LARGE COUNTRY VILLAS. 341 



crowfoot, carexes, oat-grass, brome-grass, &c., make their appearance ; and, 

 by degrees, choke the clovers and good grasses, such as white clover, rye- 

 grass, fescue, &c. Among the weeds, one of the most abundant is the com- 

 mon meadow .crowfoot, or yellow buttercup (/Ranunculus acrisZ.), remarkable 

 for its acrid juice, which, it is alleged, blisters the mouths and stomachs of 

 cows, and injures the quality of their milk and butter. To say nothing of its 

 injurious eifects, the proportionate space which this weed occupies in green 

 herbage or in hay is a sufficient reason for wishing to get rid of it; though, 

 from its abundance, not only in bad soils, hut in good soils which have 

 been neglected or mismanaged, this is a work requiring some time, and 

 depending on some knowledge of the nature of plants. The crowfoot, as the 

 name /?aniinculus (from rana, a frog, alluding to the moist places where most 

 of the species grow) implies, naturally loves moist soil, which rye-grass and 

 the other good grasses as naturally dislike. Hence, the first process to get 

 rid of the crowfoot is thorough under-draining by shallow drains, which need 

 not be, in general, more than 1ft. Gin. deep, and placed not farther apart 

 than from 8 ft. to 15 ft. The next thing is to apply manure liberally ; and the 

 third (without which success would not be complete) is, to pasture the surface 

 at least till the beginning of July, with sheep, if not with cows or horses, 

 before shutting it up to be mown for hay. When the pasture is shut up for 

 mowing, in April or the beginning of May, the leaves and flower-stems of 

 the crowfoot shoot up uninjured along with the grass; and thus the roots of 

 the crowfoot are nourished and invigorated for the following season : but, on 

 the other hand, when the surface is pastured till the beginning of July, the 

 leaves and flower-stems of the crowfoot are cropped by the pasturing animals ; 

 the root is weakened in consequence of not deriving as much nourishment 

 from the leaves as it otherwise would do ; and, as the crowfoot is one of those 

 plants that scarcely produce any leaves after midsummer, it is in a great 

 measure suffocated by the growth of the grasses in August and September. 

 If this course be pursued for three years in succession with a field overrun 

 with crowfoot (draining and maimring having been properly attended to the 

 first season), the number of these weeds will be found to have greatly dimin- 

 ished, and the clover and good grasses to have increased. To increase the 

 number of the latter plants, some white clover and rye-grass seeds may be 

 scattered over the surface the first year, early in spring. It may be thought 

 that the eating down of the herbage in the beginning of summer, instead of 

 shutting it up for mowing, while it destroys the crowfoot, would also have a 

 tendency to destroy the clover. This will, no doubt, be the case to a certain 

 extent; but the clover has the advantage of being a much more vivacious 

 plant, it having creeping stems, which throw up numerous leaves, and continue 

 growing the whole summer. The meadow crowfoot, on the other hand, is a 

 stationary plant, which increases but slowly except by seed, which throws up 

 only one set of leaves in spring, and which does not renew these in the course 

 of the season. Even the creeping crowfoot, which, however, is more com- 

 monly found in arable fields than in meadows, throws up but few leaves when' 

 compared with the clover ; and is much more easily choked or killed by crop- 

 ping these leaves early in the season. 



407. Destroying docks and thistles. — The same practice as that recommended 

 for getting rid of the crowfoot will apply in the case of all broad-leaved 

 weeds ; but, as docks and thistles are not so readily eaten by cattle, they may 



