21G 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
suggested doubt would cease to do so when it was viewed as a 
mere temporary phase of an evolution still in progress, that through 
the better reached ever to the best. And the fairness of the world 
would be more fair, and its promise more splendid, when we re- 
garded it as a but half-opened bud, whose fragrant regal flower, and 
still more royal fruit, were yet to come. 
PASTUKES OF THE SOUTH-WEST; 
OR, 
&t)e jftteatJob) !an&s of Ucuon antJ ©orntoall. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY MR. T. A. CRAGOE, F.R.G.S. 
(Read October 30th, 1879.) 
Perhaps nowhere in the world can the meadows of Devon and Corn- 
wall be surpassed. Beautiful and bountiful, they crown the gentle 
slope, or stretch away over long-drawn vistas of valley and cham- 
paign ; exhibiting, from the peculiarly broken and rolling formation 
of the land, a variety of aspect unrivalled. There are meadows 
round Milton Abbot, Tavistock, Wadebridge, and Truro, that will 
feed cattle as fast as the rich deep feeding-grounds of Leicester, 
Cheshire, or the Yale of Evesham ; faster, in a wet summer, than 
the plains of Normandy or flats of Somerset ; and always faster than 
the green pastures of County Cork, so rich in dairy produce. 
Among the grasses which compose our pastures, the first in 
season is the Sweet Scented Yernal — Anthoxanthum odoratum. 
This is the earliest British grass, putting forth its tender foliage 
whilst the biting winds of March are still abroad ; thus, as an early 
pasturage for ewes and lambs, it merits much attention from the 
farmer, flowering a full month earlier than the Eay or Eye grass, 
which is so much depended on. It should, however, be cropped 
early and close, as its herbage becomes somewhat hairy and dry 
when approaching maturity, a period generally attained by the first 
week in May, when other grasses are just beginning to grow. This 
grass is the only one of its species frequenting British meadows, 
