96 Tall Fescue Grass. 



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

 Sinclair's analysis, 10 per cent, higber 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 

 course, with reference to light soils in the, comparatively 

 speaking, dry climates of the eastern sides of these 

 islands. Writing on agriculture in 1888, in Morton's 

 New Farmers^ Almanac, Mr. Faunce de Laune says, 

 with reference to this grass, " I imagined in 1884 that I 

 was the first person who had noticed its wonderful 

 quality of withstanding drought. But the same quality 

 was also observed the same year in America, and it 

 was only in October, 1887, that I found, in a book 

 written by the late curator of Glasnevin Botanical 

 Gardens, the same grass mentioned as growing luxuri- 

 antly on a dry calcareous soil." 



I am informed by Mr. James Hunter, of Chester, 

 the well-known seedsman, that : — 



" Great care requires to be exercised in purchasing this grass, 

 as there are two kinds supplied to farmers under the name of 

 tall fescue — the first valuable, and the second worthless — and 

 that is evidently why there is a difference of opinion as regards 

 this grass. The former — i.e., the valuable kind — is grown for 

 its seeds in the Bhenish provinces in a limited district, and is 

 supplied to seedsmen who will pay the price for it ; and this 

 price, the moment any increase of competition occurs, naturally 

 runs up to a high level, and the difficulty of obtaining a regular 

 and considerable supply of the seed at a reasonable price leads to 



