¥ 
the rigorous cold of their winters. 
108 
farmers than any other kind of forage grass. 
Its root is fibrous; its culm is normally about 
20 inches high; and its spikelets are beardless, 
and longer than the glumes. It is eminently 
fitted, by the fibrous structure of its roots, for 
the purposes of the alternate husbandry ; it pos- 
sesses adaptation to a great variety of soils; and 
it offers great facility of propagation by the pro- 
fusion in which it produces seeds, and by the uni- 
formity with which it ripens them ;—and, in the 
strength of these properties, it has acquired, and 
possibly may long maintain, a far higher place 
in the estimation of British cultivators than it 
is fairly entitled to, either on the ground of its 
intrinsic worth as a nutritive grass, or in com- 
parison with some other bulkier or more nutri- 
tious or better compensating herbage plants. It 
is exceedingly little known in North America; 
and though partially tried in Canada and the 
Northern States by emigrants from Britain, it 
has been found rather too tender to withstand 
It is scarcely 
known, also, in the South of Europe, or even in 
the South of France, and has been generally sup- 
posed unsuitable to any climate which has a hot 
and droughty summer; and it has not very long 
commanded the attention of farmers even in the 
north of France, but is now pretty generally 
cultivated there as a plant of acknowledged 
utility. : 
The varieties of the common ryegrass are 
numerous. A few produce a comparatively 
small quantity of root-leaves and a comparatively 
large number of culms, and usually flower and 
seed and perish in their second year, and are 
popularly termed annual ryegrasses ; and the rest 
produce a comparatively large quantity of root- 
leaves and a comparatively small number of 
culms, and originally possessed, or have been gen- 
erally believed to possess, a constitutional capa- 
city of maintaining themselves through a series 
of years, and are popularly termed perennial rye- 
grasses. But the so-called annual sorts are sel- 
dom less than biennial, and may sometimes, by 
good management and on good soils, be rendered 
triennial; while some of the most permanent of 
the perennial varieties, or such as are most capa- 
ble of reproducing themselves in their true or 
distinctive characters from seed, are reduced by 
unfavourable circumstances to a duration scarcely 
longer than that of some real annual plants; and 
others have been so changed in both characters 
and habits, by the influence of continual culture 
and of adverse soils, as to have lost almost all 
_ traces of the favourable properties by which they 
were originally distinguished. No means exist 
of distinguishing the annual or biennial kinds 
from the perennial ones by their seeds alone; 
and when farmers intend to have plants of more 
than biennial duration, and cannot rely on the 
characters of the crop whence they gather their 
seeds, they ought to refuse seeds from plants 
sown in the preceding year, and to save them 
RY EGRASS. 
only from vigorous, close, and freely - seeding 
plants of at least two years’ standing. 
The annual ryegrass is the only one of the 
biennial ryegrasses in ordinary cultivation. Its 
culms, besides being more numerous than those 
of the perennial varieties, are rather taller and 
have a smaller proportion of foliage. It has been 
commonly supposed, from the greater number 
and height of its culms, to yielda greater bulk 
of herbage in the first year than any of the 
perennial varieties, and therefore to be fitter for 
single crops of hay; but it makes a wirier and 
less palateable hay than these varieties, and is 
sadly deficient in bulk of root and of cauline foli- 
age, and really possesses no peculiar good property 
whatever except the doubtful one of yielding a 
comparatively large produce of seeds. Most or 
all of its bad properties, too, as well as its merely 
biennial duration, are liable to be shared by 
plants raised from the seeds of the first year’s 
crop of any reputedly perennial variety. 
Whitworth’s ryegrass, was introduced by G. 
Whitworth, Esq., of Acre House, in Lincolnshire, 
who, in 1823, had 60 varieties of ryegrass under 
experiment. It eminently possesses the proper- 
ties of both early and late growth; and has so 
remarkably fine foliage as to adapt it well for 
mixtures of lawn grasses; and is so very Viva-_ 
cious, or takes so enduring a hold of the soil, 
that two or three ploughings are requisite to 
prevent it from springing out of a broken up lea, 
and injuring a succeeding crop. | 
Pacey’s ryegrass occurs naturally in some rich 
meadow lands; and was introduced to notice by 
Mr. Pacey, a cultivator in the higher districts of 
Staffordshire; and was regarded by Sinclair as 
the most valuable of all the ryegrasses with 
which he was acquainted. Its root-leaves are 
numerous and large; its cauline leaves are long, 
yet have not so fine an appearance as those of 
Whitworth’s ryegrass; and its spikelets are 
shorter, and contain fewer seeds, than those of 
most other varieties. This ryegrass is well 
adapted both for pleasure-grounds and for per- 
manent pasture. 
The compound ryegrass, or broad-spiked rye- 
grass, occurs naturally among long under-grass, 
on rich soils, principally in cart-tracts and other 
partially beaten parts. It has a short broad 
spike, crowded at the top with spikelets——The 
Devonshire evergreen ryegrass, or Devon Evers, 
is remarkable for vigorously withstanding the 
severities of winter, and thence takes its name 
of evergreen; but does not yield so large a crop 
as some of the other varieties. 
Russell’s ryegrass was first cultivated by the 
late Mr. Holditch, Editor of the Farmer’s Jour- 
nal; and was named in honour of the Duke of 
Bedford, who pointed out, in a rich fen pasture, 
the plant whence the original seeds of it were 
obtained. It grows earlier in spring, remains 
later in autumn, has a much stronger habit 
of growth, and yields a greater bulk of pro- 
