ON THE CULTIVATED GRASSES 



domestic animals, was the first to fall into disuse ; and if the growth of clover, lucern, 

 and other plants, was at all continued, it must have been to a very limited extent, and 

 confined most likely to the countries where their usefulness was formerly most generally 

 appreciated. 



In England, while hemp, flax, hops, and buckwheat, in addition to common wheat, 

 rye, and barley, were, in the sixteenth centuiy, reckoned common crops ; yet the cultiva- 

 tion of forage or herbage plants was only commenced about the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century, with the exception of Summer* and Winterf Tares or vetches, whicli 

 are mentioned by the earliest writers on agriculture. John Gerarde, the famous her- 

 balist, surgeon, and traveller, of the days of Queen Elizabeth, states, in his " General 

 History of Plants," published in 1597, that "the Bed Clover was sown in the fields of 

 the Low Countries, in Italy, and divers other places beyond the seas," but makes no men- 

 tion of it being then known in England ; and Sir Richard Weston, who, in 1645, published 

 his " Travels in Flanders," mentions that, in the preceding year, he saw a crop of it cut 

 three times in the course of the summer, in the vicinity of Antwerp ; and immediately 

 thereafter, seeds of the " Great Clover of Flanders "J were advertised " to be had at the 

 shop of James Long, at the Barge on Billingsgate." In 1653, Walter Blyth, an agricul- 

 tural writer, was the first to publish particular directions as to its culture ; so that the 

 merit of its primary introduction to England is generally ascribed to Sir Richard Weston, 

 who is also believed to have first introduced, from the same country, the field culture of 

 turnips, on his return, in 1645. Sainfoin or, as it was first named, French finger- 

 grass, seems to have been introduced from France in 1651. According to Miller, author 

 of the "Gardener's Dictionary," Lucern|| was also brought to England, from the same 

 country, in 1657. Hartlib, in his " Complete Husbandman," published in 1659, recom- 

 mends the sowing of NonsuchU or yellow clover, under the name of hop-trefoil, from 

 having seen a chalky down in Kent, without any other than a scanty vegetation of this 

 plant, " maintaining many great sheep and very lusty, so that they were even fit for the 

 butcher." 



The seventeenth century is further distinguished, in the annals of husbandry, by the first 

 cultivation of any of the true grasses for hay or pasture, which is thus recorded in Dr 

 Plot's " Oxfordshire," published in 1677 : " They have lately sown Ray-grass,** or the 

 Gramen loliaceum, by which they improve any cold, sour, clay-weeping ground, for which 

 it is best, but good also for drier upland grounds, especially light, stony, or sandy land, 

 which is unfit for sainfoin. It was first sown in the chiltern parts of Oxfordshire, and 

 since brought nearer Oxford by one Eustace, an ingenious husbandman of Islip, who, 

 though at first laughed at, has since been followed even by those very persons that 

 scorned his experiments." Succeeding writers, however, do not fail to condemn the rye- 

 grass as an impoverisher of the soil, while they affirm that its hay is not to be compared 

 to that of clover or sainfoin ; the former of which seems alone to have had any particular 

 attention bestowed upon it till the following century. Ray, in his " History of Plants, 1 ' 

 published in 1688, mentions that the Yellow Melilotff was then sometimes sown for 

 the food of kine and horses; but succeeding writers generally include it among agricultural 

 weeds. And lucern, although introduced, was scarcely, if at all, subjected to field-culture 

 prior to the seventeenth century. 



Mr Lisle, author of " Observations on Husbandry," written in 1707, states that then 



* Vicia saliva eestiva + Vicia sativa hyberna J Trifolium pratense Onobrychis sativa 

 || Medicago sativa IT Medicago lupulina ** Lolium perenne tt Melilotis officinalis 



