PHLEUM. 125 



in its after-math ; it is hard and coarse in texture, and 

 therefore not a favourite with cattle, but the stems con- 

 tain more than the average proportion of nutritive mat- 

 ter, and it is therefore cultivated for hay. In a dry or 

 fluctuating soil the lowest joints of the stem become 

 bulbous, and the whole plant dwarfed in size. It is 

 easily influenced by varieties of soil, and is therefore 

 very variable in its height and the size of its panicle, 

 and on this account some botanists have considered that 

 it had several varieties, but these are seldom permanent, 

 and may generally be ascribed to the nature of the soil. 

 When first it was introduced into agriculture it was 

 highly extolled, but many of its virtues proved to be 

 fallacious when thoroughly tested. It is a native of 

 Northern Asia and North America, and when first cul- 

 tivated was called Herd-grass, which name was after- 

 wards exchanged for that of its patron, Mr. Timothy 

 Hanson. Professor Lindley thus speaks of it : — " Like 

 the Rye-grasses, the Timothy, when sown with a corn 

 crop, attains to its full vigour of growth in the second 

 year of its existence ; and being both an agreeable and 

 nutritious food for cattle, as well as capable of with- 

 standing great extremes of temperature, it early recom- 

 mended itself to the notice of agriculturists in those dis- 

 tricts where the winters are so severe as to preclude the 

 culture of Lolium perenne and its varieties. Unlike the 

 Rye-grasses, its vitality is so great as not to be over- 

 come by the ordinary ploughing up of grass-land, hence 

 its abundant presence in the succeeding corn crop is by 

 no means consistent with the correct farming notions of 

 the uninitiated ; but any prejudice on this score is gene- 

 rally set aside on its being found not only harmless to 

 the corn crop, but highly beneficial in improving its straw 



