OF SELBORNE. 327 



champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample Flora. 

 The deep rocky lanes abound with Filices, and the pas- 

 tures and moist woods with Fungi. If in any branch of 

 botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the 

 large aquatic plants, which are not to be expected on a 

 spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amidst the 

 hill country at the spring heads. To enumerate all the 

 plants that have been di severed within our limits 

 would be a needless work ; but a short list of the more 

 rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may be 

 neither unacceptable nor unentertaining : 



of the spring are more nutritive than those of the end of the year, sixty- 

 four drachms at the beginning of April affording sixty-nine grains of nu- 

 tritive matter, while the same quantity in the month of November yielded 

 only thirty-nine grains : that the herbage, when suffered to grow rank or 

 old from want of sufficient stocking, contains nearly one half less nourish- 

 ment than that which is of recent growth, the quantity in sixty-four 

 drachms being in the one case only twenty grains, and in the other thirty- 

 six: and that the leaves and stalks are equally nutritious. The de- 

 duction is, that the cock's foot grass is more valuable for pasture than for 

 hay ; and that it is necessary to pasture or cut it closely in order to de- 

 rive the greatest advantage from it. As a farther and general deduction, 

 it is stated that the cock's foot grass appears to have a greater variety of 

 merits for alternate husbandry than almost any other kind : and it is re- 

 commended that it should constitute three parts at least of a mixture of 

 grasses for such cultivation, the remainder of the combination consisting 

 of such kinds as possess in a greater degree the qualities in which it is 

 deficient, such as Poa trivialis, Phleum pratense, Lolium perenne, &c. 



From this instance a slight idea may be obtained of the valuable re- 

 sults brought under the observation of those who may be disposed to 

 profit by them for the improvement of their fields. Every ordinary grass, 

 even those that offered but little promise of advantage, was submitted to 

 experiment; and a record of each was equally kept. To aid in the deter- 

 mination of the several kinds of grasses, dried specimens of each accom- 

 panied, in the original edition, the account given of it; and thus supplied 

 the most tangible means of ascertaining the object meant : and specimens 

 of the seeds being also included in the work, those errors which might 

 have occurred, had descriptions only been given, were guarded against 

 by obvious and simple means, and in the most effectual manner. 



A second edition of the Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, published in 

 1825, has coloured representations of the several grasses experimented 

 on, as well as some additional facts of interest to the agriculturist : to 

 whose advantage it is a contribution of the highest value, offered by one 

 of the most enlightened of the proprietors and cultivators of the soil of 

 England. E. T. B. 



