216 THE RYEGRASS CROP. 



Although ryegrass may be grown in almost any 

 description of soil, from the light sands and gravels to 

 the strongest loams and clays, it has a certain preference 

 of soils, by which its natural growth is greatly influenced. 

 The numerous varieties of ryegrass, possessing in them- 

 selves habits of growth more or less differing from each 

 other, however, afford opportunities for adapting the crop, 

 to a great extent, to the particular class of soil intended 

 to be sown. Thus a little consideration beforehand as to 

 the respective suitabilities of the crop and of the soil will 

 enable us to avoid those unsatisfactory results that so fre- 

 quently are heard of where these points have not been 

 attended to. Climate, too, exerts a considerable influence 

 on ryegrass, hardy though it be, and indeed limits its 

 cultivation to countries where no great excess of tempera- 

 ture, either high or low, is met with. Although indi- 

 genous to all the countries of Europe, it is never met with 

 growing beyond the range of the cultivated grasses, cereals ; 

 neither can it be grown beneficially at higher elevations. 

 Its fibrous shallow roots, deriving their nourishment from 

 the upper portions of the soil, would indicate that a tem- 

 perate climate and a moist soil are most suitable to its 

 growth. The excessive heat and aridity of the tropical 

 regions are equally unfavourable to its growth as the 

 excessive cold of the higher latitudes; and, indeed, in 

 countries of the temperate zone, where summer and winter 

 extremes exist, it cannot be successfully cultivated. In 

 the United States, Canada, and some parts of the Con- 

 tinent of Europe, the climatal conditions of the countries 

 are generally unsuitable to its growth, the heat and dry- 

 ness of the summer rendering the surface too parched for 

 such a shallow-rooted plant, while the extreme cold of the 

 winter penetrates often lower than the roots of the plant 

 descend, and is thus equally prejudicial to its existence. 



We find even the differences of climate on our own coasts 



