On the Italian Rye-grass. 
285 
tiona upon the culture of this valuable introduction to British agriculture, 
taking it for granted that your Journal will be open to the fair discussion 
and correction of any communications that may have been made upon this 
(or upon any other) subject. In reference, therefore, to my statement 
made to your Society in March, 1841, and inserted in your Journal 
(vol. ii. p. 214), I have the satisfaction of remarking that the ex- 
perience of every subsequent year has fully borne out, not only the use- 
fulness and productive qualities of this plant beyond any other rye-grass 
with which I have been able to compare it, but that its properties as a 
preparation for wheat (or any other successive crop) are not liable to the 
objections that have been so unjustly made to it. It is, however, for 
the purpose of stating for the information of your Society and the public, 
that although a name and certain characteristics are taken as the test of 
this grass, no other kind being considered genuine but that which in its 
growth is pale-coloured, upright in its stem, and being the produce of 
seed with a long awn (or tail) ; but I am furnished with proofs indis- 
putable that these characteristics are not descriptive of the best kind of 
Italian rye grass, but that the most productive and most nutritive plant 
is that which has a more fibrous root, producing a dark-coloured spread- 
ing stem, the produce of seed which has a short awn (or tail) ; and I beg 
therefore to state that this conviction is the result of very close attention 
to the growth and application of this grass for the three last years, 
against my previous predilections upon the subject, fostered as they have 
been by the public taste, the long-awned seed having hitherto been con- 
sidered the only genuine stock, and consequently the only marketable 
commodity in every seed-market in England. But that your Society may 
feel the force of my observations, I beg to relate to them the details of 
my proceedings. Having observed in the growth of my crop which I re- 
ported on in your Journal in the year 1841, some plants that were, as I 
supposed, not genuine, that is, not of the pale colour, nor producing seed 
with long awns, I determined upon a fresh importation of seed direct 
from Italy, from which I have since tested the properties of the two 
varieties, Loth of which I have since cultivated with great care and at- 
tention ; and I am now fully convinced, from every comparison I have 
made, not only of the different kinds of plants in different fields, but of 
both kinds in the same fields, and in every case have satisfactory proof 
that the best grass, viz. that which is the most productive and the most 
nutritive for all cattle, is the plant which spreads upon the ground, is 
dark-coloured, and being the produce of seed with short awn (or tail) ; 
and my conclusion has been more fully confirmed during the past week 
by testing the varieties, both in weight and bulk, finding that the dark- 
coloured plants from the seed of the short-awned grass exceed both in 
weight and bulk the pale-coloured plants by more than 30 per cent. 
It will be also worthy the observation of those who intend to cultivate 
this grass, that if intended as a biennial or a perennial grass, in that 
case the dark-coloured is much preferable to the pale-coloured grass, 
the former branching and becoming thicker, and the latter spindling up 
and thus becoming thinner in plant every succeeding year. 
I have only to add my readiness to supply specimens of these plants 
to your rooms, if it is desired that I should do so, or, should any gentle- 
