CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 945 



encumbered his garden, threw them into a bog, where they 

 took root and spread over a large space of ground, excluding 

 every other plant. The water flowed through the roots at all 

 seasons, yet the turf has become so solid as to bear a cart and 

 oxen. I walked through this grass when in bloom, and never 

 beheld a more handsome and luxurious growth. It stood per- 

 fectly erect, full of large leaves, even, and from four to five feet 

 high. It will produce two good crops in a season, and springs 

 up immediately after the scythe. It produces excellent food 

 cattle feed it close, and appear to be more fond of it when made 

 into hay than any other grass." It is perennial, spreads rapidly 

 and may be easily transplanted. It is essentially aquatic in its 

 habits, and therefore requires a soil well saturated with water, 

 where it will vegetate with great facility. The facts here nar- 

 rated, are gathered from publications made respecting this 

 grass in 1834.* It may be a very valuable acquisition to our 

 present catalogue; but further experiments are necessary to 

 determine its intrinsic value as well as its relative merits. 



' Of the various plants referred to in the preceding pages, 

 some it is seen are chiefly adapted to forage, some to herbage, 

 and others may be employed partly for forage and partly for 

 herbage. Several of the forage plants, from their habits of 

 growth, are best cultivated by themselves, or with a very slight 

 intermixture of other seeds. Of this description are the tare, 

 lucern and saintfoin when mown for forage. The trefoils, 

 again, and the other smaller leguminous herbage plants, are 

 greatly benefited by a mixture with some of the grasses; and 

 it is a point of useful practice worthy the attention of every 

 enlightened farmer to determine what kinds should be se- 

 lected, and in what proportions they should be mixed. In 

 England, the plants most frequently employed for producing 

 mixed forage and herbage, are the red and white clovers 

 and of the native grasses, rye grass. The rye grass is well 

 suited for general culture, arriving more quickly than most of 

 the others at maturity, producing abundance of seeds, at all 

 times easy to be obtained, and growing well under the shade 

 of grain. 



An excellent mixture, when the land is to remain for only 

 one year in grass, is given by professor Low as follows: rye 

 grass, seventeen pounds; meadow cat's-tail or timothy, three 

 pounds; red clover, eight pounds; white clover, two pounds. 

 A mixture in these proportions will yieljla good produce for 

 one season, whether it be used as-4rcrfl5age or forage. But if 

 the land is to remain in grass, then a mixture of seeds in the 



* Cultirator, vol. i. p. 72-101. 

 21* 



