HORTUS GRAM1NEUS WOBURNENSIS. 167 



barren sandy soil. If we therefore compare its produce on such 

 soils with that of other grasses, it will prove superior ; but there it 

 must remain, for on all other soils it will be found inferior to most 

 other grasses. The roots, when once in possession of the soil, 

 can hardly be again expelled without great labour and expense. 

 It is the true couch-grass of light sandy soils. I have found roots 

 five feet in length, the growth of a few months only. The roots 

 contain a very considerable quantity of nutritive matter, which has 

 the flavour of new-made meal. Pigs are very fond of the roots, 

 and dig them up with eagerness. How far it might be advan- 

 tageous to cultivate this grass on naked sands, for the sake of 

 the roots, I shall not presume to determine ; but the strong nutri- 

 tive powers they possess, and the little expense that would attend 

 their culture, warrant the recommendation of trial to those who 

 may have such barren sands in their possession. The herbage is 

 apparently more disliked by cattle than that of the Holcus lanatus ; 

 it is extremely soft, dry, and tasteless. The best mode of banish- 

 ing this impoverishing and most troublesome weed from light 

 arable lands that are infested with it, is to collect the roots with 

 the fork after the plough ; and when thus in some measure lessened, 

 to apply yearly sufficient dressings of clay, perhaps fifty load per 

 acre, till the texture of the soil is changed to a sandy loam : this 

 grass will then be easily overcome, and the fertility of the soil 

 permanently increased. See remarks on soils at p. 152. 



HOLCUS odoratus (repens). Sweet-scented Soft-grass, or North- 

 ern Holy-grass. 



Specific character : Panicle somewhat unilateral ; fruit-stalks 

 smooth ; perfect floret awnless ; barren ones slightly awned. 

 Hierochloe Borealis, Sm. Engl. Fl. i. p. 110. Holcus repens, 

 Host. vol. iii. p. 3, t. 3. Holcus odoratus, Flo. Dan. t. 963. 

 Holcus Borealis, Flo. Germ. p. 252. 



Fig. 1. Floret magnified. 



Obs. Botanists have made two species here, which I include 

 in one, as I can perceive no difference in their structure, 

 habits, or agricultural merits, sufficient to separate them. 

 The nectary is the only part wherein these plants vary from 

 each other in a sensible degree, but what may be accounted 

 for from the circumstances of soil and situation. If they are 

 to remain distinct species, they are artificial in no ordinary 

 degree. Since the above remarks were first published, that 



