WILD PLANTS. 25 



ficient in the requisite nutriment. Many of the maiden- 

 hairs and ferns, pellitory, cotyledon, &c. are attached 

 in the crevices of old walls, seeking as it were for the 

 calcareous nitrate found there, this saltpetre appearing 

 essential to their vigor and health. The predominating 

 plants in some corn-fields is the red-poppy, cherlock 

 (sinapis arvensis), mustard (sin. nigra.), wild oat, corn- 

 flower (cyanus) ; but in some adjoining parish we shall 

 only sparingly find them. With us in our cold clay- 

 lands we find the slender foxtail grass (alopecurus agr.) 

 abounding like a cultivated plant: when growing in 

 clover, or the ray -grass, the whole are cut together, and 

 though not a desirable addition, is not essentially inju- 

 rious ; but vegetating in the corn, it is a very pernicious 

 weed, drawing nutriment from the crop, and overpow- 

 ering it by its more early growth, at times so impov- 

 erishing the barley or the oats, as to render them com- 

 paratively of little value. The upright brome grass 

 (bromus erectus) is a pest in our grass lands, giving the 

 semblance of a crop in a most unproductive soil ; hard 

 and wiry, it possesses no virtue as food, and is useless 

 as a grass : this bromus inclines to the limestone, the 

 lias, or clay-stone, as if alumine was required, to effect 

 some essential purpose in its nature ; but this is a plant 

 not found universally. 



We have in use generally here a very prudential 

 method of saving our crops in bad and catching sea- 

 sons, by securing the hay in windcocks, and wheat in 

 pooks. As soon as a portion of our grass becomes suffi- 

 ciently dry, we do not wait for the whole crop being in 

 the same state, but, collecting together about a. good 

 wagon load of it, we make a large cock in the field, 

 and as soon as a like quantity is ready we stack that 

 likewise, until the whole field is successively finished, 

 and on the first fine day unite the whole in a mow. 

 Some farmers, in very precarious seasons, only cut 

 enough to make one of these cocks, and having secured 

 this, cut again for another. Should we be necessitated, 

 from the state of the weather, to let these parcels re- 

 main long on the ground, or be a little dilatory, which 

 I believe we sometimes are, before they are carried, or, 

 C 



