ON THE MIXED HERBAGE OF PERMANENT MEADOW. 
1205 
small proportion, and was nearly equalled by Poa pratensis. Upon the whole the 
growth was rank and tufty, and the free-growing grasses yielded a considerable amount 
of flowering stems. 
With the mixed mineral manure and the larger quantity of nitrate of soda (equal m 
nitrogen to the smaller quantity of ammonia-salts) there was scarcely the average 
weight of total produce. The number of species was lower than usual; the grasses 
contributed about 88 per cent, of the total weight; the Leguminosse gave less than 
1 percent.; but the miscellaneous species between 11 and 12 per cent., which was con¬ 
siderably more than the average on that plot. Poa trivialis and Alopecurus pratensis 
were by far the most prominent grasses, Holcus lanatus and Dactylis glomerata 
coming next, whilst Brornus mollis and Poa pratensis were also fairly represented. 
Lathyrus pratensis was the only leguminous plant observed. Anthriscus sylvestris and 
Rumex Acetosa contributed more than three-fourths of the miscellaneous herbage. The 
crop on this plot was the most evenly luxuriant, and the most matured, of the series, 
yielding a large bulk of stem, with comparatively little leaf, and a large proportion of 
the plants were either in flower or seed, the base of the stems turning brown with 
ripeness. 
Between the years of separation of 1867 and 1872, as far as the influences of season 
were concerned in modifying the vegetation of the different plots, there had been years 
of great luxuriance of growth, and years of unusual drought with heat, and it was 
the latter which had the most marked effect in modifying the struggle established under 
the different manuring conditions. 
Between the years of separation of 1872 and 1877, the influences of season were 
of a different kind. The first crops of the intermediate years were only average or 
under average in amount, and those of the second year were not only much under 
average, but the herbage was really damaged by the dryness and cold of the growing 
period ; whilst in each of the years excepting the third, that period was considerably 
deficient in rain, and marked by unseasonably cold intervals, much checking vegetation. 
Nevertheless the hay-year, reckoned from July of one year to the end of June of the 
year of growth, showed in each case excepting that of the second year, an excess of 
rain over the average, which, however, chiefly affected the aftermath. It is, indeed, 
obvious that an excess of rain prior to the period of active growth of the first crops 
may leave the soil and subsoil in such a moist condition as to render the herbage less 
dependent on the fall of the actual period of growth itself; but, in so far as the excess 
of rain increases the second crops, the condition of the herbage will be affected for the 
growth of the succeeding first crops. It happens that, whilst the third and fifth series 
of autumn crops grown since the separation of 1872 were deficient and variable in 
character, owing partly to the unseasonable weather of the period, and partly to the 
previously induced condition of the herbage, the first, second, and fourth seasons gave 
more or less luxuriant second growth ; and the fourth season not only gave the heaviest 
MDCCCLXXXir. 7 p 
