



CHAP. VI. 



UNTOUCHED SURFACES IN ENGLAND. 



I HAVE often lamented, that the agrostis stolonifera, 

 whose hitherto unknown value I had taken so much 

 pains to press upon the world with so much success, had 

 not made the same progress in England as in other 

 countries, and had in so many instances been received 

 with coldness, and more than doubt, of the great acqui- 

 sition I had boasted it to be to the agricultural world ; 

 and I had determined, and even declared my intention of 

 giving up both hopes, and attempts, to estabUsh its culture 

 South of the Tweed. 



Some recent circumstances have changed my determi- 

 nation; the cause of so many failures has been ascertained; 

 the English agrostides, which I persisted too long in 

 assuming to be the same variety with the Irish, ^lyq proved 

 to be of varieties decidedly inferior to the Irish in luxuriance ; 

 and, as I have great reason to believe, much less furnished 

 withsaccharum. 



My noble correspondent the Marchioness of Salisbury 

 had early given me a caution on this subject, reminding me 

 of the great inferiority of the English Ivy to the Irish ; 

 but my too great confidence in the similarity of the pro- 

 ductions of Nature in latitudes so nearly the same, made 

 me incredulous. 



