1905.] Formation of Permanent Pastures. 389 



In 1789, William Curtis, the botanist, published " Practical 

 Observations on the British Grasses," in which he gave the 

 results of his observations of turfs cut from typical pastures, as 

 Fream did 100 years later in the Journals of the Royal Agricul- 

 tural Society of England* Curtis prepared the way for George 

 Sinclair, whose " Hortus Gramineous Woburnensis," published 

 in 1824, is still the source to which most of the information on 

 grasses current to-day may be traced. 



The chief agricultural writers on British pasture plants since 

 Sinclair's time have been Lawson, Faunce de Laune, Fream, 

 Carruthers, Sutton, and Elliot. Of these De Laune has perhaps 

 attracted most attention, for although he contributed but one 

 article to the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England^ 

 he propounded views which were more or less new to the agri- 

 culturists of his day, and which gained a great deal of support. 

 De Laune's article was opportune, and did good by calling 

 attention to the condition of the grass seed trade. There can 

 be no doubt that we owe the general high level of quality in 

 our grass seeds to-day to the outspoken criticism which a former 

 generation of seedsmen received from him. De Laune did 

 good, too, by bringing to notice grasses which there was a dis- 

 position to neglect, but, like many pioneers, his views were 

 extreme, and his followers have unfortunately cLimed for them 

 an importance which they do not deserve. 



De Laune's great recipe for the formation of a permanent 

 pasture was to select and sow the right species. "On the 

 whole," he writes, " the main point to be attended to is the 

 employment of the best seeds " ; and again, " the preparation of 

 the land is not, in my opinion, of prime importance." These 

 statements, which were doubtless quite correct for the particular 

 soil of De Laune's Kent estate, have led to an exaggeration of 

 the importance of the seeds-mixture as compared with the 

 preparation, sowing, manuring, and management of the land. 

 This exaggeration has had unfortunate results, and the very 

 precision with which De Laune's example mixtures were pre- 

 pared has proved a stumbling-block. It is necessary, of 

 course, to sow the right plants, but the success of a pasture 



* See articles on "The Herbage of Old Grass Lands," in Vols, for 1888 and 1890. 



* Vol. XVIII., 2nd Series, 1882. 



