HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 249 



are not suspected, and to sow immediately after half a bushel, 

 more or less, of the mixture of seeds, according as the sward 

 appears to be deficient of plants ; after which, (the top-dressing 

 being previously well reduced by a slight bush-harrow,) the roller 

 should be liberally used ; and rolling, for the first two years, 

 should never be neglected at any favourable opportunity. If the 

 seeds are sown in autumn, the top-dressing, re-sowing, and rolling, 

 will be found equally requisite and beneficial in the following 

 month of May ; and even if repeated in the following autumn, they 

 will greatly forward the intention. This is imitating the process 

 of nature in forming pastures, with this advantage, that for one 

 seed of a valuable species of grass supplied to the soil by the slow 

 and gradual process of nature, in one season, a thousand are sup- 

 plied in the same space of time ; and thus take possession of their 

 natural soil, without the danger and inconvenience of expelling 

 its usurpers. 



There has been some difference of opinion respecting the 

 manner of reaping the produce of seedling grasses ; whether by 

 depasturing with sheep, or by mowing after the plants have per- 

 fected their seed. The manure supplied by sheep to the young 

 grasses is of great advantage ; but the animals are apt to bite too 

 close to the root, and sometimes tear up the young plants altoge- 

 ther. I have found, on repeated trials, that cropping seedling 

 grasses before they had produced flowers, had the effect of retard- 

 ing and weakening the after-growth of the plants for that season 

 very much. But after the period of flowering, cropping was 

 found to strengthen, and rather encourage the growth of plants. 

 In the same way I found, that old plants of grass, when cut very 

 close after the first shoots of the spring made their appearance, 

 afforded about one-third less weight of produce in the whole 

 season than those* plants of the same species which were left 

 uncut till the flowering culms began to appear. As the advan- 

 tages of the manure of the sheep may be supplied by top-dress- 

 ing, and the disadvantages resulting to the tender seedling plants 

 from early and close cropping cannot so speedily be removed, the 

 practice of suffering the grasses to produce flowers before they 

 are cut, with the application of top-dressings, and the use of the 

 roller, till the spring of the second year, appears to be far more 

 profitable than the former practice of depasturing the seedling 

 grasses at an earlier period than the spring of the second year. 

 But in this, no doubt, as well as in other particular modes of 



