On Natural Grasses. 89 



fattening pasture. Its produce, when cultivated simply by itself, is 

 always less, sometimes descending to one- half of what it produces 

 when combined with other grasses ; hence it is, that the valuable pro- 

 perty of forming a close turf among shading, or taller and heavier 

 grasses, which of themselves never form a dense bottom, is pre- 

 eminent in this species. In fields that are constantly mown, this grass 

 disappears altogether, though the soil be adapted to its growth ; and 

 in the opposite practice, on a similar soil, where close depasturing, 

 without any intervening crop of hay being taken, it frequently spreads 

 beyond its just space, and occupies too large a proportion of the sur- 

 face of the field. The quantity of seed required for an acre, varies 

 from one to four pounds, (with the just proportions of the other 

 grasses,) according to the nature of the soil and objects of depasturing, 

 or hay. 



Festuca pratensis, Meadow fescue. Hort. G. W. p. 149. It is 

 of much importance to the cultivator, to distinguish this grass from 

 some others, with which it is not unfrequently confounded ; for we 

 have known the turfy hair grass, Air a ctespitosa, the Hard fescue, 

 Festuca duriuscula, Tall fescue, Festuca elatior, and Perennial rye 

 grass, Lolium perenne, and several others of equally different proper- 

 ties, mistaken for this valuable grass. Its essential specific characters 

 of distinction are ; panicle, nearly upright, branched, spreading, turn- 

 ed to one side ; spikelets, linear, compressed ; florets^ numerous, cy- 

 lindrical, obscurely ribbed ; nectary ', four cleft ; root, fibrous. All 

 these grasses now mentioned, except Festuca elatior, as being not un- 

 frequently mistaken for the meadow fescue, are so strikingly dissimi- 

 lar to it in external characters, that the above description, with a little 

 attention in using it, will readily identify the meadow fescue, which 

 is distinguished from the Festuca elatior, by having only half the 

 height, the leaves only half the breadth, the panicle shorter, and con- 

 taining only half the number of flowers *. 



This is one of the most valuable pasture grasses, being very pro- 

 ductive. There is no ox-fattening pasture found without an admix- 

 ture of this grass in its composition. It comes into flower about 

 three weeks later than the meadow foxtail, and succeeds that grass in 

 giving bulk to the produce. In the vale of Aylesbury, it constitutes 

 a considerable portion of the most valuable and fattening pastures of 

 that rich grazing district. It is a valuable ingredient in irrigated 

 meadows ; it makes excellent hay ; and though a large plant, approach- 

 ing the confines of what is termed in grasses coarseness, its herbage 

 is succulent and highly nutritive, and so much liked by stock, that it 

 is seldom seen in tufts, but eaten down level with the finer leaved 

 species, with which it is usually combined. It does not arrive so soon 

 to perfection from seed, as to offer advantages for using it in the al- 

 ternate husbandry. It flowers in June, and ripens the seed about the 

 beginning of August. The soils which it affects most are deep loams, 

 and well-drained clays. It will not thrive or continue permanent, where 

 stagnant moisture exists, or in dry sandy soils. 



* For a figure of the whole plant, and of the seed, see Hortus Gramineus 

 Woburuensis, 3d edition, pp. 24. 149. 



