VARIETIES CULTIVATED. 213 



be attended with considerable care and difficulty. Although 

 the natural tendency of the Italian ryegrass is to produce 

 many stalks or stems from the same root, yet from its 

 upright habit of growth it by no means forms a close 

 sward ; hence the propriety of sowing with it a mixture of 

 other grasses of a different habit, which, by filling up the 

 interstices, will add considerably to the weight of pro- 

 duce. Different opinions are still entertained as to the 

 real merits of the Italian ryegrass ; but perhaps the best 

 proofs of its excellence is the great and yearly increasing 

 demand for its seeds. Like all other plants subjected to 

 artificial culture, the Italian ryegrass is productive of 

 numerous varieties. In this country no attention has, 

 however, as yet, been devoted to the selection and culti- 

 vation of any variety possessing permanency and supe- 

 riority of character, if we except the following: 



Short-awned Italian Ryegrass L. italicum submu- 

 ticum which differs from it principally in having larger 

 spikelets, and bearing florets with short awns, whence 

 its name. The seeds are heavier and thicker, and the 

 produce greater than that of the Common Italian rye- 

 grass. 



3. Lolium multiflorum Many-flowered Annual Rye- 

 grass differs from the preceding species in being of 

 shorter duration, or strictly annual. The two following 

 varieties of this species were introduced by Messrs. Law- 

 son from France in 1837; but as they were not found to 

 be superior to those commonly cultivated in quality or 

 in bulk of produce, while they were both so strictly annual 

 as to yield no grass after being cut for seed, their cultiva- 

 tion cannot be recommended. 



Brittany Many-flowered Annual Ryegrass is indi- 

 genous to the province of that name, where it was first 

 noticed in 1835 by M. Bieffel, Director of the Farm School 

 of Grand Jouan, who found it particularly useful for grow- 



