PASTURES OF THE SOUTH-WEST. 
221 
as I have lately seen its white and brittle roots in a raspberry plot 
which was mulched with seaweed last autumn. This, added to the 
wet summer, made the soil very damp ; Agrostis alba came forth 
in abundance, and the incessant rains preventing the hoe, gave it 
time to root in laud where it was not noticed before. The roots of 
this Bent, like those of the Common Couch, are very tenacious of 
life. The rustics call it White Squitch, and they might be par- 
doned for imposing a more ugly name, yet its culture withal is 
highly recommended. 
The Creeping Bent, Agrostis stolonifera, in a weeping summer 
becomes a luxuriant grass in Devon and Cornwall, and no mean 
adjunct to our pasturage. 
Agrostis cornucopia was once imported from America, at the 
enormous price of £68 for a bushel of seeds; but it utterly failed 
to do here. 
I have never met with a single spike of that most excellent 
English meadow grass — the Meadow Foxtail, Alopecurus pratensis, 
— in Devon or Cornwall. In the heart of England it is often the 
main crop — the chief meadow grass — especially in the rich pam- 
pered lands lying around our great towns and cities. An eminent 
naturalist suggests that this may have been a grass " originally 
introduced to our pastures, and not indigenous to all soils as are 
Holcus and Lolium," or that in some places it may have been 
limed out. 
Of the Clovers, we may mention the Sweet Purple, Trifolium 
pratense, which is the Marl Grass of old renown " so noisome to 
witches," and is still the standard of our pastures bearing the horse- 
shoe-leaf; the White Dutch, Trifolium repens, which yields a 
truly delightful herbage for sheep or bullock ; and the little yellow 
Trefoils, Filiforme and procumbens, all of which enter largely into 
our pastures. Clovers do best on calcareous soils, and a strew of 
lime will often bring up dormant seed " scattered by the wild winds 
ages ago." 
This is especially true of T. repens ; nevertheless in Devon and 
Cornwall, which are not on calcareous bottoms, and without the aid 
of lime, this white clover thrives well and naturally, particularly in 
rich dry loams, and in pastures trodden much and eaten bare. We 
have no better pasturage, and no surer index to grateful land. 
But there appear to be epochs in the existence of pastures when 
certain plants have their day and pass off; and T. repens often 
