2 parts Poa annua.—Our reasons for introducing this species are already detailed under that article;
its maintaining the roots of the other grasses in the soil during the bleak winds of spring,
preserving, by its foliage lying close upon the earth, some moisture during the exhalations
o f summer for its thirsty associates, and the excellent food it furnishes in the autumnal and
spring months, are qualifications that render the humble Poa annua a valuable introduction
into our upland pastures.
Meadows and low lands, with a deep or retentive soil, require a very different selection, nor can
we in those stations with much certainty point out the requisite quantity of each species, as various
degrees o f humidity and richness require various portions o f grasses, that the one by annual augmentation
should not predominate over its equally useful, but less flourishing associate; as many o f our
grasses in moist soils become stoloniferous, propagating more by suckers than by their seed, and Poa
pratensis and P. trivialis at times, when they enjoy their situations, will increase so as to diminish, and
finally to expel, their less stoloniferous neighbours. We resort much to our low lands for hay, and
after-provender for the larger cattle, and perhaps we cannot find better grasses for such purposes than
Poa pratensis, P. trivialis, Alopecurus pratensis, Dactylis glomerata, Phleum pratense, Holcus lanatus,
and Loliurn perenne: the six former of which luxuriate in moisture, and the latter improves in i t :
Dactylis is not a plant selected by cattle, but when sweetened by frost, it furnishes an abundant and
substantial food, and when the finer grasses become diminished, it forms a very useful associate with
the better herbage of the meadow. Festuca pratensis, when not too luxuriant, is an useful grass; but
it veiy often takes a deep hold in the soil, becoming rampant and coarse, and from the roughness of
its foliage is rejected by cattle: we have another excellent lowland grass, the Festuca loliacea, but at
present we know not how to introduce it j an offspring probably of Fest. pratensis and Lolium perenne;
it produces no fertile seed, and vegetates where nature, unaided by man, has willed its station_____
In the mountainous pastures of England, Scotland, and Wales, Agrostis stolonifera, A. vulgaris, and
their varieties, towards autumn, furnish a large portion of the feed produced on those altitudes,
throwing out abundance o f suckers, which are productive of an herbage in which cattle appear- to
delight, and in many o f our low lands these grasses are commonly to be found the spontaneous product
of nature, and not introduced by art; for by their producing little or no seed, the power o f encouraging
their race, so as to repay the trouble, is perhaps denied to the industry o f man. Future observation
and experiment may possibly augment the number o f our grasses fitting for animal pasturage,
but it is probable that at present, for that purpose, we are not obviously benefited by more than twenty
species; some are serviceable in various branches o f rural economy, and others, by the slow operations
of time, prepare an useless and sterile soil for the reception of a valuable vegetation, and many spring
up, flourish, and decay, of whose utility we are inattentive and ignorant; we wait not their arrival
with anxiety, nor do we sorrow at the season of their departure.