Bid 
96 AGROSTIS. 
or nearly so to Ireland, while they are found in 
many parts of England,—it far excels them all, 
both in quantity of nutritious produce, and in 
adaptations for winter forage,—and it has vastly 
oftener been confounded with some one or other 
of them, or even with several of the still less 
valuable species which we have enumerated, par- 
ticularly with Agrostis alba, Agrostis palustris, 
and one of the varieties of Agrostis vulgaris, than 
distinguished from them and separately identi- 
fied. Can we wonder, then, that the most con- 
flicting and even contradictory opinions have 
been maintained respecting fiorin? The original 
eulogists of fiorin, too, promulged the praise of 
its good properties, before fair time had trans- 
pired for detecting and estimating its defects ; its 
subsequent eulogists have sometimes been hur- 
ried into superlatives by the excitement of con- 
troversy ; and not a few of its opponents have been 
indiscriminate and unmeasured in their denun- 
ciations, not alone from total mistake of the real 
plant, but probably from ‘prejudice against Ire- 
| land where its praises originated, and from low, 
| perhaps contemptuous, estimation of the general 
| agricultural status of its earlier eulogists. 
But 
this subject is at once so important in itself, so 
| interesting in agricultural experiment, so curious 
in some historical associations, and so complicated 
in the conflicts and antagonisms of opinion, that 
we must reserve a full notice of it for a separate 
| article under the word Frortrn, and conclude here 
with the general statement of one or two botani- 
cal and statistical facts. Agrostis stolonifera lati- 
folia occurs, in a natural state, only on rich old 
pasture land; Agrostis stolonifera angustifolia oc- 
curs in moist woods, and on damp, clayey soils; 
Agrostis stolonifera aristata occurs chiefly or solely 
on moors and boggy grounds ; Agrostis stolonifera 
sylvatica occurs only on light sandy soils, and 
particularly in places where these soils are 
shaded by wood; and Agrostis stolonifera palus- 
tris occurs chiefly, or almost wholly, in the bot- 
toms of ditches, and by the sides of rivulets. 
Hach variety, too, is so fond of its peculiar kind 
of habitat, that, when artificially treated, it will 
either pine away, or work itself into soil and cir- 
cumstances similar to those in which it is na- 
turally found. These remarkable differences of 
habit. and the no less remarkable differences in 
amount of nutritive produce, form better char- 
acteristics or distinctive marks of the varieties 
than any very observable differences in the struc- 
ture of the plants. Agrostis stolonifera latifolia 
flowers about the second or third week of July, 
and ripens about the second or third week of 
August ; and when grown upon peaty soil, it 
yields per acre when in flower 17,696} lbs. of 
green produce, 7,742 lbs. of dry produce, and 
9672 lbs. of nutritive matter, and when ripe 
19,0574 lbs. of green produce, 8,575? lbs. of dry 
produce, and 1,042} Ibs. of nutritive matter. 
The name agrostis is derived from a Greek 
word which signifies ‘a field,’ and it was used 
AILANTHUS. 
by the ancient Greeks as a general name for 
every kind of grass. The total number of spe- 
cies of true agrostis known to botanists is not 
fewer than about one hundred and ten. The 
species which we have noticcd, are selected and 
named according to Sinclair’s Hortus Gramineus 
Woburnensis ; but the species which figure in 
Loudon’s Encyclopeedia of Plants, as grown in 
England in 1829, are the silky, spica-vent,—the 
broad-leaved, retrofracta,—the sea-side, littoralis, 
=the fine, vulgaris,—the hispid, hispida,—the 
fiorin, stolonifera,— the marsh, a/ba,—the whorl- 
flowered, verticillata,—the wood, sylvatica,—and 
the reedy, calamagrostis; and the species, dried 
specimens of which are exhibited in the museum 
of the Highland and Agricultural Society of 
Scotland, are alba, calamagrostis, canina, capel- 
laris, dispar, rupestris, spica-ventd, stolonifera, and 
vulgaris. The spica-venti and verticillata are an- 
nuals; the stolonifera, alba, and littoralis, are 
creeping-rooted ; the retrofracta is a native of 
New Holland, and was introduced to Great Bri- 
tain in 1806; and the verticillata is a native of 
the south of Europe, and was introduced to 
Great Britain in 1800. In Italy and the south 
of France, the stolons of several species of agrostis 
are gathered by poor persons om the road-sides 
and along the foot of hedges, and sold in small 
bundles in the market places as provender for | 
horses. A tribe or family of grasses, in the mo- 
dern Jussieuan arrangement, takes the agrosizs 
for its type, and comprises the genera muhlen- 
bergia, cheturus, lagurus, polypogon, gastridium, 
agrostis, trichodium, tristegis, sporobulus, avropsis, 
cinna, spartina, psamma, crypsis, cornucopia, alo- 
pecurus, phleum, achnodonton, chilochloa, and 
phalaris.—Sincdair’s Hortus Gramineus Wobur- 
nensis—Sproules’ Treatise on Agriculture —Trans- 
actions of the Highland Society.—Doyle’s Practical 
Husbandry. — Richardson’s Essay on Iiorin.— 
Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Plants—Oatalogue of 
the Highland Society's Museum—Lawson’s Agri- 
culturist’s Manual. 
AHL. See Ligurip Manure. 
ATLANTHUS,—popularly 7vee of Heaven. A 
small genus of very elegant exotic trees, of the 
Turpentine family. Four species are known to 
botanists ; and two of these, the Chinese and the 
Indian, have been introduced to Great Britain. 
The Chinese species, Adgnthus glandulosa, is a 
remarkably beautiful ornamental tree, with one- 
leafed, five-parted, very small calyx,—acute, five- 
petaled, convolute corolla,—and a singularly ele- 
gant leaf, resembling that of the deciduous, pin- 
nate-leaved sumach. It is a native of China, 
and was but recently introduced to Great Bri- 
tain; yet is as hardy as any of our oldest or 
best known ornamental trees. It possesses sur- 
passing beauty of foliage; and though later in 
coming into leaf than almost any other hardy 
tree, it compensates this fault by its extraor-— 
dinary gracefulness. It grows rapidly, and at- 
tains a height of about fifty feet. It is easily 
