INTRODUCTION OF SPECIES AND VARIETIES 



Ireland may now be said to go on simultaneously ; and therefore, as further separate 

 notices of the introduction of plants to these countries would merely be a repetition of 

 dates, the most deserving additions which have been made within the past fifty years are 

 recorded in their order of priority, without regard to the different countries in which they 

 were first cultivated. 



The Hard Fescue * and Smoothed-stalked Meadow-grasses,t if not cultivated 

 before the end df the eighteenth century, appear at least to have had a little attention 

 bestowed upon them very early in the present, although the exact period, or by whom, 

 has not been ascertained. In 1807, Dr Richardson, of Portrush, Ireland, created a con- 

 siderable sensation among agriculturists, by the introduction of his famous Fiorint grass, 

 which, as stated at page 4, was cultivated more than forty years before by Stillingfleet, 

 who, in succeeding works of his, endeavoured to impress upon growers the advantage of 

 cultivating it along with the " float fescue, on moist meadow lands," seemingly, however, 

 with very little effect ; so that to Dr Richardson belongs the merit of first acquiring for 

 the florin a fair and general trial. About 1820, an extensive set of experiments with 

 grasses, including many exotic as well as native sorts not previously cultivated, was 

 instituted at Woburn Abbey, under the direction of the late Duke of Bedford, the results 

 of which are recorded by the late Mr George Sinclair, then gardener to his Grace, in his 

 invaluable " Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis," which work may justly be said to 

 have first directed that general attention to the cultivation of useful grasses, so long and 

 unaccountably withheld. 



In 182 1, the Crimson Clover§ was brought into notice by the late Sir John Sinclair, 

 Bart, and grown in Berwickshire that same year ; three years afterwards it Avas introduced 

 to England, on a much more extended scale, by Mr John Ellman, jun., of Southover, near 

 Leeds. Mr Elles, of Longleat, in 1826, recommended, from experience, the cultivation of 

 the Day-lily,|| as a grateful and early spring food for milk cows. And in 1830, Mr Grant, 

 nurseryman at Lewisham, advertised the rough and Prickly Comfrey.H which he had 

 discovered to be an agreeable, fast-growing, and nutritious food for both cattle and horses. 

 In 1 83 1, we first introduced the Italian Rye-grass,** from Hamburg, and that same 

 year Mr Thomson of Banchory also brought home a few seeds of it from Munich. The 

 late George Stephens, land-drainer, Edinburgh, introduced the Alsike Clover tt from 

 Sweden in 1834, and in 1835, Mr Smith, at Ayr, brought the Siberian Cow-parsnip %% 

 under the notice of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, as a productive 

 and early spring food for cattle. The Blackish-headed Fox-tail-grass §§ was flrst^ 

 recommended in 1839, by a writer in Loudon's "Gardener's Magazine;'' and in 1840, 

 the Wood-raiIlet,|| || or pheasant-grass, was introduced to cultivation. 



In 1843, the Tussack-grass UH of the Falkland Islands attracted considerable atten- 

 tion. This gigantic product of these ungenial regions was especially recommended for 

 trial on the northern and western coasts and islands of Scotland and Ireland. It was 

 observed in 1842 growing luxuriantly on peaty, seaward exposures, by the botanist to 

 the Antartic Expedition, Dr J. D. Hooker (now Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens 

 at Kew), to whom is due the merit of its introduction to Europe. 



In 1848, we procured from Mr Cunningham, Comely Bank, some plants of the Pampas 



* Festuca duriuscula t Poa pratensis + Agrostis alba latifolia 



§ Trifolium incamatum || Hemerocallis fulva IT Symphytum asperrimum 



** Lolium italicum tt Trifolium hybridum tJ Heracleum sibiricum 



§§ Alopecurus nigricans || || Milium effusum W Dactylis csespitosa 



