144 THE FLORIST AND 



Mr. Cook thought that the plant had been unknown in England until 

 about that time. 



Dr. A. L. Kennedy, in reply to a question from the Chair, mentioned 

 that there were three species of Lolium growing in this country. The Ital- 

 ian Rye or Ray grass was the Lolium rnultiflorum. 



The President said there was no doubt that the Italian Rye grass thrived 

 in this climate. It furnished pasture several weeks earlier than the Poa 

 family. It was less exhausting than Timothy. He invited an expression 

 of opinion on the subject of subsoiling. He believed that in England the 

 practice was not regarded with as much favor as formerly. 



Mr. Cook said that with shallow draining, say one to two feet deep, sub- 

 soiling possessed value ; but the present method of draining, three to four 

 feet in depth, superseded the necessity for subsoiling. He had abandoned 

 the practice entirely since he began to drain deeply. 



Mr. Gustavus Engle had a neighbor who subsoiled for corn, with great 

 success. The surface soil was light, the subsoil a yellowish loam, not tena- 

 cious. The first plowing was four inches deep, the second nine. Mr. E. 

 had never seen finer corn. 



Dr. King had experimented in subsoiling land previously drained. He did 

 not think that draining superseded the necessity for subsoiling. Land which, 

 with drains two feet deep had yielded in 1852, but ten bushels of corn per 

 acre, was sown with oats the following year, after a portion had been sub- 

 soiled. On this, although the whole was otherwise similarly treated, both 

 head and straw were much fuller. The present season the wheat on the 

 part subsoiled, looks far better than that on the portion which had been 

 merely drained. His subsoil is a stratum of clay four feet thick. 



The President admitted that root crops required a loose soil, but ques- 

 tioned if herbaceous plants sought food very far beneath the surface. 



Dr. Emerson had seen the roots of wheat three feet long. He would in- 

 quire what root crops were preferred in England. 



Mr. Cook. — The purple-top Swedish turnip, which on land impoverished 

 by continuous grain cropping, will, with three to four cwt. of guano per acre, 

 yield thirty to forty tons of roots, tops off. These turnips are fed whole to 

 stock. A large ox will fatten on a weekly ration of ten to fifteen cwt. of 

 Swedish turnips and barley straw. The white turnip is seldom used. The 

 average weekly allowance of a bullock may be twelve cwt. turnips and sixty 

 lbs. straw, equal to two cwt. hay and three bushels corn. The corn being 

 taken at seventy lbs. the bushel. 



Mr. Newton preferred a mixture of turnip and Indian meal. Bullocks 



