FIELDS AND HEDGEROWS 



one sort has without doubt large red flowers and 

 another has small white ones. But there are a 

 very great many different varieties of grasses ; 

 as many as thirty are well known and are used 

 to make good pasture, without counting many 

 more that for several reasons are not worth 

 growing. Some of us can perhaps distinguish 

 between the various blades, thick and thin, 

 coarse and fine, dark and light, which are the 

 leaves of the grass-plants, and it is much easier 

 to find them out in a hay-field in summer-time 

 when the grass has grown long and is in flower. 

 Even when we know the different kinds by sight 

 we are a long way from being able to tell, as a 

 good farmer or labourer will, which varieties do 

 credit to the land, and which sorts are only 

 thriving on account of poor soil and bad cultiva- 

 tion. Again, should we be so fortunate as to 

 know the good and bad kinds of grass when 

 growing or in flower, we have yet to learn the 

 different appearance of the seeds, since it is as 

 seeds that they must first be put into the ground. 

 This, truly, is such skilled labour that few people 

 will undertake it for themselves, and find it wiser 

 to get their seed from trustworthy seed-growers 

 and merchants. 



It does not by any means follow that because 

 one sort of grass or clover will grow well in one 

 district, that it is the right sort to use in another. 

 Here again a special kind of knowledge, only to 

 be gained by observation, is required. We have 



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