165 



of the meadow — but my contractor seems to think he has 

 a good bargain, at five shillings per English acre. 



Where the object of the cultivator is to get into stock, 

 and he has to procure his roots or stolones from remote 

 places, he must use them more sparingly, and scatter the 

 stolones thinly, or plant the roots at a greater distance; 

 and to throw them into higher luxuriance, he must be 

 liberal of his dung, or compost, which he can probably 

 well afford, as, in the case I put, his area will be small. 



I would also in this case adopt the style I used in laying 

 down my first crop, as stated in page 9x^fbr by stretching 

 them in drills, we economize the stolones : the early 

 weeding by the iy^on rake will be very effectual, and the well- 

 defined narrow drills will be easily weeded by hand ; and 

 in the instructions I sent to their Imperial Highnesses, with 

 the roots and stolones I transmitted to them, I recommended 

 the adoption of this mode, which I was further induced to 

 do, by ignorance of the intruders to be expected in a new 

 country under a warmer sun. 



Seed, no doubt, presents itself as the most obvious mode 

 of laying down and propagating any grass ; and Nature 

 has enabled this agrostis, as well as the rest of its tribe, 

 to throw up great crops of seed, most easily saved : but 

 the growth is slow, the plant producing neither seed nor 

 stolones the first year it is sown; and the young seedling is 

 so very diminutive, that it is soon smothered by the rush 

 of intruders ; nor can it be relieved by weeding, as in the 

 first year it is undistinguishable from other grasses. 



Still the great crop of seed fiorin bears, and the facility 

 of transmissal from its very diminutive size, make it de- 

 sirable to get into stock hy seed, where the distance is 

 great; and in this case, 1 recommend the seed to be sown 

 in flower-pots, first strongly heating the earth in an oven, 

 o 



