ON THE DURATION AND RELATIVE VALUE OF GRASSES AND OTHER PASTURE PLANTS. By Mr TAUNTON.

HAVING ENG lately revisited, after an absence of eight years, my experiment-ground and the meadows which I had laid down with selected grasses in the county of Surrey, and which were viewed by me in company with Mr George Sinclair of London in 1823, I will detail some of the observations which their present appearance suggests to me. I do this with the more pleasure, because, notwithstanding the inestimable work of that gentleman, I conceive that the notices we possess of the durability of different grasses in particular strata and soils, are still very imperfect, and therefore any slight accession to those notices may chance to be useful to the agriculturist, and may conduce to a more perfect natural history of certain species.

My principal experiment-ground was a close of five acres and a quarter, situate in the parish of Cheam in Surrey, about a quarter of a mile southward from the out-crop of the plastic clay, under which the chalk, and its superincumbent bed of greenish-grey siliceous sand, dip down. My field, therefore, consists of a subsoil of chalk, with a surface soil, varying in depth from six to eighteen inches, and consisting of a hazel-coloured siliceous loamy sand, mixed in a greater or less degree with calcareous matter, though in some parts the sand was more predominant than in others. I had manured it with a light dressing of clay, which had given it rather more strength and tenacity than it originally had, but it still must be classed as a rich light calcareous loamy sand. It was sufficiently rich and strong to bear excellent crops of wheat, barley, oats, rye, pease, beans, turnips, swedes, tares, clover, ryegrass, saint-foin, and nearly every crop which is usually introduced into the convertible husbandry of the south of England. At various periods, from 1820 to 1823, I had introduced into cultivation, in this close, various diadelphous and gramineous plants, which appeared to offer any probability of becoming useful for fodder. I cultivated these in separate beds, differing in size from a square yard to twenty rods in extent, in number between 300 and 400

species; and for several years I caused the seeds to be carefully collected, and kept the species as distinct as I could. Hoeing, however, was discontinued after my departure from that neighbourhood, and though, for many years, I forbade the ground to be depastured, yet the seeds which dropped were so generally blown and diffused over the whole field, that none of the beds now remain clean and unmixed, and the whole field is covered with a thick, close and productive turf, and apparently has now been so for several years. By far the greater number of the plants which I had cultivated there have wholly disappeared, but several still remain.

In the neighbouring parish of Sutton, I had made a plantation of walnut, elm, black Italian poplar, larch, Scotch, spruce and silver fir, on land of nearly a similar surface soil and subsoil to my first-mentioned experiment-ground, trenched three feet deep; and in the spaces between the trees, while they were young, I had cultivated in separate plots a large variety of I had also laid down to grass for permanent pasture grasses. about 120 acres of other chalk land, the surface soil of which was of various degrees of fertility, and, in different parts, contained various proportions of silex, argil, and calcareous matter. I shall therefore occasionally advert to these also, as well as to my experiment-ground.

For a narrow breadth extending along the line where the chalk dips down under the plastic clay and London blue clay, a deep loamy sand occurs, in which springs occasionally break out, caused by the overflowings of the water, which descending from the higher grounds, and percolating through the chalk, are probably penned up by some fault, and prevented from freely passing downwards below the clay, and therefore run over the edges of it. These springs are provincially called bourns, and rise almost periodically, and again, for intervals of several years, are nearly or quite dry. For the last three years these bourns have rendered a portion of the arable land adjoining to my own, useless for any kind of crops; the application of this peculiar spot of ground to a few particular grasses, deserves, therefore, a separate notice.

I had also several portions of land reclaimed within a few

years from commons, the subsoil of which is the London blue clay, but on the surface were a few inches of a lighter and more loamy earth of a dark colour, more resembling a moory soil, and consisting of a greater proportion of vegetable matter than is found in the subsoil. These, also, I had laid down to grass, and will notice some of the appearances which they exhibited after this interval of eight years.

I think that the facts which I am about to record will warrant me in deducing the following inferences. 1. Where I have found a plant continuing, after eight, ten, or twelve years, in the spot where I planted it, I may safely consider it as a true perennial. 2. I shall be safe in believing it to be not only a perennial, but a plant congenial to that particular sort of soil ; and therefore that if it be a valuable plant for fodder, it is a desirable seed to sow in laying down to permanent grass, soil of this particular description. 3. When plants which I left eight years since in a thriving condition, have wholly disappeared, there is reason to suspect either that the plant is not a true perennial, or that it does not suit the soil; whether one or both of these causes may have concurred to destroy and expel the species, it is not in my power to decide. The plants may have been exterminated by other causes. One, in particular, I will advert to in consequence of numerous engagements, in some years the crop was neither mowed nor depastured, and under these circumstances the more vigorous and bulky species overlaid and destroyed many component parts of the herbage, which in the years immediately preceding had been extremely plentiful. Other causes also may exist, which do not immediately occur

to me.

One of the most prominent facts which struck me, in my chalk soil, was the utter eradication of every variety of ryegrass or Lolium, of which I had sown several, loudly praised as true perennials; Ruck's, Pacey's, and several others, not only in beds, but more extensively in my field culture. I also observed the same in my deepest and richest loamy sand.

I do not, however, feel myself warranted to infer, that there is no species of ryegrass which is perennial in certain soils. On the contrary, my observation of some particular meadows and

pastures in different parts of the kingdom, induces me to believe that some varieties of Lolium are in some soils indigenous and permanent; but the experience I have above detailed, warrants me in dissuading from that profuse and promiscuous use of ryegrasses called perennial, which their cheapness and certainty of growing too much recommend in ordinary practice, unless by a previous experiment of several years it shall have been ascertained that the particular variety employed will prove permanent on that particular stratum and soil, which it is desired to convert to grass. The sowing of any annual, biennial, or triennial grass on land which has been carefully cleaned, pulverized, and manured, for the purpose of converting it to meadow, is an act of short-sighted and ruinous economy, and of the worst possible husbandry.

The Phleum pratense, which, on account of its cheapness as well as its valuable qualities, I had largely employed on all land which possessed any tolerable degree of fertility, has almost vanished, both from the chalk and rich loamy sand, and has wholly vanished from the poor calcareous heights. On the clay lands it was much diminished in size and height, but is still plentiful. Phleum nodosum, although a native of some of the barest of the chalk soils, has also disappeared from the experiment-ground, but I am induced to conjecture that the circumstance of its having been sown too thick in the experiment bed, may have caused the plants to kill each other, which I have observed takes place with respect to cocksfoot, Poa trivialis, and several other grasses. I observed with pleasure that the Phalaris arundinaceus, though the native of a moister and more argillaceous soil, held its station with nearly as much vigour as it ever had possessed in that upland situation; nor had it degenerated in the clay lands, where I had introduced it as a meadow grass. The foxtails, of which I had three species, the pratensis, the arundinaceus, and a German perennial blackseeded species called agrestis by Mr Anderson, but to which Mr Sinclair has given the name of Tauntoniensis, were, in this dry soil, the two first considerably weakened and scanty, and the last had almost, if not wholly, disappeared. The same three grasses, where they were mixed, in a meadow on the clay with a dark moory mould on the surface, had maintained their size,

bulk, and frequency, as well, or better, than any grass; and where, for the purpose of raising seed from them, I had sown them in rows on the deep loamy sand, where the springs rise, their produce was extremely luxuriant; insomuch that, in the present summer, though the ground had only been partially covered with them, so that a considerable part of it was comparatively unproductive, I sold the crop of it standing to be cut green, at 1s. per rod, or £8 an acre; and this, although no manure has ever been bestowed on that land since the foxtails were sown seven years ago, other than the irregular irrigation which it has obtained from the springs that rise there in winter. I find it difficult to determine which of these species affords the most bulky crop, for where they each partook of the benefit of the water, all were extremely copious. I think the Alopecurus arundinaceus was, if there were any difference, the most bulky. Our own Alopecurus pratensis, however, had most completely covered the ground, throughout that portion which was destined to it; but whether the cause was, that the other sorts had never been so accurately sown, or not so fully seeded, or had not come up so well as the meadow-foxtail, or whether a greater proportion of them had perished in the drier parts of the close, (the meadow-foxtail having obtained rather the moistest station of the three), I am unable to determine. One character, common to all these foxtails, attracted my attention, namely, that though they stood till late in the summer, not having been wholly cut till after the middle of July, and after all the seed had fully ripened, yet none of the radical leaves had decayed or withered, but all continued green, and the scythe easily swept close to the level of the ground; whereas, at the same season, a large proportion of the radical leaves of many of the other large grasses, such as the cocksfoot and tall fescues, were already withered and dead, presenting an obstacle to the scythe in cutting, and somewhat impairing the quality and colour of the hay made from them. I could not view even this imperfect essay, without reflecting to what a valuable purpose any tract of springy moist loamy sand, such as, under aration, is extremely troublesome to the cultivator, may be converted, by sowing it with a selection of grasses in which the foxtails should predominate.