433 
ON THE SCOURING LANDS OF CENTRAL SOMERSET. 
By Dr. Augustus Voelcker, Royal Agricultural College, 
Cirencester. 
(From the Bath ancl West of "England Agricultural Journal.) 
(Continued from p. 308.) 
Examination of the Herbage Theories. 
According to the botanical theory, the “ tarf.ness” of land 
is caused by one or more particular species of medicinal 
plants, which are supposed to grow in abundance on scouring 
pastures, and are not found in sweet and sound meadows. 
The purging flax (Linum catharticum) has been specially 
named as the cause of the complaint, but there is no evidence 
whatever to prove that this plant really abounds in scouring 
pastures. On the occasion of my visit. I carefully looked 
out for the Linum catharticum , but could not find a single 
specimen in one of the worst scouring pastures-=-the parish 
of Cossington. Singularly enough, on my return home, I 
found the purging-flax near Tetbury-road Station, on a poor 
piece of pasture, resting on a Bradford-clay subsoil, but I 
never heard that this land scours cattle. 
Carnation-grass is another plant to which the evil is attri¬ 
buted, but as this grass grows quite as abundantly in sound 
pastures as in scouring meadows, in which latter sometimes 
hardly a specimen can be found, the origin of the disease 
cannot be traced to carnation-grass. 
Nor can it be referred to the common sorrel [Rumex acetosa), 
the dandelion (Leontodon taraxacum ), or to meadow-saffron 
('Colcliicum autumnale ); for the first-named plants are often 
found in abundance in meadows that do not scour, and on 
the other hand there are many scouring pastures in which 
not a single specimen of meadow-saffron occurs. 
The botanical theory, in short, is unsupported by any re= 
liable evidence, and even should it be found that in a parti¬ 
cular locality the disorder can be traced distinctly to the 
prevalence of purging-flax or colchicim in the pasture, there 
is abundant practical evidence to prove that this would be 
quite an exceptional case, and that in the great majority of 
scouring pastures the origin of the evil must be sought else¬ 
where. 
According to others, the poor character of the herbage of 
scouring pastures is the real cause of the mischief. Those 
xxxv. 28 
