CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 231 



farmer should, in the first place, understand perfectly the na- 

 ture and properties of the soil he cultivates, the crops best 

 adapted to that soil, which is easily determined; and then, by 

 adopting a judicious rotation, cultivate such as may be most 

 advantageous. 



There are two kinds of rye grass, however, which must be distinguished 

 from each other in practice. The one flowers for successive years, and is there- 

 fore termed perennial the other flowers in the second year, and having borne 

 its flowers, the root decays. This is, therefore, a biennial plant, but it is gene- 

 rally termed annual rye grass. It is more productive than the perennial kind 

 in the season after being sown; and hence, when the object is to retain the land 

 only one year for a crop of herbage or forage, the shorter-lived variety is to be 

 preferred. There are no means of distinguishing the two kinds from their 

 seeds alone, and great losses have been frequently sustained by mistaking the 

 one for the other, when the purpose has been to keep the land for several years 

 in grass. When the land is to remain more than one year in grass, the peren- 

 nial kind must be sown. In England, rye grass is always sowed with the 

 clovers. Mixed with red clover it is well suited for hay. 



G. SINCLAIR, ofWoburn, who prepared the Table of Grasses experimented on 

 under the direction and at the expense of that noble patron of agricultural im- 

 provement, the DUKE OF BEDFORD, says that the circumstance of its producing 

 abundance of seed, which is easily collected that it vegetates freely on any 

 soil its early perfection and abundant herbage the first year, which is much 

 relished by cattle, are the merits which have upheld it to the present day, and 

 will for some time to come continue it a favourite grass among farmers. In 

 his second edition of his Hort. Gram. Wob., p. 215,~he remarks, that several 

 new varieties of this species of grass, which have been discovered of late years, 

 remove, in a very considerable degree, the serious objections applied to the 

 common rye grass. They are as follows: Slender rye grass, common in dry 

 impoverished pasture land. Compound or broad-spiked rye grass, found in rich 

 soils; a long under grass. Pacey's rye grass, found in rich meadow lands, by 

 a gentleman named PACEY. Witwortk's rye grass, introduced by G. WITWORTH, 

 Esq., an eminent cultivator of pasture grasses, who in 1825, had sixty varie- 

 ties of grasses under experiment, at his place in Lincolnshire, (Eng.) Stick- 

 ney's rye grass, introduced by a Mr. STICKNEY. RusselPs rye grass, first culti- 

 vated by the editor of the Farmer's Journal. Church bennet, or church bent 

 grass, an excellent variety of the rye grass. All save the first two are excel- 

 lent varieties. Pacey's and Russell's are said to be the best. 



It prefers a rich loamy soil, but will grow in almost any kind except rock or 

 undecayed bog. When cultivated for seed, it should not be mixed with clover, 

 but may be sown with grain crops, and the year after treated like grain in 

 every respect, bound up in sheaves, stacked, threshed with the flail, and dress- 

 ed by the winnowing machine in the same manner. To obtain good seed, it 

 must remain uncut beyond the proper season, to give the seeds an opportunity 

 of becoming perfectly ripe, by which means the value of the grass for hay is 

 greatly diminished. 



This foreign grass is found in several neighbourhoods; is not extensively 

 diffused, and I believe has not been cultivated here, though somewhat prized 

 in Europe. It affords a tolerably good pasture, and makes a handsome sward 

 for yards and lawns; but it is doubtless inferior in value, both to timothy and 

 orchard grass. One other species has been naturalized in some parts of the 

 United States. Dr. Darlington's Flora Cestrica of Chester county, Pa. 



8. Kalian Rye Grass. 



The Italian rye grass, Solium italicum, Trifolium incar- 

 natum, is cultivated in Italy, France, and other parts of Eu- 

 rope. It reproduces itself freely from its seeds, which are 

 scattered, generally, immediately on their becoming ripe; 



