56 PERMANENT AND TEMPORAEY PASTURES. 



infested with pernicious weeds as to need most careful cleaning 

 before it is fit to sow. To avoid this risk of making the land foul, 

 seed has long been grown in England, and continuous selection 

 has developed all the good quahties of the imported stock, 

 except its extreme vigour. One variety, ' Sutton's Evergreen,' 

 grows with extraordinary freedom, and has the characteristic 

 of tillering out and producing a great quantity of leafy herbage 

 with a small proportion of stalks. 



Itahan Eye Grass will grow in almost any soil, but is least 

 satisfactory on poor dry land, unless it can be freely assisted with 

 liquid manure. Still, fair results have been obtained from heaths 

 dressed with marl and farm-yard dung. This grass flourishes in 

 warmth and moisture, and in rich damp soils the growth is 

 extremely rapid. Irrigation by liquid manure results in enor- 

 mous crops following each other in surprisingly swift succession. 

 Yet, although the plant is succulent beyond comparison, it is 

 very hardy, enduring our coldest winters with impunity, and 

 starting earher into growth and continuing later in autumn than 

 any other grass. 



Italian Eye Grass is so much preferred by stock, that when a 

 two years' ley which contains it is fed off, the cattle will not 

 allow a single flower-stalk to ripen. It promotes a great flow of 

 milk, and improves the flavour of butter and cheese. The cele- 

 brated Parmesan cheese is said to be made from the milk of 

 cows fed entirely on Italian Eye Grass. This plant supplies a 

 larger quantity of keep than can be obtained from an equal 

 area of any other grass. ISTo wonder, therefore, that with such 

 remarkable qualities it should have been tried, and is still largely 

 used, for permanent pastures, although almost every authority 

 of note has pronounced it unsuitable for that purpose. It is so 

 gross a feeder as actually to choke and smother the Poas and finer 

 Fescues, instead of nursing and sheltering them from scorching 

 heat and severe frost as Perennial Eye Grass does. And when 

 its own ephemeral course is run, it leaves the land destitute 

 both of plants and nourishment. Valuable as it is for alternate 



