Cuarrer I. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH GRASSES. 
Tue importance to the agriculturist of a knowledge of the 
pasture or meadow grasses which are everywhere found in 
our fields is now so generally recognised that little need be 
said to enforce its value, especially when it is considered 
how much of the land of this country is still in natural pas- 
ture, and even that under tillage may at some time or ano- 
ther be required to be laid down in pasture of a permanent 
form, or be employed from time to time in the cultivation 
of grasses as a shifting crop. But however much a know- 
ledge of this useful tribe of plants may have been desired 
by the student, yet he has been mostly repelled from its 
pursuit by the difficulties ever attendant upon distinguish- 
ing genera and species of large vegetable families, without 
which little progress can be made; and this is the more 
felt, the more natural the groups and the closer their affi- 
nities, and more especially so in the grasses, as the whole 
tribe is a highly natural one, the same principles of struc- 
ture prevailing in all; so that distinctive characters have 
to be sought for in the differences presented by minute 
details: the more obvious parts, as leaves, have the same 
uniform type in all the species—they may be longer, nar- 
rower, broader, smooth, rough, hairy, and the like, but they 
have ever the same general outline; but if we compare the 
leaves of another family of plants, as, for example, the 
Leguminose, or Pea tribe—also a very natural group—these 
show at a glance the broad distinctive characters of bifoliate, 
trifoliate, pinnate, and others, all of which point to differences 
readily apprehended by even the most casual observation in 
the field, and, as a consequence, greatly lessen the labour of 
B 
