HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 215 



by Mr. Rocque, a farmer at Walham-green, near London. The 

 seed of the cock's-foot grass was introduced about the same time 

 from Virginia, by the Society of Arts, &c., but no trial was made 

 of it till several years afterwards : it was then called orchard- 

 grass ;* and it is but lately that the fox-tail grass has been tried 

 on an extensive scale the merits of which seem to have been 

 first accurately pointed out by the late excellent Mr. Curtis in his 

 several works on grasses. 



There has been much difference of opinion respecting the merits 

 and comparative value of rye-grass. It produces an abundance of 

 seed, which is easily collected and readily vegetates on most kinds 

 of soil under .circumstances of different management ; it soon 

 arrives at perfection, and produces in its first years of growth a 

 good supply of early herbage, which is much liked by cattle. 

 These merits have, no doubt, upheld it till the present day, in 

 practice, and will probably, for some time to come, continue it a 

 favourite grass with many Farmers. But the latter-math of 

 rye-grass is very inconsiderable, and the plant impoverishes 

 the soil in a high degree, if the culms, which are invariably left 

 untouched by cattle, are not cut before the seed advances towards 

 perfection. When this is neglected, the field after midsummer 

 exhibits only a brown surface of withered straws. 



Let the produce and nutritive powers of rye-grass be compared 

 with those of the cock's-foot-grass, and it will be found inferior in 

 the proportion nearly of 5 to 18; and also inferior to the meadow 

 fox-tail in the proportion of 5 to 12 ; and inferior to the meadow 

 fescue in the proportion of 5 to 17. In these comparisons, from 

 which the above proportions arose, it was necessary to omit the 

 seed crops for the truth of comparison. 



But as the seed of the fox-tail is often defective, and the plants 

 of the fescue (Festuca pratensis) do not arrive at perfection so soon 

 as those of rye-grass ; their superiority, as above, over rye-grass, 

 is somewhat lessened with respect to their value as alternate hus- 

 bandry grasses ; for permanent pasture, however, the above pro- 

 portional values will be found true, as rye-grass is but a short-lived 

 plant, seldom continuing more than six years in possession of the 

 soil, but is continued by its property of ripening an abundance of 

 seed, which is but little molested by birds, and suffered to fall and 

 vegetate among the root-leaves of the permanent pasture grasses, 



* Annual Reg'ster, for 1765, p. 141 et sc^. 



