HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 251 



and, on the contrary, the richest natural pastures, by neglect of 

 proper stocking, top-dressing, and weeding, or the too frequent 

 repetition of hay crops, have become so unprofitable, as to require 

 many years to bring them again to their original value. I have 

 witnessed in Lincolnshire soils of a similar nature in every respect, 

 indeed a fence only separating them, exhibit the effects of judi- 

 cious and of bad treatment as regards the frequent repetition of 

 hay crops on the same field. On one side of the fence, where 

 judicious stocking had been practised, the superior grasses wholly 

 occupied the field, nor could I observe an inferior plant in the 

 herbage of it, much less absolute weeds ; but on the other side of 

 the fence, where the field had been mown for a succession of 

 years, the superior grasses had given place to the cow-parsnip 

 (Heracleum sphondyliurn), cow's-allheal (Stachys palustris), knap- 

 weed (Centaurea nigra) ; and among these weeds were thinly 

 scattered the (Hokus avenaceus) tall oat-like soft grass, Dactylis 

 glomerata, and Agrostis vulgaris. The neglect of foul hedges and 

 road-sides, is the best possible encouragement for the propaga- 

 tion of those perennial weeds which infest permanent pasture 

 land. In Warwickshire, I have seen valuable pasture land so 

 deteriorated by the intermixture of these weeds, supplied liberally 

 from foul hedge-rows and road-sides, as to be little superior to 

 the worst land, kept under proper management; besides, the 

 weeds in these nurseries afford shelter, and, at particular periods, 

 nourishment to insects, which annoy and distress cattle in 

 summer. 



The comparative value of permanent pasture and tillage land, is 

 a subject out of the reach of the humble narrator of facts.* All 

 that has been here brought forward goes no further than to prove, 

 that where such lands have already been converted to tillage, 

 they may, by the means now recommended, be brought to as 



* Yet, after all, pasture land and tillage land are so mutually dependent on 

 each other, and the community on them both, that the question which of the two 

 is the most valuable, and to be encouraged in preference to the other, for private 

 or for public advantage, can never receive an absolute answer; for the various 

 local circumstances of soil and climate under which lands may be situated, also the 

 fluctuations in the demand for particular farm produce caused by every temporary 

 change in the political state of the country, make it impossible to obtain data on 

 which to ground a clear and satisfactory answer to the question, and which shall 

 be found to be correct under every circumstance. One thing is certain, (i. e.} that 

 pasture land is the first foundation of the riches of a farm. 



