196 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



Produce per Acre, 

 dr. qr. Ibs. 



At the time the seed is ripe, the produce is 

 Grass, 60 oz. The produce per acre 40837 8 



80 dr. of grass weigh, when dry 38 } 



The produce of the space, ditto - 456 5 



The weight lost by the produce of one acre in drying 21439 11 

 64 dr. of grass afford of nutritive matter 53^ 

 The produce of the space, ditto 86 1 1 36 



The produce of latter-math is 



Grass, 14 oz. The produce per acre . 9528 12 



64 dr. of grass afford of nutritive matter 2 29712 6 



64 dr. of the culms or straws afford of 



nutritive matter 7 



The weight of nutritive matter which is lost by taking 



the crop at the time of flowering, is 2073 II 



The culms of this grass at the time the seed is ripe contain 

 more nutritive matter than those of any other species of grass that 

 have been submitted to experiment. In regard to the production 

 of early herbage in the spring, it is superior to the cock's-foot 

 grass ; the results of the experiments shewed the quantity of grass 

 to be equal in both plants ; but the nutritive matter afforded by the 

 grass of the meadow cat's-tail in the early part of the spring, was 

 superior to that of the cock's-foot, in the proportion of 9 to 8. 

 The value of the culms simply, exceeds that of the grass, at the 

 time of flowering, in the proportion of 14 to 5 ; a circumstance 

 which gives value to this grass above many others for the purpose 

 of hay ; as its valuable early foliage may be cropped to a late 

 period of the spring without injury to the culms, which cannot be 

 effected with those grasses which flower earlier in the season, with- 

 out incurring a loss of nearly half the value of the crop, as has been 

 proved by former examples. 



Though there is more nutritive matter contained in the seed 

 crop than in the flowering crop, nevertheless the loss of latter-math 

 which would have been produced in the time the seed was ripening, 

 would more than outweigh the superior quantity of nutritive mat- 

 ter contained in the grass of the seed crop. To the practical 

 Farmer this last observation (which likewise applies to every 

 similar statement throughout these details) is, I am sure, unne- 

 cessary. If the season has been dry, this grass should be cut at 

 the time of flowering; but in moist cloudy seasons it should 



