218 The Rothamsted Grass Experiments. 



IX. - BOTANICAL RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS 

 ON THE MIXED HERBAGE OF PERMANENT 

 MEADOW, (a) 



THERE is at Rothamsted nothing which will more impress 

 the visitor than the seven acres of meadow land in the Park, 

 the many years' experiments upon which with different 

 manures constitute the subject of this memoir. The twenty 

 parallel plots into which this area is divided appeal at once 

 and forcibly to the eye by the obvious differences in their 

 herbage. A plot here with rich green grasses waving 

 luxuriantly upon it ; another, on which the yellow meadow 

 vetchling apparently constitutes the leading feature ; a third, 

 irregular, patchy, and much afflicted with sorrel ; and yet 

 another, on which, at the time of my visit (August), the 

 white-flowered umbels of the earth-nut put everything else 

 in the shadethese and the like appearances convince with 

 an eloquence which the pen is powerless to imitate. 



The land in Rothamsted Park has probably been laid down 

 with grass for some centuries. No fresh seed has been arti- 

 ficially sown within the last fifty years certainly, nor is there 

 record of any having been sown since the grass was first laid 

 down. The experiments commenced in 1856, at which time 

 the herbage appeared to be of uniform character. With 



(a) " Agricultural, Botanical, and Chemical Eesults of Experiments on 

 the Mixed Herbage of Permanent Meadow, conducted for more than 

 twenty years in succession on the same land." Part ii., the Botanical 

 Eesults. By Sir J. B. Lawes, Bart., F.E.S., Dr J. H. Gilbert, F.E.S., 

 and Dr. M. T. Masters, F.E.S. Phil. Trans., part iv., 1882. Pp. about 

 250. (This notice is taken from an article which I contributed to Nature, 

 vol. XXIX., page 81. W. F.) 



