102 
Improvement of the Plants of the Farm. 
ment of culture ? It is, I think, quite to the purpose that I 
should mention the lettuce, the old sorts of which were available 
for two or three weeks only, except when sown in succession. 
The new sorts of lettuce, such as Commodore Nutt, a very 
early kind, Superb White Cos, ^larvel, or Standard, the latest 
of all, have been endowed with a habit of early or late maturity', 
so that a good succession of lettuces can be secured at a single 
sowing of these kinds. Instead of lasting for two or three weeks, 
they are fit for use during two or three months. iSot even the 
able Botanist of the Society could trace the cause of these 
changes of habit, or discover with the microscope their accom- 
panying morphological effects. 
A practical plant-improver would at once recognise that what 
has happened to the lettuce may happen to red clover. The 
majority of farmers are still unaware that an earlier and later 
red clover already exist. I have received various interesting 
reports on this subject. According to an excellent practical 
authority, cow-grass is a name given to different plants in 
different districts. At Mark Lane it simply means a fine sample 
of common broad clover, whereas in Berks, Oxon, Hants, and 
a few other counties, it means a perennial variety giving only 
one cutting per annum, coming into bloom a fortnight after 
other red clover, and having a solid instead of a hollow stem. 
^Ir. Robert Russell, of Horton Court Lodge, Dartford, writes 
to me of three red clovers : the Common; Cow-clover, which yields 
three cuts per annum ; and Cow-grass, which yields one heavy 
cut, will stand two years, and has almost gone out of cultivation 
owing to the cost of saving the seed and threshing it. On 
June 24, he writes : " I have 20 acres of the single cut cow-grass 
which will not be in bloom for a fortnight. It will be fit to cut 
for hay in a month ; the red clover is fit to cut now." 
Other evidence has reached me to the same effect as the 
above, and in addition to it I add the following notes of my 
own, taken June 19, while examining single-cut cow-grass and 
red clover grown side by side : " The cow-grass is two inches 
taller than the red clover, and later. Its blossom-heads are still 
green and immature, while the rose-coloured blossoms of the red 
clover are already open. The stems are smoother, though some 
of the leaves arc covered with fine hairs, as in the case of the red 
clover. The stems are longer, and generally hollow — some of 
them are solid. The stems of the red clover also are generally 
hollow. Each variety has green and purple stalks indis- 
criminately." 
Mr. II. E. Raynbird says the cow-grass blossoms two or 
three weeks later than red clover, and tlie distinction between 
them is as well known as that between barley and oats. Mr. 
