142 HAY HARVEST* 
and yellow trifoliums, adding to the whole mixture a 
small quantity of the lolium perenne. After having 
sown the barley, these seeds are combed in with alight 
pair of harrows. By this method, the ground is im¬ 
mediately stocked with native grasses, without waiting 
years for their spontaneous production In the winter 
of the second year, the seeds are covered with a me¬ 
liorated compost,” 
SECT. III.—HAY HARVEST, 
The hay harvest commences here early : in the pre¬ 
sent late season, the spring having been retarded by 
cold winds, I saw a new hay-rick in the Vale of 
Severn, Monday, June 24, 1805, which had been made 
the week before ; but, from the showery season, the 
whole of the hay harvest was scarcely finished in July. 
In the month of April, 1S04, I had occasion to ride 
into Worcestershire; towards the dusk of the even¬ 
ing, observing something differing from common ap¬ 
pearance upon some meadow-land, I alighted to exa¬ 
mine it, and found it the young shoots of meadow- 
flowers, chiefly cowslips, nothing of the kind having 
appeared in Staffordshire. The common meadow- 
flowers, the cowslip, the hyacinth, the anemone, and 
the lady smock, appear a full fortnight sooner in the 
meadows of Worcestershire, than in those of Stafford¬ 
shire, at half a degree more north, but probably at 300 
or 400 feet more elevation. 
The hay harvest for both natural and artificial 
grasses, is in the months of June Mid July, according 
to the season* 
No 
