94 Remarks on Cocksfoot and 



an acre of the finest seed. I have been particularly 

 struck with the value of this grass in alternate 

 husbandry in the case of the hay crop, and have 

 found that it is a far safer grass to grow than any 

 other, from its withstanding drought, and have found 

 that I have had a most luxuriant crop of hay in a 

 dry season, when my neighbours, who relied mainly 

 on ryegrass and clovers, had very poor crops. But 

 notwithstanding all that has been written in favour 

 of cocksfoot for such a number of years past, I have 

 often heard it objected to by farmers as a coarse 

 grass. It is quite true that it may become so if 

 thinly planted and badly managed ; but just as from 

 the human animal you may produce the finest kind 

 of English gentleman or the bloodthirsty cannibal, 

 who only differs from the brutes by being worse than 

 them, so there may be produced from cocksfoot a 

 beautifully-fine grass or a grass of the coarsest and 

 most objectionable quality. In connection with cocks- 

 foot it may be well to remind the reader that I have 

 previously pointed out that, in making a pasture, 

 regard must be had in particular to the quantity of 

 the produce of a grass, and also to the safety of 

 production from it in dry seasons. The nutritive value 

 of cocksfoot, it should be observed, is, according to 

 Sinclair's analysis, 10 per cent, higher than perennial 

 ryegrass. Sinclair remarks that the ryegrass ranks 

 with those grasses which contain the least nutriment. 

 It is seldom that, as in the case of cocksfoot, we can 

 combine both qualities, but we must endeavour to do 

 so as closely as possible, and that is why I rank tall 

 fescue as second in merit in the list of large grasses. 



Tall fescue grass (Festuca elatior) is, we are told 

 by Sinclair, nutritive and very productive, and one of 

 the earliest grasses with regard to production of foliage 

 early in the spring. It has also great powers of 

 resisting drought, which, I need hardly say, is a 

 quality of great importance, and more especially, of 



