130 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENS1S. 



exhausted, even by the growth of the pasture grasses, when the 

 annual supply of manure is suspended, is shewn by daily experi- 

 ence ; as in the instance of mowing a pasture for several seasons 

 successively without any top-dressing, or depasturing with cattle : 

 the produce of grass is found to decrease annually, ancl if the prac- 

 tice is continued long, it will require many years, under the 

 best management, to restore the pasture to the same productive 

 state it was in previous to the suspension of its annual supply of 

 surface manure. This likewise shews that pasture land arrives at 

 a certain degree of productiveness, which it never exceeds but at 

 the expense of the quality of its produce ; as the surface becomes 

 unequal, the grass rank, of a coarse nature, and less grateful to 

 cattle. In this case (which does sometimes happen) the grass 

 may be brought back to its grateful and nutritive state, by stocking 

 the pasture sufficiently with different cattle in succession through- 

 out the season ; the insufficiency of which seems to be the prin- 

 cipal cause of the evil. But when such plants as knapweed 

 (Centaur ea nigra), different species of senecio, hieracium, sonchus, 

 carduus, &c., that are of no value as food for cattle, have esta- 

 blished themselves in these pastures, from the neglect of foul 

 hedges and road-sides, which abundantly supply the seeds of 

 these plants, or part of them, according to the nature of the soils, 

 the remedy of hard-stocking and even weeding will be found in- 

 adequate to extirpate these unprofitable plants. But to return to 

 the details of the experiment. 



The results of the last chemical examination of the soil had 

 shewn that it had lost a very considerable portion of its decom- 

 posing vegetable and animal matters. To supply this deficiency 

 in some measure, manure was now for the first time applied, and, 

 wilh the wheat stubble, dug in to the depth of six inches ;* the 

 surface was then made fine with a rake, and sown with a mixture of 

 the following grass-seeds, at the rate of five bushels to the acre. 



Festucapratensis (meadow-fescue), Alopecurus pratensis (meadow- 

 foxtail), Dactylis glomerata (round cock's-foot), Holcus avenaceus 

 (tall oat-like soft-grass), Vicia sepium (creeping vetch), Lolium 

 perenne (rye-grass), Phleum pratense (meadow cat's-tail), Cynosurus 

 cristatus (crested dog's-tail), Avena Jiavescens (yellow oat), Avena 



* The dung was buried to this depth, in order to supply the leading roots of the 

 perennial grasses in the ensuing seasons ; a circumstance not wanted in the same 

 degree for annual grain crops, whose roots do not penetrate so deep into the soil, 

 and which greedily exhaust manure, however gross. 



