236 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



which this turf is a specimen, on an average, per acre, fattens one 

 bullock, of from 100 to 120 stone, Smithfield weight, and winters 

 two sheep. 



400 grains of the soil consisted of 



Water of absorption - 55 grains. 

 Fine sand, partly siliceous and partly alumi- 

 nous - 148 

 Decomposing vegetable matter - 38 

 Oxide of iron - 40 

 Carbonate of lime or chalk - 

 Soluble vegetable and saline matter - 6 

 Alumina, or pure matter of clay - - 34 

 Silex - 60 



Loss - 19 



400 



The most remarkable circumstance in the nature of this soil is, 

 the excessive quantity of the oxide of iron, and the total want of 

 carbonate of lime or chalk. In a drier climate a soil of this nature 

 would be much less fertile. Lime combined with well-prepared 

 compost and applied as a top-dressing, must prove highly fertilizing 

 to a soil constituted as above. In the richest fattening pastures 

 in Lincolnshire, which I have had an opportunity of examining 

 minutely, and which were fully equal to fattening one large ox, and 

 four or five sheep, per acre ; the different species of plants were 

 equally numerous on a given space of the ground, as in those rich 

 pastures I examined in Devonshire ; but in the Lincolnshire pas- 

 tures, the natural or proper grasses were in a much greater propor- 

 tion, and, excepting yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and the clovers, 

 there was scarcely a plant to be found out of the family of the pro- 

 per grasses. The soil was a fine loam or alluvial soil ; it contained 

 no sensible quantity of carbonate of lime or chalk, and proved, on 

 a chemical examination of its nature, to be very similar in consti- 

 tution to the soil above-mentioned, except that it contained fifty 

 per cent less oxide of iron, and that the soluble matter of the soil 

 afforded more vegetable extract, in proportion to the saline con- 

 tents, than was indicated in the soluble portion of the Devonshire 

 soil. The results of an examination of the rich fattening pastures 

 in the vale of Aylesbury, particularly those of Mr. Westcar, 

 at Creslew, were in perfect accordance with the above, and proved 



