PREFACE 



TO THE 



Firsi Edihon of *' Agricultural Ckanges/' 



I HAVE dedicated this book to my late really-to- 

 be-lamented friend, Mr. Faunce De Laune of 

 Sharsted Court, Kent, because I, in common with 

 a vast number of landowners and farmers, owe 

 him a great deal of gratitude for having, in his 

 article " On Laying Down Land to Permanent 

 Pasture,''* been the means of calling attention to 

 the once deplorable condition of the British seed 

 trade. This is sufficiently exemplified by a single 

 quotation from the article alluded to, and in which 

 Mr. De Laune says : — " I found that, however 

 careful I was in my orders, and from whatever 

 seed merchant I ordered my seed, the per centage 

 of ryegrass, soft woolly grass, and other bad 

 grasses and weeds, was beyond all belief.'' My 



* Jawrnal of Koyal Agricultural Society of Englaad. Part I., 

 No. xxxT. 1882. 



