80 77i« Effect of Plant Roots on the Soil. 



Laune had not gone'back to Sinclair to find out the truth, I fear 

 we should still have been pretty much where we were twenty 

 years ago. " J. H. 



" July 27, 1896." 



And here it is iiiiportant to observe that Sinclair not 

 only restricts the use of ryegrass to about one-twentieth 

 of the mixture he thinks advisable for permanent 

 pasture, but recommends its use, but in small propor- 

 tion, for alternate husbandry. And for the latter he 

 advises a mixture containing no less than three-fourths 

 of cocksfoot, while hard fescue, meadow fescue, rough- 

 stalked meadow grass, tall oat-like grass, timothy, 

 ryegrass, and clover should make up the remainder of 

 the mixture, or, to nse his exact words, " should be 

 used in smaller proportion." But neither Sinclair 

 (though he alludes to the superiority of cocksfoot to 

 ryegrass as being less impoverishing to the soil, and 

 affording a greater quantity of vegetable matter when 

 ploughing up) nor my late friend, Mr. Faunce de Laune 

 (though the latter did allude to the question of the 

 disintegration of the soil as a subject which had not 

 been sufficiently studied), have at all attempted to 

 regulate the mixture they propose with reference to 

 the effect of the roots of plants in keeping open and 

 deeply aerating the soil. And, as we have seen, to 

 find any accoimt of such a mixture having been advised 

 in the past we have to go back to the last century — 

 to Arthur Young, who had recommended the use of 

 plants that would have this very important effect on 

 the soil, though I may observe he did not allude to this, 

 either because he thought it too obvious to be worth 

 mentioning, or because he iiad not taken the point into 

 consideration. 



I have now to observe that if the conclusions I have 

 arrived at are correct— i.e., that a grass mixture should 

 consist of the seeds of plants, some of which are of 

 deep-rooting and drought-resisting character, so as at 



