing the common mode of plaiting, the fingers 

 have a much greater power in knitting firmly and intimately the straws, and the round or unflattened 

 state of the straws allows of their being more closely knitted] a circumstance that gives an appearance- 

 similar to the real Leghorn plait. iJUd^ 



Chap. VII. 

 Of Ike Management of Lands permanently under Grass, 



5196. In every country by far the greater j^roportion of perennial grass lands is the 

 work of nature : and it is not till an advanced period in the progress of agriculture that 

 much attention is paid to their management. But as the extension of tillage, planting, 

 and the formation of parks and gardens, limits the range of the domestic animals, their 

 food becomes more valuable ; and it then becomes an object to increase it by the culture 

 of roots and artificial herbage on some lands, and by the improved management of the 

 spontaneous productions of others. In a highly cultivated country like Britain, there- 

 fore, those lands retained in grass either are, or ought to be, such as are more valuable to the 

 owners in that state than they would be in any other. Such lands naturally divide them- : 

 selves into two classes : those which are fit either for mowing or pasture ; and those which 

 are fit for pasture only. 



Sect. I. Perennial Grass Lands fit for mowing, or Meadow Lands. 



5197. Under the term meadow, we include all such land as is kept under' grass chiefly , 

 for the sake of a hay crop, though occasionally, and at particular seasons of the year, it 

 may be depastured by the domestic animals ; and we usually include under this term the 

 notion of a greater degree of moisture in the soil, than would be thought desirable either 

 for permanent pasture or lands in tillage. Where hay is in great demand, as near large 

 towns, and especially if a good system of cropping be but little understood, a great 

 deal of arable land may be seen appropriated to hay-crops ; but the most valuable 

 meadows are such as are either naturally rather moist, or that are rendered so by means 

 of irrigation. There are three descriptions of these meadows : on the banks of streams 

 and rivers ; on the uplands, or more elevated grounds ; and bog-meadows ; and each of 

 these kinds may be stocked with grasses either naturally or by art, and may be irrigated 

 by one or other of the different watering processes already described. (4053.) 



5198. River-meadows, or those which are situated in the bottoms of valleys, are in ge- 

 neral by far the most valuable. They are the most productive of grass and hay, yielding 

 sustenance for cattle through the summer and the winter, and producing an everlasting 

 source of manure for the improvement of the adjoining lands. The soil is deep and com- 

 monly alluvial, having been deposited by water, or washed down from the adjoining 

 eminences ; the surface is even from the same cause ; and what is of considerable im- 

 portance, has a gradual declivity or surface-drainage to the river or stream, which almost 

 invariably flows in the lowest part of every valley, and which is essential to this descrip- 

 tion of meadow. The principal defects to which such lands are liable are, the oozing 

 out of springs towards their junction with the rising lands, and the inundations of the 

 river or stream. The former evil is to be remedied by under-draining, and the latter by 



