APPENDIX E.—INDIGENOUS GRASSES OF BRITAIN. 205 
barren soils; but it certainly is the worst of all the British gramina. 
Other coarse grasses have sometimes their young and radical leaves 
sufficiently tender and grateful to cattle, but this grass in all its 
stages, seems equally disliked.—I know not if starvation would 
force cattle to brouze on it.—I have observed it on the Highland 
mountains for many years, where cattle are compelled to feed on 
the coarsest grasses, yet I have never seen a single plant of it 
cropped by any animal. This grass may be known from all others, 
by the large tufts it forms, elevated above the level of the pasture, 
which is occasioned by the accumulation of leaves, from one year to 
another. In regard to this grass, the question with the farmer, is 
not how it can be cultivated, but how it can be eradicated. 
Among the grasses in the tribe of Bromes, although very 
frequent among hay, there are few which I can venture to recom- 
mend. They intrude themselves every where among cultivated 
grasses; and although chiefly annual, they shed their seeds so 
abundantly, that a small number of plants, scattered in a field, soon 
diffuses the bromes over the whole, to the exclusion of other 
grasses. The Aromus erectus' is the only species that has a chance 
to be useful. 
Some gentlemen of considerable observation and experience have 
thought that the Agrostis vulgaris? was an eligible plant for cultiva- 
tion, and that it makes good hay: But to this, I am persuaded, no 
practical farmer would agree; for in every neglected field in hilly 
ground, (as for instance, on the top of Braid’s hill near Edinburgh) 
this Agrostis may be seen often a foot high or more, matting the 
surface, so that one ignorant of grasses might mistake it for a hay 
crop; yet this math remains untouched by the cattle, though these 
fields be pastured throughout the whole season. 
The Agrostis stolonifera® has been mentioned as the far celebrated 
Orchestan grass. But this I am fully convinced is a mistake; for 
I have been assured by an eminent botanist, who visited the place 
within these few years, that the greater part of the grass on these 
meadows, was no other than the Poa ¢rivialis, a grass which I have 
already mentioned as constituting the chief herbage in the meadow 
under Salisbury Craigs, and in other rich meadows round 
Edinburgh. There is indeed no species of Agrosts that cattle are 
fond of; and as they are generally avoided in pastures, we have no 
* Upright Brome grass, 
? Fine bent grass. 
* Creeping bent grass. 
* 
