34 



I had long observed, that great elevations did not 



repress the luxuriance of some grasses ; and a few years 

 ago, I persuaded my noble friend the Marquis of Hert- 

 ford, to make the experiment on a scale of se\en acies, 

 on his own mountains, at an elevation o^nine hundred feet ; 

 and the success was complete. My worthy friend SiR 

 Charles Ross laboured to seduce me to Rosshire, and 

 probably would have succeeded, had not our speculations 

 been stopped by his untimely and much-lamented death. 



Further observations smoothed the difficulties in the 

 way of mountain meadows, so as to reduce them nearly to 

 nothing. I now discovered that our agrostis stolonifera 

 formed a component part in all elevated green soles, and 

 that its proportion to the other grasses with which nature 

 mixed it, increased as the elevation became greater, and 

 the severities they had to sustain more weighty. 



I had previously discovered, that even in low ground, 

 where circumstances were favourable, (that is, where, by 

 the nature of the soil, some difficulties were thrown 

 in the way of spontaneous common grasses,) that by severe 

 weeding, draining, top-dressing, and late mowing, I could 

 convert the natural mixed sole, without breaking the 

 surface, into pure florin meadow, of great value and per- 

 manent continuance. 



I did not venture to bring forward the hardy paradox, 

 until my friends Sir J. Stewart of Coltness, Sir A. 

 Mackenzie, and Colomel Lockhart, member for Sel- 

 kirkshire, transmitted to me a document, well authenticated, 

 establishing the existence of a portion of pure florin 

 meadow of great value, though quite spontaneous, in Co- 

 lonel Lockhart's plantations; small indeed, but sufficient to 

 prove, that under circumstances, florin could of itself take 

 possessioij of the surface ; nor was Colonel Lockhart's a 

 solitary instance that reached me. 



