FARMERS' REGISTER 



87 



me in abundance." After someexperiments with 

 nine rools ruised from this bog, the author laid 

 down a rood with fiorin, altera crop'oCpotatoes, on 

 the 15th November 1806. 



It is not our business to reconcile these accounlp. 

 One thing cannot be disputed. 'J'he doctor has 

 the merit ol' having first discovered thai it was 

 infinitely more valuable than any other grass, and 

 than any other person seems ever to have ima- 

 gined, or will yet believe. Mr. Wakefield, in his 

 late account ol' Ireland, not only denies the au- 

 thor's right to this discovery, but that he was even 

 the first cultivator of" it ; and refers to the surveys 

 of Tyrone and Derry, to prove that it had been 

 previously cultivated by Mr. M'Evoy, and the 

 Reverend Mr. Samson. In refily to this, our 

 author very liberally abuses Mr. Wakefield, and 

 seems to withdraw his pretensions. 



Be this as it may, it is of more importance to be 

 able to distinguish this grass from every other; 

 and, to all appearance, this is no easy matter. 

 " The slifrhtest assistance is not to be derived from 

 botanical books ;" and, in tiie whole of this essay, 

 there is not a word of description to enable the 

 reader to select the fiorin cultivated by Dr. R. (rom 

 other stoloniierous grasses. At one time, his di- 

 rections to those wiio sought for fiorin stolones, 

 were, " to raise the grass growing in contact with 

 the north w^ll of their parish church, telling them 

 they would find it to be fiorin." Rut this simple 

 expedient must not be depended on for success, 

 now that it appears from Sir H. Davy's experi- 

 ments that there are at least two varieties; — the 

 latifulin cultivated by Dr. R., and the angvsfifolia, 

 of much less value. 



Respecting its pro/jeriics also, the infiirmalion is 

 not quite so full and satisfactory as mighi be wish- 

 ed. It would have been of importance to know 

 the weight of it consumed by horses and cattle, that 

 it might be compared with that of other hay ; and 

 particularly, whether horses enjoy the same health 

 and vigor when led on dry fiorin, as on good clo- 

 ver and rye-grass hay. Yet a vegetable, which 

 possesses the properties ascribed to fiorin in the 

 fbllowingexiracts, must beof extreme importance. 



"See the contrast — our native fiorin has no 

 disorders, no enemies ; the vicissitudes of season 

 make no impression upon it; and this hardy grass 

 vegetates in the severest frost ; its stolones con- 

 tinue to lengthen under the snow : deluges ol' rain 

 do not in the least injure it; and if Nature has 

 thrown its period ofperlection into the winter sea- 

 son, she has had the kindness amply to compensate 

 by making both the plan and its enormous crop 

 equally insensible to the severities attendant en 

 the season. And though we cannot accumulate a 

 fiorin crop in the short and moist days of ihe lira- 

 mal months, we can consume it to the greatest 

 advantage in that period ; and should we mow 

 more than we can use, we know that fiorin urass 

 will remain on the ground without injury, until the 

 lengthening day brings sufficient drought to enable 

 us to convert into excellent hay, both what was 

 cut, and what was left uncut through the winter. ' 

 p. 25. 



"During the lime I was thus endeavoring to 

 ascertain the extent to which fiorin culture might 

 be carried, I was equallydiligent in tryin<j the va- 

 rious modes in which it might be applied to use in 

 rural economy. I soon discovered that eiihor dry 

 or green fiorin enriched the milk of the cows led 



upon it, more than any other food I had ever tried, 

 and that its fattening powers far exceeded tliose 

 of any other hay ; that as a green food, its value 

 was incalculable, coming in aid of the soiling sys- 

 tem early in Se[)tember, and continuing a most 

 luxuriant and succulent lbod,even until the middle 

 of May." p. 19,20. 



Tfiere is nothing, one should think, can be bet- 

 ter ascertained than the amount of its produce : — 

 lor a great number of high authorities, high at 

 least in point of rank and general knowledge, have 

 been adduced ; and his people have been examin- 

 ed on oath respecting its weight and other circum- 

 stances. 



" The following statements of quantity of fiorin 

 crop, are established with precision, viz. 

 " 180S, Seven ton, lour hundred, one quarter, four 

 pounds. 



1809, Eight ton, five hundred, two quarters, (wen- 

 ty-four pounds. 



1810, Season so desperate, never weighed. 



1811, Eight ton and upwards." 



From this and other statements, the doctor 

 infers " that fiorin grass produces treble crops of 

 hay, — that at least is completely established ; — as, 

 of (5 crops carefully weighed, every one of them fiir 

 exceeded treble the highest average ever made 

 from a hay crop." 



The only objections that have been made to this 

 inference are, that others cannot raise such great 

 crops, not even the half of these weights ; that fio- 

 rin jirass does not " produce" hay at all, — though 

 it is perhaps something better ; and that it is ab- 

 surd and lidlacious to conjpare a crop produced in 

 6 or 8 weeks only, with one which recpjires to 

 occupy the ground for a whole year. It has beei> 

 said, with some appearance of reason, that the 

 author should have brought into view the early 

 s[)ring food obtained from meadows and artificial 

 irrasses. and also the second and sometimes third 

 crops alter the hay crop, or the value of the pas- 

 turage till the fields are again shut up lor hay, or 

 ploughed (or a crop in March. Fiorin aives 

 neither early pasture so valuable for ewes and 

 lambs and fattening stock, nor a second crop which 

 may be either cut lor hay or soiling, nor any after 

 eatage, like the land which produces the hay with 

 which it is compared. 



The application of the author's crops is no where 

 distinctly stated. One cannot but wish for par- 

 ticulars on this head. How many horses, cattle 

 and sheep does he support liom a given quantity 

 of land under fiorin 1 The weight of Ihe crop is 

 of itself no criterion of value. Of this succulent 

 Ibod perhaps twice the weight of hay is consumed. 

 I In the second place, it must be desirable to know 

 [upon what soils fiorin will prosper, and how it 

 should be cultivated. 



Wiih regard lo the kind of soil it seems to be of 

 no consequence whatever. The doctor has raised 

 excellent meadows on miry bog, so wet, that lie 

 describes it, in Ovid's words, as being " Instabilis 

 terra innabilis unda.'''' 1 1 grows spontaneously on 

 dry sandy grounds, with so much vigor, that he 

 has recommended its cultivation on the blowing 

 sands oft he Hebrides, as an excellent expedient lor 

 preventing the destruction of the contiguous land, 

 and at the same time converting these blowing 

 sands into better meadow than any in England. 

 There is very little concerning the mode of culti- 

 vating it in this essay, which in this instance does 



