PERMANENT PASTURE, 49 
takes complete possession ; besides, it remains in the land. If 
too much cocksfoot is sown, the other seeds in the mixture 
will be wasted, and money would have been saved had they 
never been purchased. Italian ryegrass is a similar plant, but 
it has this difference, instead of remaining in the land it will 
disappear in a few years, having first smothered many of the 
fine grasses that have been planted with it. Red clover, good 
as it is, if added to mixtures for permanent pastures, will, in a 
measure, be disappointing in the same manner that we have 
mentioned the two grasses above; hence great judgment is 
required, not only in the selection, but also in the apportion- 
ment of the relative quantities of the seed to be used. 
Our English seasons are as fickle and changeable as a sandy 
sea beach, and a little luck is required to obtain all the right 
seeds for any particular season. For instance, florin, or red 
suckling, sown in a dry season will produce little or nothing, 
no matter how thickly the seeds may have been sown; but in 
a wet season half the quantity of seeds used in a dry season 
would be sufficient to have caused either of these plants to 
have taken complete possession of the land to the temporary 
exclusion of some, and permanently smothering other grasses. 
Moral, the coarser grasses and clovers must always be used 
with caution. 
The weight of grass seeds varies from 14 |b. to 28 Ib. per 
bushel. Calculations, therefore, should be taken on the basis 
of a pound, and measures should be discarded. In calculating 
the number of germinating secds a ‘somewhat controversial 
point is touched. It is calculated that in some grasses there 
are as many as from two to three million germinating secds 
in one pound, whilst in others there are but hundreds of 
thousands. In trefoil there are supposed to be 300,000 
germinating seeds, whilst in red clover but 225,000, Now it 
is a well-known fact that 1 lb. of red clover will go as far 
as 2 lb. of trefoil, and the reason is not apparent till we 
D 
