( 540 ) 
XXXVII. — On the Fairy-Rings of Pastui-es, as illustratinr/ the 
Use of Inorganic Manures. By John Thomas Way, Pro- 
fessor of Chemistry at the Cirencester College of Agriculture. 
Note. — This paper was read at Ihe Chemical Section of the British Association at 
Soutiiampton. 
Most persons who live in the country must have observed that peculiar 
growth of grass in pasture lands to which the name of Fairy-rings is 
given. Tiie fanciful name which these rings bear is to some extent an 
indication of the doubt which has always attached to their origin, and 
they have accordingly attracted very considerable attention, and much 
ingenious speculation has been exercised to account for their formation. 
The appearance of these rings is due to grass of a darker colour and 
far more luxuriant growth than that of the surrounding herbage. The 
grass grows in bands of about a foot in breadth, and in rings which are 
more or less perfect and of all sizes ; it is always the first to vegetate in 
the spring, and keeps the lead of the ordinary grass of the pastures till 
the period of cutting it arrives. 
If the grass of the fairy-rings be examined in the spring and early 
summer, it will be found to conceal a number of Agarics or " toad- 
stools " of various sizes. They are found situated cither entirely on 
the outside of the ring or on the outer border of the grass which com- 
poses it. 
The varying diameter of the rings has given good reason to suppose 
that the larger ones have undergone a yjrogressive increase from those of 
smaller size, and consequently that these latter must have originated 
either in a single point or in a ring of very small dimensions. Com- 
petent observers have watched the rmgs from year to year, and assert 
that this is actually the case. 
Omitting the consideration of the many theories which have been 
offered in explanation of these curious rings, I shall only remark that by 
far the most scientific and intelligible solution of the question is that 
which was based upon Decandolle's theory of the excretions of plants.' 
It was supposed that from one cause or another the germ of a fungus 
or Agaric became deposited on some point of a piece of pasture land — 
that the fungus formed from it, after passing through the various stages 
of its growth, shed its seed or sporules necessarily in a circle exterior to 
its point of connexion with the ground, and that in the following season 
a series of these plants was produced in the form of a small circle. 
This new crop would in its turn come. to maturity, shedding seeds 
both towards the centre and on the outside of the ring. Were circum- 
stances favourable to the dev.elopment of the seeds deposited on the 
inside of the ring, the diameter of it might increase indeed, but it would 
have the form, not of a ring with an open centre, but of aflat disc. 
This, however, does not take place : the fungi of one year are replaced 
in the next by a crop of luxurjant grass, to whose superior heiglit and 
dark colour is due tlie appearapce of , the ring itself. 
Now it was argued, upon th? Decandollian theory, that the excretions 
of the fungus were in the highest degree injurious to its subsequent deve- 
lopment on the same spot; but that, on the other hand, they were parti- 
