On Laying dotvn Land to Permanent Grass. 
251 
Nine years ago, circumstances led me to lay down to permanent 
pasture certain portions of land ; and I did as most others have 
done, ordered the ordinary mixture for permanent pastures 
from one of the best seed-merchants. My first attempts were on 
a piece of arable land of six acres, and a piece of wood-land, — 
the underwood, after having been cut down, being fed off with 
sheep. The six acres I mowed twice the first year ; the piece 
of wood-land could not be mown, and therefore was fed off with 
sheep. 
1 saw in the wood-land a grass I had not specially noticed 
before, and therefore got a book on grasses to find out the name, 
and found it was timothy, or catstail : this led to my finding out 
that there was a great difference in the feeding properties of the 
numerous grasses, and in my next attempt I ordered the grasses 
for myself, still ordering, as recommended by seed-merchants, a 
large quantity of strictly permanent rye-grass. This I watched 
carefully. When it came to flower and seed, the proportion of 
other grasses was so small, that the pasture might have been taken 
for rye-grass alone. I noticed in my pastures the deterioration, 
so mucfi complained of by others, and was determined to find 
out the cause, and luckily for myself purchased Sinclair's book. 
I gradually learnt to know all the most valuable grasses in nearly 
all stages of their growth, and found that, however careful I was 
in my orders, and from whatever seed-merchant I ordered my 
seeds, the percentage of rye-grass, soft woolly grass, and other 
bad grasses and weeds, was beyond all belief. In order the more 
carelully to test the results, I fenced off a small portion of some 
of the newly-sown meadows. I found in a piece 8^ feet square 
about six plants of cocksfoot, one foxtail, two meadow fescue, 
five or six crested dogstail, and the rest rye-grass, soft woolly 
grass, perennial clovers, and weeds. 1 then got an introduction 
to Mr. Carruthers, and by means of his able help and valuable 
information, was enabled to make closer experiments. From 
these I learnt that good seed was most difficult to get ; and 
to illustrate how difficult, I will give some of my experience. I 
had five acres of very valuable land I wished to sow with perma- 
nent grass for seed ; the land was not only very good, but very 
highly manured, and absolutely clean, having been a hop-garden. 
I divided this field into three parts, one to be sown with cocksfoot, 
the second with meadow fescue, and the third with rough meadow 
grass. I ordered, with special care, the three kinds of seed from 
one of the great seed-merchants, and looked forward next 
year to a good crop of seed, not suspecting that when seed was 
especially ordered of a particular kind from a firm of repute, it 
would be anything but good. But after a few weeks' growth, 
although 1 was satisfied that the cocksfoot was true, my suspicions 
