Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. GO^ 
perience had made me of this necessity, the communications I 
have received during the Jast three months have confirmed my 
opinion. 
Mixtures of grasses for permanent pastures have been brought 
before the notice of the Seed Committee of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society, and examined by Mr. Carruthers, which had been 
purchased as containing the kinds and proportions of seeds 
recommended by me in the Society's ' Journal,' and have been 
found to contain a large proportion of rye-grass, Yorkshire fogy 
and other worthless grasses. 
Information, which Mr. Carruthers and myself believe to be 
authentic and trustworthy, has been obtained by me showing 
that the cultivation of easily-grown and very productive grasses 
of a worthless, and even injurious, character is carried on to 
an extent hardly to be credited, for the purpose of mixing with 
the seeds of the more important and more costly grasses, whichy 
when thus mixed, are sold to the public. 
It is a matter of surprise to me, as well as a matter of regret, 
that there are seed-merchants in London who are ready to buy 
the refuse cleanings of seeds separated by the larger seed- 
merchants which they would not sell to their own customers. 
These refuse cleanings, consisting of weeds and broken and 
imperfect seeds, must find their way into the farmer's fields at 
a serious loss to the farmer, not only in the money paid for them, 
but at a pecuniary loss still more serious by the damage to 
the land on which they are sown. 
In my opinion, landowners and farmers are to blame in 
trusting to advertising firms without attempting themselves to 
acquire the knowledge requisite to enable them to discriminate 
between good and worthless seeds, or even to know, when the 
grasses come up, whether the seeds purchased were correct and 
of good quality. One result of this ignorance has been that 
some of the seed-merchants have not apparently been anxious 
to acquire a sufficient knowledge of the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of seeds and grasses, finding it more profitable to 
sell indiscriminately good and worthless kinds and inferior 
qualities. 
I have been much surprised to find that men who have spent 
the greater part of their lives in the seed-trade are practicallv 
unacquainted with many of its details. I have not met one seed- 
merchant who was able to show me the difference in the seed 
Ijetween rye-grass and meadow fescue. The difference may be 
very minute, but, when once known, is quite clear. 
A combination of ignorance and apathy on the part of the 
landowners and farmers has thus reacted on the seed-merchant, 
and, as a result, those firms who have wished to be honest and 
