The Excessive Use of Ryegrass. 191 



Effects of the Excessivb Use of Etegrass. — ^It is well 

 known that almost any opinion, however unsound it may be, is, 

 when once adopted, very hard to kill. Perhaps it is clung to 

 with all the greater persistency because in tune it is -often 

 assumed to be the result of a long and sound experience. The 

 clinging to ryegrass is no exception. For over 100 years the 

 objections to it have been pointed out, and attempts made to bring 

 about a decreased proportion of it in grass seed mixtures. In 

 Keith's "Agriculture of Aberdeenshire " (1811), which was a 

 continuation of Dr. Anderson's original report of 1793, it was 

 condemned as an exhaustive grass, and it is recommended that 

 landlords in their leases should limit its use, while for poor land 

 it was teaid to be one of the worst grasses ever known. William 

 Curtis, in his Practical Observations on the British Grasses — 

 London, 1805 — ^hits the origin of its use when he says that it was 

 probably " o'vWng to its being a common grass whose seeds were 

 easily collected." He also notices that Holcus lanatus was the 

 next grass, the seeds of which were collected and sown, and 

 obviously for the same reason. Like Keith, he commends rye- 

 grass for rich meadows, but condemns its use for upland pastures 

 and dry situations. The writer of the article on Pasturage and 

 Agriculture in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " for 1797 considers 

 ryegrass unfit for pastures that are to lie for more than two or 

 three years. Sinclair, as we have seen, writing in 1825, limits 

 the use of ryegrass for permanent pasture to l-20th of the 

 mixture, while for the alternate husbandry he advises a mixture 

 of three-fourths cocksfoot, the remainder of the mixture to consist 

 of six grasses and clovers, of which ryegrass was one. In 1833, 

 Mr. Lawson, of Edinburgh, took up the subject, and cames us 

 back to the original reasons for using this grass — namely, that 

 the seeds of other grasses were difficult to obtain, which was 

 undoubtedly the case. The effect on British agriculture by his 

 recommending a large use of ryegrass in grass mixtures was most 

 unfortunate, and I have heard one of our most intelligent farmers 

 say that had cocksfoot been used instead of ryegrass in the 

 rotations, their difficulties would have been much lessened, for 

 cocksfoot in three years provides much vegetable matter to add 

 to the humus of the soil, and it is to the absence of this humus, 

 as I have frequently pointed out, that we must almost entirely 



