HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 331 



of the plants are lost during the winter : should circumstances 

 prove otherwise, the autumn sowing will be found the mo s t 

 advantageous, as it affords nearly a full crop in the ensuing 

 season.* 



It was before observed, that dry thin sandy pastures are the least 

 capable of improvement, from the defect in the constitution of the 

 soil, which arises from the want of clay and marl. The process of 

 paring and burning, which is so efficacious in converting bogs 

 and rough tenacious clays, is found to injure thin sands; yet, 

 without this process of burning the surface, the crops that follow 

 the ordinary mode of breaking up such soils by the plough only 



during the winter, or cold months, it is seldom effectual, as the ants are then in 

 secure quarters below the base of their hills, and therefore receive but little, if any 

 injury, from the effects of the paring and burning. Hot, or caustic lime, should be 

 applied to the sites of the hills after they are burnt, and the ashes scattered on the 

 surface, which would complete the remedy. 



18. Tormentilla erecta officinalis. Curt. Lond. 337. Septfoil. A peren- 

 nial, flowering in June and September. The flowers are of a fine yellow colour ; 

 the straws are at first trailing, afterwards ascending ; the leaves are of a fine green 

 colour. The roots are powerfully astringent ; they are used, Dr. Withering 

 informs us, in several counties to tan leather, and that Farmers find them effica- 

 cious in the dysenteries of cattle. They dye red. Goats, sheep, and swine eat the 

 plant; horses refuse it. (Linn.} 



19. Rumex acetosella. Slice's Sorrel, or Dock. E. Bot 1674; Flo. Dan. 

 1161. A perennial plant, flowering in May and June. It is very diminutive in 

 dry sandy pastures; the leaves grow close upon the surface of the soil, and they 

 are generally of a deep red colour, caused by the drought. I have observed that it 

 was sometimes cropped by sheep and hares ; but in these instances there appeared 

 always a great scarcity of other herbage. Like every other species of dock, it is 

 with difficulty overcome on its natural soil; till by good management, under 

 tillage begun with paring and burning the surface, and by adding clay or marl, a 

 permanent change is effected in the nature of the soil. 



20. Polygonum amculare. E. Bot. 1252. Knot-grass, Snake-weed, Red- 

 weed? This is a biennial plant, flowering from April to October. It is one of 

 the most noxious weeds that infest dry sandy soils, and even on rich soils, under 

 judicious cropping, it is often met with ; so difficult it is to destroy it, when once 

 the roots get established in light soils. The seeds appear to be as grateful to birds 

 as those of buck-wheat (PolygoJium fagopyrutn). There appears to be nothing 

 which encourages the growth and propagation of this weed, so much as severe 

 cropping with successive white grain crops, and the neglect of the row or drill 

 mode of cultivation. 



" The knot-grass fetters there the hands 



That once could have burst iron bands." SCOTT. 



* Young's Annals, viii. p. 73; ii. p. 360. 



