INTRODUCTION OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES 3 



clover was commonly cultivated in Wiltshire, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, 

 c. ; also, that of late years the Cow-grass* had obtained some credit as a longer-lived 

 sort than the common clover ; and he further mentions that a neighbour in Hampshire 

 had " sowed the wild White clover f which holds the ground and decays not," the seeds 

 of which he received from Sussex, where its culture was then practised. Mortimer, who, 

 in 1721, published his "Whole Art of Husbandry," relates that "in Buckinghamshire 

 they make great improvement of their lands by sowing them with Parsley, j which pre- 

 vents the rot of sheep ;" and that " one in the hundreds of Essex made a great improve- 

 ment of some land by sowing of it with Mustard-seed, for the same purpose." 



The next novelty in English field-culture seems to have been the Whin,|| as appears by 

 a letter from Colonel Charles Cathcart, to the Scottish Society for Improving in the 

 Knowledge of Agriculture, dated London, 6th April 1725, in which he mentions that 

 " the sowing of whins for feeding of cattle takes mightily about London now ;" and that 

 " this improvement comes from Wales, where it has been practised these hundred years." 

 In 1744, William Ellis, a Herefordshire farmer, published his "Modern Husbandman," 

 in which he claims the merit of introducing the culture of the Wild "Thetch-grass/'H 

 or Mousetare, and the "lady finger-grass," or Birds-foot Trefoil,** which he "affirms for 

 truth are the two best sorts of natural meadow-grasses that are for feeding and fattening 

 of conies, deer, race-horses, or any other sort of cattle that will eat them in grass or hay;" 

 and adds, that " if gentlemen knew the value of them they would have no occasion for 

 searching after a foreign Spurryff seed, which I have experienced exceeds all others for 

 its worthless nature;" from which, and other passages, it appears that the culture of spurry 

 was introduced from Holland about 1740. And the same author mentions, that he 

 " had heard of a 'gentleman in a distant country who had sowed the plantain-seed," or 

 Rib-grass,^ but was unable to state the results ; which seems the first notice taken by 

 English writers of a plant that afterwards received much more attention than, in the 

 present opinion of agriculturists, its merits ever deserved. In the " Farmer's Complete 

 Guide," published in 1760, attention is directed to the " new Lucerne," or sickle-podded 

 medick, which the writer states to be " a native of Herefordshire and the adjoining coun- 

 ties, but where it is by no means common ;" and further adds, that " the Swedes derive 

 great advantages from its culture." Succeeding authors relate that Burnet|| || was first 

 grown as a field plant in 1760, or 1761, by Mr B. Rocque of Wolham, Green, at the sug- 

 gestion of Mr Peter Wyche, to whom belongs the merit of introducing from America, 

 about Jthat time, the Timothy-gTass,HU first so named in Carolina, from having been 

 taken to that State by a Mr Timothy Hanson ; from which country the culture of the 

 orchard-grass, or Cocks-foot,* # * was also introduced shortly afterwards, the same Mr 

 Rocque having grown it in 1764. 



From the preceding, it will be observed with what avidity the earlier cultivators sought 

 out herbage and forage " grasses," as they termed them, among the leguminosse and other 

 corollaceous plants, and with what seeming care they eschewed the true grasses; their 

 often-repeated reason for which was, that " these produced many small hair-like roots 

 which filled the soil, and, therefore, could not be but very impoverishing and hurtful 

 thereto;" without considering that the then very common practice of cropping a field, as 



* Trifolium pratense perenne t Trifolium repens Petroselinum sativum 



Sinapis (species unascertained) || Ulex europseus IT Ervum hirsutum ** Lotus corniculatus 



tt Spergula arvensis J* Plantago lanceolata Medicago falcata 



|| || Poterium sanguisorba 1HT Phleum pratense ** Dactylis glomerata. 



