for two, three, or seven years. It is sown in Italy, and especially in Lombardy, and also in France and Germany, along with clover, for the same purposes as in England; and, as Von Thaer has remarked, though some have tried other species, both in these countries and in England, they have in the end returned to the rye-grass. When intended as a pasture grass, if stocked hard, and when for hay, if mown early, the objections to it are removed. (Code of Agriculture.)

The Floating Fescue-grass (Festuca fluitans, Pl. 5, 1) is found in England in ditches, ponds, and swamps, and in most parts of the country, especially in Cambridgeshire, where it is said to give the peculiar flavour to Cottenham and Cheddar cheese.

It is greedily devoured by all kinds of stock, not excepting hogs and ducks, and geese eagerly devour the seeds, which are small, but very sweet and nourishing. They are collected in many parts of Germany and Poland under the name of manna-seeds (schwaden), and are esteemed a delicacy in soups and gruels. When ground to meal, they make bread very little inferior to that from wheat. Fish feed upon the seeds, and trout are said to thrive greatly in streams where this grass grows abundantly. Curtis justly remarks, that the flote fescue will not flourish except in land that is constantly under water, or converted into a bog or swamp. (Loudon's Ency. of Agr.)

The common Ray or Rye-grass (Lolium perenne), is said to be the first of the grasses cultivated in England, and even in Europe. According to Donaldson, the latest English writer upon grasses, it is still regarded as not far removed from being first in point of general utility. One of the species of Lolium, the temulentum, or bearded annual darnel, is sometimes mistaken for what is known in the United States by the names of Cheat or Chess, so often found among wheat and barley crops. See DARNEL. The varieties of the Lolium perenne are very numerous, and several improvements have been effected in England on the original plant, known under the names of Pacey's, Stickney's, and Russell's Ray-grasses, Pacey's and Russell's being considered the best. For more than a century and a half this grass has continued in high repute in England, both for the purpose of a single crop and for pastures, and now constitutes a part of all kinds of the improved mixtures. The modern objection to ray-grass is the shooting up to stems and culms, and the want of foliage, together with a deficiency of aftermath. "But," says Donaldson, "the first only happens in upland situations and on poor soils, where any other plant would have the same tendency; for on good soils ray-grass grows large, leafy, and succulent, and in many cases it affords as good lattermath as most others, and forms, when sown with clover, a very useful sward for several years. No plant is liable to greater The Water Meadow-grass (Poa aquatica, Pl. 5, variation from soil and situation, and hence m), is one of the largest of English grasses. may have arisen the many discordant opinions It is found chiefly in marshes, but will grow of its value; and from being sown singly with on strong clays, and yield, as the Woburn exclovers it has been more exposed to observa- periments prove, a prodigious produce. In the tion than any other grasses which are usually fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, &c., imsown in mixtures, and seldom tried singly for mense tracts, that used to be overflowed and one crop or for a longer duration. It has ac- to produce useless aquatic plants, and which, cordingly been much subjected to fancies and though drained by mills, still retain much conjectures, which are about equally divided moisture, are covered with this grass, which for and against the use of it, the former being not only affords rich pasturage in summer, but yet the most numerous. Coarseness is inferred forms the chief part of the winter fodder. It from the benty stalks standing uncropped; has a powerfully creeping root, and bears frethese might be kept under by early and closequent mowing well, sometimes being cut three grazing, and other grasses are equally objec-times in one season. It grows not only in very tionable on that point; and it produces stems moist ground, but in the water itself, and with during the whole season, while some grasses cat-tail, bur-weed, &c., soon fills up ditches, produce only one, and it is not yet known if and occasions them to require frequent cleansthe leaves or stalks of plants contain most nu-ing. In this respect it is a formidable plant, triment. So far as our knowledge extends, after all the investigations and best experience upon the subject, ray-grass forms the plant of all others the best suited for general purposes. For a crop of hay along with clovers, no other grass will afford an equal quantity and quality of produce on all the different variety of soils on which they are sown. It yields very readily, and with much less comparative trouble, an abundance of sound, healthy seed, and of certain growth; it rises early in the spring, and is much relished by all kinds of stock; the hay is good and fetches a high price, and it is used with much advantage when sown in autumn along with other plants as spring feed for sheep." (Donaldson, on Manures, Grasses, &c.)

After all the experiments that have been made on the other grasses, none, says Loudon, have been found to equal the perennial ryegrass for a course of mowing and pasturing

even in slow rivers. In the Isle of Ely they cleanse these by an instrument called a bear, which is an iron roller, with a number of pieces of iron, like small spades, fixed to it. This is drawn up and down the river by horses walking along the banks, and tears up the plants by the roots, which float and are carried down the stream.

The fiorin grass (Agrostis stolonifera, Pl. 5, n), is in England a very common grass, both in wet and dry, rich and poor situations. Few plants, however, appear to be more under the influence of local circumstances than this grass. On dry soils it is worthless, but on rich and moist soils, if we may attach confidence to the accounts given of its produce in Ireland, it is the most valuable of all herbage plants. (See AGROSTIS.) Though fiorin will, in England and Ireland, ripen its seeds on a dry soil, and these seeds being very small, a few pounds

would suffice for an acre, yet it is generally as wheat is to man. It hardly requires to be propagated by stolones, or root-shoots. The sown, as it springs up everywhere of itself. ground being previously prepared by plough- However, it may not be amiss to sow a few ing, harrowing, and laying into ridges, the pounds of it per acre, whenever perpetual passhoots are deposited, touching each other at the ture (not hay) is the object. ends, in drill rows an inch or two deep and about 6 or 9 inches apart. In 6 months, if the planting be performed early in spring, the whole surface will be covered with thick verdure, affording, by autumn, a heavy crop.

The fine bent (Agrostis vulgaris, see Pl. 6, d), is one of the most common grasses, and one of the earliest. See AGROSTIS VULGARIS.

The narrow-leaved meadow-grass (Poa angustifolia, see Pl. 6, e), though it flowers late, is reWith regard to the last described grasses, markable for the early growth of its leaves, Mr. Loudon gives it as his opinion, that neither which, according to the Woburn experiments, fiorin, timothy, or floating fescue, is ever likely attain to the length of more than 12 inches to be cultivated in Britain, though, he observes, before the middle of April, and are soft and the two latter may succeed well on the bogs succulent; in May, however, when the flowerand moist, rich soils of Ireland, where, to second stalks make their appearance, it is subject to the influence of the soil, there is a moist warm the disease termed rust, which affects the whole climate. In regard to the merits of timothy, plant, in consequence of which the produce of the reports of several high authorities, one of the crop is deficient at the time the seeds are which (Donaldson) we have just quoted, seem ripe. (See PoA ANGUSTIFOLIA.) This grass is to lead to a very different conclusion. The evidently most valuable for permanent pasobservation may be strictly applicable to fiorin | ture, for which, in consequence of its superior, and floating fescue, both in England and Ame- rapid, and early growth, and the disease beginrica, although there may be some localities inning at the straws, nature seems to have dethe United States into which one or other of these may be advantageously introduced.

signed it. The grasses which approach nearest to this in respect to early produce of leaves, are, the fertile meadow-grass, rough cock's-foot, timothy, meadow foxtail, avena elatior, and bromus

PASTURE GRASSES.—In regard to grasses for pasturage, the following selection is given by Loudon, as best adapted to three main pur-littoreus, all grasses of a coarser kind. poses; namely:

Late Pasture Grasses. Of these the principal

For early pasture on all soils, the sweet ver- are timothy, and the various kinds of bent or nal grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum), the sweet-agrostis. The grasses which are propagated scented soft-grass (Holcus odoratus), the downy oat-grass (Avena pubescens), and the annual meadow-grass (Poa annua).

For late pasture on all soils, the different species of Agrostis and Phleum.

For pasture on poor or secondary soils, the crested dog's-tail (Cynosurus cristatus), hard and sheep's fescue (F. duriuscula and ovina), Poa compressa, cristata, and angustifolia.

The grasses which, according to Loudon, afford most nutritive matter, in early spring, are the foxtail grass and the vernal grass.

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by stolones, like fiorin, and others of the same species, supply pasture throughout the year, the concrete sap laid up in the joints of their roots, rendering them good food even in winter.

Of Pasture grasses for inferior soils, one of the most durable is the dog's-tail grass (Cynosurus cristatus, see Pl. 6, ƒ), in England, a very common grass on dry, clayey or firm surfaces. In the United States it is either little known, or slightly estimated. The foliage is small and rather late in the spring. The wiry stems are refused The sweet-scented vernal grass (see Pl. 6, a), is by cattle, and become very unsightly, and from common in almost all English pastures, and is the smallness of produce, and the dense tufts that which gives the fragrance to natural or formed at the roots, it is unfit for alternate husmeadow hay. It is chiefly valuable as an early bandry. But for pastures, and for all permagrass; for, though it is eaten by stock, it doesnent purposes, if the land be of a dry and hard not appear to be much relished by them. It is said to thrive best in lands that are deep and moist, and even in peat bogs. Donaldson places it in the lower order of the better grasses. See ANTHOXANTHUM ODORATUM.

The downy oat-grass (see Pl. 6, b), according to the Woburn experiments, possesses several good qualities which recommend it to particular notice, as being hardy, early, and more productive than many others which affect similar soils and situations.

The annual meadow-grass (Poa annua, Pl. 6, c), is the most common of all grasses, being the first herbage with which nature covers the earth. The root is annual, and it is almost the only grass that will grow in towns, or near works where the smoke of coal abounds. Though an annual grass, it is found in most meadows and pastures perpetually flowering, and affording an early sweet herbage, relished by all stock, and of as great importance to birds

nature, and inferior in quality, and if sheep are to be fed upon it, this grass must form, according to Donaldson, a principal part of the mixture of seeds sown for that purpose. It is not at all adapted to low swampy situations, but on poor, dry clays, and gravelly soils, it often covers the ground and affords a bite where every other grass had nearly failed.

The hard fescue grass (Festuca duriuscula, see Pl. 6, g), is one of the best of the dwarf sorts of grasses, grateful to all kinds of cattle. It is, in England, present in most good meadows and pastures, and with the sheep's-fescue is the best for lawns.

The smooth fescue (F. glabra, see Pl. 6 h), and long-awned sheep's-fescue (F. hordeiformis, Pl. 6, i), greatly resemble the hard fescue, and may be considered equally desirable as pasture and lawn grasses.

The sheep's fescue (F. ovina, Pl. 6, k), is one of the principal pasture grasses for inferior

soils and upland situations, peculiarly adapted | longer than before, while little stump-like wings for hilly sheep pastures. It is a low dwarf grass, relished by all kinds of cattle.