236 On Laying donm Land to Permanent Grass. 
selection of the seed sown, that after showing great luxuriance 
for a year or two, gradually the pastures sicken and lose plant, 
the vacancies in time filling up with the natural and perhaps 
foul grasses indigenous to the district, and then both time and 
money have been lost." This statement many persons who 
have attempted to form permanent pastures have undoubtedly 
found but too true, even when they have gone to the seed- 
merchants of the greatest repute, and have ordered seeds which 
they believed to be of the finest quality, and have paid accordingly. 
I think that there need be no difficulty in discovering the 
necessity for these careful instructions and the cause of the loss, 
to the purchaser, of both time and money, if their list of seeds 
be examined. I find that Messrs. Webb and Sons recommend 
rye-grass, but in what proportion I cannot ascertain from their 
list, as they do not mention the quantity or " proper propor- 
tion " of this or any other species of the plants which form 
the mixture they supply for permanent pasture. For light, 
medium, and heavy soils Webb's best mixtures contain the 
following sorts in proper proportions : — 
Alsike. 
Sweet-scented vernal. 
Cocksfoot. 
Eough-stalked meadow grass. 
Cow-grass. 
Tall fescue. 
Crested dogstail. 
Shee])'s fescue. 
Evergreen rye-grass. 
Webb's imperial giant cow-grass. 
Greater bird's foot trefoil. 
Hard fescue. 
Wood meadow grass. 
Meadow catstail. 
"Vellow trefoil. 
Meadow fescue. 
Webb's giant white clover. ' Red clover. 
Evergreen meadow grass. [ Meadow foxtail. 
Sheep's parsley. I 
Messrs. Webb say (p. 6) : " It is not the pasture that pro- 
duces the greatest bulk of herbage that is the best, but those that 
possess the grasses of the finest quality; hence the saying: 
' Better to have a lark than a kite.' " This statement is directly 
opposed to my own experience and observation, for pasture 
formed principally of the four larger, or as they are incorrectly 
called, "coarser" grasses, which I have already named, will, 
with a mixture of the finer grasses and clovers to fill up inter- 
stices, produce not only the greatest bulk of herbage, but one also 
of the most nourishing quality. 
Mr. Martin Sutton's pamphlet on grasses is in many points 
valuable, especially the part devoted to descriptions of agricul- 
tural grasses. I would especially call attention to the high esti- 
mation in which he holds cocksfoot. Under his so-called 
Sutton's improved rye-grass, he says it is more important 
in alternate husbandry than for use in permanent pastures; 
yet Messrs. Sutton include rye-grass in their mixtures for 
permanent pasture. In the account of Sutton's perennial rye- 
