OH THE MIXED HERBAGE OF PERMANENT MEADOW. 
1317 
and a greater number, both of them and of the miscellaneous species, contribute a fair 
proportion to the mixed herbage. Of the grasses, several of freer habit of growth, and 
of better character, are fairly represented, whilst among the Miscellanem there is not 
the almost exclusive predominance of Rumex Acetosa as was the case with the 
ammonia-salts, other plants, both of superficial and deeper foraging tendencies, finding 
a due place. 
During the 18 years’ application of the nitrate of soda the plot exhibited a very 
different general aspect from that of the ammonia plot. The herbage of the ammonia 
plot was almost exclusively leafy, and extremely dark green, indicating, as is known, 
a very high percentage of nitrogen in the dry substance, and, it is to be supposed, a 
liberal formation of chlorophyll; yet, as has been seen, there was extremely restricted 
vegetation (carbon assimilation), and scarcely any tendency to maturation. The nitrate 
plot (15) showed somewhat similar characters, but in a very much less degree; the 
herbage was much more characteristically leafy than where mineral manures are 
employed in conjunction with the nitrate, but there was much more luxuriance, much 
more tendency to form stem, and a much lighter and healthier colour than with the 
ammonia. Though more nitrogen was taken up, there was a less percentage of it in 
the dry substance of the produce. In other words, for a given amount of nitrogen 
taken up there had been much more carbon assimilation, that is to say, much more 
growth, due doubtless in great part to the greater supply of mineral constituents 
derived from the soil by the more varied and more deeply-rooting herbage. 
We have now to call attention to the changes induced in the botanical composition 
of plot 15 by the cessation of the application of the nitrate, and the substitution of a 
mixed mineral manure, including potass. Although 1877, the fourth year of separation, 
was only the second after the change of manuring, the table shows that a considerable 
change in the flora was then already indicated, and it has been much more marked in 
subsequent years, as has been shown by the partial separations which have since been 
undertaken. 
Referring first to the results for 1877, as given in the table, perhaps the most 
marked feature is the tendency already developed to increase in the Leguminosse, and 
especially in Lathyrus pratensis, which in subsequent years continued to increase in a 
rapid ratio. 
There was, after the change, so much fluctuation in the proportion to one another 
of the grasses and the Miscellanese, according to season, that it is difficult to say with 
regard to either group as a whole, whether the tendency was to increase or decrease as 
the direct effect of the altered condition of manuring. 
It will be remembered that, with the ammonia-salts alone, Festuca ovina and Agrostis 
vulgaris almost entirely displaced the other grasses ; and that, with the nitrate of soda 
alone, Festuca ovina also gained ground, and was by far the most prominent of the 
gramineous species, whilst Agrostis vulgaris was in very much less amount, a number 
MDCCCLXXXII. 8 F 
