76 
THE PRINCIPLES OP BOTANY. 
merely to keep stock alive, instead of getting his profit from 
the soil, has been a serious matter for farmers lately, and if 
such conditions of climate prevailed for several seasons it 
would materially affect the wealth of this country. 
It has been said that in no part of the world can such 
green turf be grown as in England ; the past year, however, 
made our turf more like that of America and the warmer 
summer climates of Europe, and if it continued it might 
perhaps render possible the cultivation of the vine, maize, 
and yams of other countries as a compensation for the loss 
of grasses. 
Grasses in England, though they are numerically a long 
list, yet contain but a small proportion of really good feeding 
species, and it is curious to note that on the analysis of a 
good meadow scarcely a dozen species will make up the bulk 
of the pasture. Of course in a tribe of plants so numerous, 
and in which distinctive characters are founded upon minute 
particulars, much difference of opinion will exist in regard 
to both genera and species. We may, however, state, as 
near the mark, that our native species are about 125 in 
number, referable to forty-three genera. Of these it may be 
stated, that while as many as forty species commonly occur 
in meadows, yet that only about twelve of these are of real 
feeding value. The rest then being, if not of hurtful quality, 
at best can only be considered as diluents. 
It may be laid down as a postulate that these forty species 
maybe found very widely extended in meadows; indeed, they 
occur from one end of the country to the other, but they 
occur in different proportions, e.g. about four fifths of the 
produce of a meadow in good heart and condition will be 
composed of nutritious species of grasses, and such meadow 
will produce a large crop of hay and grass, or grass or hay. 
About four fifths of a bad meadow will consist of poor or 
weed-grasses, and the yield will always be small. 
If, then, we take the produce of a good meadow to be in 
hay up to two tons, we may calculate that of the bad one 
down to as little as five hundredweight per acre, and thus 
the variation of grass land from 10s. to 61. per acre can be 
well understood. 
From observing these facts we may at once arrive at an 
estimate of the condition of a meadow. 
If good species prevail and grow well, to the negation of 
the bad, we know the pasture to be in good heart. If down 
in condition, the reverse is the case. There is, then, always 
waging a war of extermination in a grass field, either the 
rich overmastering the poor, or the reverse, a proper know- 
