132 PRACTICAL NOTES ON GRASSES AND GRASS GROWING. 
short, and gives trouble to eradicate when breaking up a 
pasture. 
Hard fescue is distinctly perennial, and starts growing early 
in the spring. It produces a continuous and heavy amount 
of feed when properly handled—it is good grazing grass, and 
being short it does not give an abundance of hay, although 
what there is will be found of first-class quality. Flowering 
towards the end of June or early in July, it is robust in habit, 
and when the season is not wet enough to give it sufficient 
moisture to grow upwards it has a tendency to creep, and 
it does not appear to lie dormant under any circumstances. 
It is nota gross feeder, and responds less to manurial dressings 
than most grasses; in fact, manure seems to start other grass 
to the detriment of hard fescue. 
In one thing it has an advantage over all others, in that the: 
sample is mostly pure. It gives about 500,000 germinating 
seeds per pound, 23 lb. going to the bushel. 
Meapow FeEscue (FESTUCA PRATENSIS, HUD.). 
If hard fescue is democratic in its habits amongst grasses,, 
meadow fescue is the reverse, and in contra-distinction we 
would designate it “the gentleman’s grass.” 
On most good lands in England it is common, it does. 
not object to a reasonable amount of moisture, and when well- 
fed it yields an abundance of produce of the finest quality. 
No grass thrives better under irrigation, provided the land 
be not water-slain, to which it has a great aversion; but it is 
remarkably hardy, and one of the last to feel the ill-effects of 
persistent frosts. 
In a first-class permanent pasture meadow fescue and fox- 
tail should form the leading seeds, as the foxtail comes early, 
whilst meadow fescue takes up the running as the latter wanes. 
It is a controversial point which of the two stock prefer- 
