138 PRACTICAL NOTES ON GRASSES AND GRASS GROWING. 
with a sparing hand, or it may crowd out better grasses ; 
whilst Poa ¢rivialis should be used on moist-bottomed lands. 
with a freer hand. It is curious that although Poa pratensis is 
a drought-resisting grass, it is not a deep-rooted one, and it 
depends on the surface for its sustenance; hence it is more 
adapted to a chalk or calcareous sub-soil than to sand. 
Mineral phosphates have a beneficial result when applied to 
this grass, whereas nitrate seems rather to discourage its 
growth than otherwise ; therefore, when it is observed becom- 
ing too abundant, a dressing with nitrate will check its growth, 
and at the same time encourage other grasses. 
foa pratensis has another peculiarity, namely, it is single 
cut, and it only throws up its seed heads once a year. It is, 
in fact, a turf-forming grass; it comes early, grows late, and 
resists cold. Consequently it is a good grass to grow, 
especially with foxtail; but when sowing the two in combina- 
tion, care must be taken to apportion each so that Poa pratensis 
does not check the foxtail by forming too dense a turf. 
It has some similarity to Festuca duriuscula, but it requires. 
a better soil than the hard fescue, and its seed is more 
expensive. In considering this we must remember that hard 
fescue has only 500,000 germinating seeds to the pound, 
against 1,500,000 which this seed is estimated to produce,. 
and that Poa trivialis has over 2,000,000. 
ANNUAL MeEavow Grass (Poa annua, LINN.). 
foa annua is the most frequently met with and indigenous. 
grass in East Anglia. Wherever there is a small bare patch of 
soil in the fields, in the gardens, the walks, the drives, the 
roads, even between the chinks of the pavement, on the 
garden walls, the church steeple, or on the grave stones, this 
grass seems to flourish. As moss creates soil, so also is Poe 
annua a harbinger of vegetation on bare sterile land. A good 
