TUBEROUS ROOTS, AND GRAIN. 337 



The Phleum, the Dactylis, the Anthoxanthum, and 

 Rye-grass, are the plants best adapted for meadows ; but 

 Rye-grass, degenerates in the dry warm climates of the 

 Continent, as it requires a great deal of moisture to keep 

 it fine and tender. 



Emily. The great defect of grass, which I have ob- 

 served both in France and Switzerland, is the quantity 

 of weeds which are mixed with it, and which renders the 

 hay strong and coarse. 



Mrs. B. That is owing to the impurity of the seed, 

 and is attended with every possible disadvantage. The 

 coarse leaves of the weeds are not only unpalatable and 

 unwholesome for cattle, but in growing they fill the spa- 

 ces which the grasses would occupy, and, by separating 

 them, prevent their roots from combining and giving rise 

 to new shoots. 



There are some meadows which, from peculiar circum- 

 stances, are not susceptible of being mown. The grass 

 of mountains, for instance, does not grow sufficiently high 

 to require it. Being frequently covered with mists, it re- 

 mains green throughout the summer ; much resembling 

 our English lawns, and affording delicious pasture for 

 cattle when the meadows in the valleys and plains are 

 burnt up. The fine turf on the mountains of Switzerland 

 and the Alps, consists principally of phleum, intermixed 

 with other herbs of an inferior quality. The matted roots 

 of these grasses are extremely useful in preventing th& 

 surface of the soil from being washed down by rains: the 

 meshes of the net work which they form confine the earth 

 and retain it, as it were, in a basket on the surface of the 

 declivity. It is on this account very imprudent to attempt 

 tillage on the sides of mountains. Small flat patches of 

 land, which are occasionally met with in such districts, 

 may be cultivated with advantage, but it is dangerous to 

 displace the fence which Nature has provided ; and how- 

 ever inadequate the means may appear to the end, it is 

 certain that the massive mountains are upheld, by the fee- 

 ble roots of some of the smallest of the vegetable species. 

 Emily. That is, indeed, wonderful ! but it is merely 

 the surface of the soil which the roots of the grass support. 



1822. To what are weeds in grass owing, and what is said of them! 

 1823. What is said of mountain meadow grass 1 1824. And of the 

 matted roots of these grasses! 1825. And of the stability they give 

 to the mountains! 



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