220 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
come the most excellent Pose, the sweet Clovers, the Crested 
Dogstail, the Cocksfoot, and the Woolly Holcus, or Meadow 
Soft Grass, without one seed being sown ! In such good company, 
then, Holcus must be good. They are all of the right sort ; and 
the best seeding in the world in this part of the kingdom would 
culminate in a pasture of the same identical species. The more 
they are manured the more they nourish, and Holcus lanatus 
survives to the end. 
The only other species, the awned and creeping Holcus, frequents 
our shady ditches, but adds little to the value of our pastures. 
Of the several species of Catstail common to Britain, one only 
is often met with in our meadows; viz., the Meadow Catstail or 
Timothy, PI ileum pratense, and this is found in almost every 
moist meadow in our two counties. This grass is cultivated much 
in the United States, whence, just exactly one hundred years ago, 
Timothy Hanson brought over the first consignment of American 
seed to this country, an experiment which has been often since 
repeated with much success, as the seed from the New World could 
be had in any quantity, and came to hand neatly dressed. But it 
was hardly fair on this account to give the name of " Timothy " to 
a grass which was long in the land before Timothy Hanson was 
born ; for we find it mentioned by the old writers. Meadow 
Catstail, or Timothy, is in the south-west an abundant cropper. 
Sowerby describes the spike as from two to four inches long. I 
gathered in France many years ago two gigantic spikes nearly 
six inches long ; and Mr. Francis Brent, whose beautiful collection 
of British grasses is perhaps unique in the Western Counties, tells 
me he once gathered in England a spike of Phleum pratense much 
longer than my Gaulic specimens. When in dry situations this 
grass assumes a sort of bulbous root in lieu of its normal fibrous 
one, it becomes dwarfed in stature. 
The Common Bent, Agrostis vulgaris, towards the close of 
summer furnishes much sweet herbage, and makes a striking 
feature of our pastures with its purplish, plumy, panicle of spread- 
ing hair-like branches, marvellously forked and subdivided. The 
Bents are a very capricious and mutable family, the individual 
members of which vary according to certain conditions of soil and 
climate. 
The Marsh Bent Grass, Agrostis alba, is a very fertile and nutri- 
tious plant, and occasionally grows elsewhere besides marshy fields, 
