224 Annual Report for 1907 of the Consulting Botanist. 
and more valuable kinds. Afterwai'ds, his attention being 
called to the sudden appearance of the larger grasses, he 
realised that they could not have grown from seed after 
the inclosure was made, and concluded that they were there 
but had been kept down by the stock, while the rye-grass being 
rejected by the stock made a great show in the pasture. 
Similar erroneous opinions, from defective observation, are 
widely entertained regarding the weeds that occur in pastures. 
In the report of last year in dealing with a case in which 
the bitter taste of butter made from the milk of a cow that 
fed in a meadow in which spearwort {Ranunculus Flammula 
Linn.) was growing, it was said : — 
“ Inquiry was made as to tiie properties of a plant which was believed 
to be the caxise of scour in calves, giving great trouble in rearing them. 
The meadow, in which the plant grew in considerable abundance, was marshy. 
The butter made from the milk of cows which fed in it had a decidedly bitter 
taste. The plant sent was spearwort {Ttonnnculus Flammula Linn.), and 
the injuries specified are those which would follow from the eating of this 
plant. All the species of Rammculus, called buttercups or spearworts, possess 
acrid properties, and have not the slightest feeding value. The}' are usually 
rejected by animals, but young stock not infrequently eat them to their 
injury. Some farmers like to see buttercups in a field. They consider them 
to be the sign of a good pasture. They no doubt show that the soil is fitted to 
grow plants, but every buttercup is a distinct injury to the pasture. Being 
rejected by the stock they flower and seed in abundance. Their numerous 
seeds are well protected and remain ready to germinate under favourable 
conditions. Some of the most acrid increase by creeping stems that run above 
ground or in the soil. The pasture becomes more and more filled with yellow 
■buttercup, and it loses half its value by the presence of acrid plants which 
causes every year injury to, if not the death of, some animals. It would 
be better and more profitable where land is burdened with buttercups to 
plough it, carefully clean it, take at least one root crop oS it, and then sow 
it with grasses and clover, pure in quality and of good germination. Properly 
sown down and generously treated, a good feeding pasture has thus been 
secured within a year of the sowing.” 
In August last a member of the Society complained of this 
statement in a letter which he has given leave to be printed 
with this report : — 
“ I do not feel justified in letting the short article on ‘ Buttercups in 
Pasture,’ on page 258 of the last Journal of the K.A.S.E. pass without 
comment. 
“To advise farmers ‘who have many, or burdened with buttercups in 
meadows, to plough them up, carefully clean them and take at least one root 
crop off and then sow with grasses and clover,’ is not good ‘ Practice with 
Science.’ I could take the writer to hundreds of meadows which have large 
quantities, even ‘ burdened ’ with them, and are readily let at from thirty 
to fifty shillings per acre, the herbage of which will either fatten a bullock 
or enable a cow to give produce of the best quality. 
“ They are also during the year closely grazed and no harm corues to the 
stock. Many farm agreements have a clause in them prohibiting the ploughing 
up of old pasture under a penalty of .■toO per acre. • 
“Apart frorn such a clause the cost of ploughing,' cleaning, and cultivating 
■the root crop would make the method advise’d impracticable. The Ranunculus 
which grows .On niarshy ground is no doubt bad .for' young stock knd may 
