63 



which we know to be unfavourable to the production of 

 kindly pasture. 



I answer for it, such description will perpetually occur 

 to us, and to the greatest extent ; — I mean, that where 

 an impervious substratum, stopping- the passage of the at- 

 mospheric waters downwards, oversatarates the upper 

 stratum, the vegetable soil, where it remains and becomes 

 acrid, injuring the roots of the grasses that are placed in 

 it, and derive their nourishment from it, — this undis- 

 charged water occasions our grassy surfaces to yield a 

 scanty and unkindly produce, to fail in their verdure, 

 and to give up every effort to continue their vegetation 

 early in autumn. 



The fact is, the kindly grasses can scarcely exist in 

 so ungenial a soil, leaving the possession of the surface 

 to the unkindly amphibious tribe, or coarse aquatics. 



I am thus brought back to the very same measures I 

 recommended in the two preceding chapters, for the 

 formation of spontaneous meadows : — relieve the roots ot 

 your grasses from this noxious water, by frequent shallow 

 drains ; stimulate your surface by a sprinkling of ani- 

 mating material, pure or in compost ; and the unkindly 

 tribe in possession, now placed in a soil not suited to 

 their nature, will pine and decline, while those more 

 grateful to the cattle, long barely existing in the unge- 

 nial soil, so soon as it is changed into one more suitable to. 

 their nature, will take the lead, and come forward with 

 improved luxuriance and verdure. 



These theoretical speculations of mine receive the 

 happiest confirmation from the result of a recent experi- 

 ment, sufficiently pregnant with important consequences, 

 were its own immediate object alone to be looked to. 



1 have in my first chapter dwelt sufiiciently on the 

 experiment I had made under the inspection of my noble 

 fri^ds the Earls of ^Jaledon and GosFOBD, on the 



