ON THE MIXED HERBAGE OF PERMANENT MEADOW. 
1385 
occurring in only small amount, the total yield was very insignificant, and very largely 
in defect of that without manure ; thus showing, notwithstanding the excess of Rumex 
Acetosa , a diminution in the total yield of Miscellanese as compared with that without 
manure. 
It is, however, the comparison of the yield on plot 10 with the partial, with that on 
plot 9 with the continuous, supply of potass, which illustrates the most clearly the 
effects of the special conditions provided; and it brings strikingly to view the effects 
of potass on the mixed herbage. 
The right hand division of the table shows that, with the reduced supply of potass, 
there was a great and increasing deficiency in total gramineous herbage, and a slight 
deficiency of both leguminous and miscellaneous herbage. Turning to the individual 
species it is seen that there was considerable reduction in the yield of Poa pratensis , 
Dactylis glomerata, Holms lanatus , and Agrostis vulgaris , all more or less free-growing 
plants, and mostly free stern-producers ; and all, excepting the Agrostis , show upon the 
whole a considerably increasing deficiency from one separation-year to another. The 
only grass which has shown a considerable excess compared with plot 9, and the excess 
of which has greatly increased in the later years, is Alopecurus pratensis. Anthox- 
anthum odoratam has shown a small but gradually increasing excess, whilst the 
stemmy Arena elatior especially, but A. flavescens in some degree, and Festuca ovina , 
have shown a deficiency. A number of other grasses have, fluctuating with the seasons, 
sometimes given excess and sometimes deficiency. 
Lastly, it is worthy of note that whilst Arena elatior and Arena flavescens each 
show a deficiency, Arena pubescens does not; and whilst Poa pratensis has become 
the most largely deficient of the grasses on plot 10 , Poa trivialis has, on the contrary, 
each year given a slight excess. 
On both plots the yield of Leguminosse was so small as to render detailed com¬ 
parison superfluous. 
Of Miscellanese, Rumex Acetosa yielded, on the average, more on the plot with the 
smaller supply of potass and the larger supply of soda ; whilst, in each separation-year, 
both Conopodium denudatum and Achillea Millefolium were in less amount with the 
smaller supply of potass. 
Upon the whole, then, the exclusion of the potass from the manure of plot 10 
has much reduced the total growth. The reduction is more or less in each group, 
but by far the greatest among the grasses ; and among these the tendency to decline 
in yield is chiefly among some of the freer-growing, and more especially stem-pro¬ 
ducing species. The most marked exception to this is that, with the decline of 
almost all competing species, Alopecurus pratensis largely increased, both in actual 
and in relative yield. 
Apart from the differences which are brought to light in the records of percentage 
and actual yield of the different species, there were even more striking distinctions 
observable in the colour of the herbage, and in the characters of development of the 
