a7id Bronms pratensis, as Pasture Plants. 469 



it is still good and tolerably healthy, though it has been reaped 

 for seed every year. It is on a soil not S in. deep, and has never 

 had any other manure than the stones, which are turned up from 

 time to time by the horse-hoe between the rows, to invigorate it 

 a little, and destroy the weeds which spring up, for they grow 

 freely on this soil, though it is so arid in appearance. There are 

 many bad or indifferent plants among them, such as ^uphorbz'a 

 heliosc5pia, Onopordum ^canthium, Thymus iSerpyllum, Muscari 

 comosum, &c. ; and some good or tolerable, such as Scabiosa 

 arvensis, Medicago falcata, Coronilla varia, ^nthyllis Vulneraria, 

 Achillea ikZillefolium, &c.* 



On the argillaceous sands of which my property partly consists, 

 these two grasses succeed perfectly well. Ground that I had 

 laid down twenty years ago, and which I have since planted with 

 trees, is still completely matted with green between the rows of 

 trees. When these pastures are thus abandoned for several years 

 the i^estuca assumes a very melancholy appearance ; it becomes 

 a matting of extraordinary thickness, but one composed in a 

 great measure of dried leaves ; for in this species the leaves 

 which die naturally remain for a long time on the stalk without 

 decaying, and the plant must be grazed or cut to keep it in a 

 green state. Grown thick and old, as I have just said, it con- 

 tinues to vegetate, but ceases to grow high. These masses of 

 dry and living leaves have often been a very great resource to 

 me as forage, particularly at the end of the winter 1840, when 

 the long continuance of a frosty and drying wind had destroyed 

 almost all the verdure, and suspended the spring vegetation 

 (that of the woad especially excepted). I then had this forage 

 of the old jPestuca cut, and I found that the cows ate it tolerably 

 well, and that it contributed to their keep during this season of 

 scarcity. I have always thought that, notwithstanding its name, 

 the jFestuca ovina was more grateful to cows than to sheep ; as 

 every time that I pastured them on it, I found that they ate it 

 with remarkable avidity.f 



* The natural flora of these calcareous soils is of extraordinary richness. 

 We find many plants which are never found on our sands, though the two sorts 

 of soil are only separated by a small valley which is often not more than ten 

 paces wide. Another remarkable fact is the variety of plants cultivated 

 which succeed very well on this land, though of species supposed to require 

 the richest soil : thus, Indian corn, colza, Swedish turnip, poppies for oil, flax, 

 and woad (/satis tinctoria) which I cultivate on a large scale for fodder, suc- 

 ceed very well on the plain ; which, though it has greater depth than the 

 rocky soil of which I have just been speaking, is exactly of the same nature. 



-|- It is the same, and in a more remarkable degree, with the JPestiica tenui- 

 folia Sibtli. ; which, from a singular mistake, has for a long time been considered 

 and cultivated as the true ovina : sheep do not eat it, while cows like it ex- 

 ceedingly. To the kindness of Professor Lindley, I am indebted for being 

 enabled to clear up the confusion that subsisted between these two species. 



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