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AN

ESSAY f.
AGRICULTURE;

CONTAINING

AN INTRODUCTION, IN WHICH THE SCIENCE OF
AGRICULTURE IS POINTED OUT, BY A CAREFUL
ATTENTION TO THE WORKS OF NATURE;

ALSO,

THE MEANS OF RENDERING BARREN SOILS
LUXURIANTLY PRODUCTIVE, AT A VERY
MODERATE EXPENSE, AND OF BENEFICI-
ALLY EMPLOYING THE INDUSTRIOUS AND
UN-OCCUPIED POOR.

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

A MEMOTR,

DRAWN UP, AT THE EXPRESS DESIRE OF
HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS THE

ARCH-DUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA,

ON THE NATURE AND NUTRITIVE QUALITIES OF

FIORIN GRASS,

WITH PRACTICAL REMARKS ON ITS ABUNDANT
PROPERTIES, AND THE BEST MODE OF CULTI-
~ VATING THAT EXTRAORDINARY VEGETABLE,

By WILLIAM RICHARDSON, D.D.

Hondo ;

PRINTED FOR WHITMORE AND FENN,
CHARING CROSS.

1818.

B. R. Howle

Smee, OG

tt, Printer, 10, Frith Street, Soho.

Poeernok READER,

THE Publishers deem it necessary to premise, that this
Essay was printed and sent to the Board of Agriculture,
to compete for the Premium of £100, offered by the Board
to be adjudged to the Author of the most approved Paper
on the following subject, viz. :—<‘‘ On the best means of em-
ploying the industrious and unoccupied poor ;’ and the —
Author was included among the successful candidates on
that occasion, whose merits appeared to the Board so
equally balanced, that the Premium was ordered to be
divided in equal proportions among them; but an objec-
tion was afterwards started, and proved fatal, that its being
already printed, rendered it ineligible to compete for the
Prize ; but as its failure was solely to be attributed to this
circumstance, the Board to mark their approbation of its
merits, unanimously voted Dr, Richardson the Honorary
Medal. |

Mr. Curwen, in his recent publication, ‘‘ On the State
of Ireland,” thus expresses himself:—‘ The planting of
Fiorin must be a wise measure, as it brings surfaces which
before were wholly unproductive, on a par with soils of
infinitely superior quality in their neighbourhood; and
when the immence number of such boggy acres in Ireland
are taken into consideration; the benefit which may be
derived by the cultivation of Fiorin on them, becomes a
most important object, and entitles Dr. Richardson to the
thanks of his country.” Vol. 2, p. 321. |

1V

You were so good as to return my visit,
and to report most favourably of my exer-
tions in the agricultural department I had
selected for myself; and now when informed
of my intention to publish this Essay, you
kindly contributed your powerful assistance,
furnishing me with important topics, which
unfortunately, came too late for me to avail
myself of them in this publication, already
gone to London; but I shall take the liberty
here of making some observations upon
them. |

Our ideas in general coincide, and our
objects are the same, though our modes of
pursuing them may be different, and mine
rather novel. A variation in the measures to
be adopted for the attainment of the same
ends, may be a valuable acquisition ; as where
change of circumstances make certain mea-
sures inapplicable, it must be of great im-
portance to have others in reserve which may
supply their place.

We have, no doubt, an immense popula-
tion to maintain, a large portion of which
does not co-operate directly to their own sup-
port; and we know well, that the grain im-
ported in the years antecedent to a late mo-

V

mentary redundance, cost the nation above
forty millions. |

To stop this ruinous expenditure, and to
provide food for an increasing population, 1s
a problem of vital importance, and happy
shall we be, if in the solution of it, we find
employment for the industrious and unoccu-
pred poor.

You carry your speculations still further,
and ‘“ hope to see us become growers of
grain, and instead of supplying Europe with
manufactures, furnishing it with food :” and
you say, “* you do not know to what extent
grain might not be multiplied, by the appli-
cation of capital to agriculture.”

I know not any person so well qualified to
pronounce upon this subject as you are ;—of
long experience—acute penetration—and ex-
tensive practice on every scale. Who can
so well judge of the value of capital, in a line
which you.have so long pursued with the
greatest zeal, and for your success in which
you have obtained the highest applause?

Nor are you to suppose I entertain a dif-
ferent opinion from you on the subject of
capital, when I tell you, that in the following
Essay, I in no one instance call for capital to

V1

aid me in carrying on the measures I suggest :
all tending directly, or wndirectly to our com-
mon and grand object ;—the increase of food
for our increasing population, or its domestic
animals ;—and this by the aid of the zndus-
trious and unoccupied poor.

Capital is possessed by few; and it is by
the aid of numbers the greatest measures are
most successfully carried. Instead, therefore,
of calling upon capitalists, I endeavour to
rouse into action, the mass of proprietors,
interested in the fields upon the improvement
of which I call for their exertions.

I have no rivalry with capitalists, nor the
other skilful agriculturists, now in possession
of the rich cultivated area, so extensively
spread over our islands ;—I meddle with none
of it;—I leave it with confidence in these
able hands, and trust that by attention to the
suggestions and examples of Mr. CurweEn,
and such wise speculators, and ‘skilful prac-
tioners, we shall see that area improved and
extended, as far as ingenuity and merit, aided
by capital, can enable it to reach.

I request to be considered only as an hum-
ble coadjutor, labouring to increase our stock
of animal and vegetable food from a different

Vil

and new area, and by novel measures, untried
by preceding improvers.

You complain to me, that part of your
field is employed in a manner you do not hike,
and lament that “ that some of your land of
the best quality is applied to pasture ;” and by
skilful calculation, compute the quantities of
animal and vegetable food, raised from equal
areas, by pasture, and by your favourite mea-
sure of house sozling.

You know that in this latter measure | am
a ‘powerful coadjutor;— you asked me, at
Workington, if I could assist you with soz,
in the critical interval between the end of the
clover crops, and the coming in of turnips,
when you were distressed for food for your
house cattle ; and you know I showed you in
that very period, on my own meadows, and on
those of other friends, a fleece of grass far
superior to your best clover crops; and my
friend, Sir James Stewart, has found by ac-
curate experiments, that his forzn meadows
at Coltness, yield him a far greater quantity
of vegetable food, than his best turnip crops.

You cannot reconcile yourself to the ap-
plication of so much good ground to pasture,
and you assert, “ the whole cattle of England

Vil

might be maintained on one third the land
applied to that purpose.” Surely you will
acknowledge me as your coadjutor, when you
find that much of my speculations are em-
ployed in creating new pastures, by which
the agriculturist will be greatly relieved from
the load of cattle that you complain of.

You also suggest a mode of increasing our
supply of animal food, (the improvement of
our fisheries) which, as you say, “‘ would free
‘some of the lands of the best quality now
applied to pasture.”—Will you not be grati-
fied to see these lands restored to the agricul-
turist, when I find beyond your territories,
abundant pasture for these same cattle, as
you will soon see I do?

You call your favourite system of soiling to
your assistance, in recovering some of the
lands which ought to be applied to tillage ;
you say, “ you calculate, you can rear and
fatten a beast of sixty stone, on the produce
of two acres ;—probably six acres of pasture
would not supply an equal quantity ;” and
you sustain your positions by fair deductions
from data, with which you are well acquainted.

As your coadjutor, I hope, in many instan-
ces, to recover even these two acres for you,

1X

as the new grounds I mean to bring into pro-
fit, which the agriculturist would not deign
to expend labour upon; will, I hop., afford
not only pasture, but winter food for fattening
cattle; not indeed for beasts of savty stone,
but I answer for cattle of forty stone, and
to the full as good animal food for every pur-
pose, but exportation.

You say, “ Nothing short of a miracle can
stop the population of Ireland ;’ I admit our
population has, been long increasing with
alarming rapidity ; your increase in England,
even during a bloody war, has been very for-
midable ; but the question, whether it would
be possible, and prudent, to arrest the progress
of this population, is not the one immedi-
ately before us ;—admitting it to be decided
in the affirmative, I much doubt our powers
of interfering successfully ; the measures that
have already been suggested for the purpose,
are most of them weak; some of them have
been pronounced wicked, and I fear all in-
applicable. |

We are not now to trouble ourselves with
such speculations; let us exert ourselves to
raise food and find employment for our

D4

population, whatever it may be, permitte
Divis cetera, and shall our exertions produce
a redundance, we have a sure resource in ex-
portation, to which you, yourself, already
look forward with an anxious eye.

I am, Sir,
Your sincere friend,
and humble servant,

W. RICHARDSON, D.D.

ESSAY

ON

AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE.

I HAVE often lamented, that Agriculture, far from being
considered as a science, and treated as such, was reduced
merely to a measure of practice, and left in the hands of
persons little qualified to advance the theoretical know-
ledge of this useful branch of learning, and little disposed
to improve its practice, by changing the usages to which
they were most obstinately attached, or even to admit that
their practices were capable of receiving improvement.

This earliest, and most necessary of all sciences, ought,
as I think, to be considered as consisting of three separate
departments, distinct from each other; the THEORETICAL,
—the EXPERIMENTAL,—and the PRACTICAL.

The First, and Second, are at present quite absorbed
by the Third, without any prospect of emerging in their
proper and distinct characters.

I shall endeavour to describe the qualities which I con-
ceive the dormant personages representing these several
departments ought to possess, and their respective offices.

The THEORIST should be well acquainted with natural
history in general, as well as with that of the several vege-

B

2

tables we are used to cultivate for our own consumption, or
that of our domestic animals ; their habits, their properties,
their seasons of attaining perfection. He watches the
progress of Nature with attention, and combines his gene-
ral observations with those he has made on the particula-
rities of each separate vegetable, and then speculates
on the modes of culture best suited to them, and
the soils best adapted to them, and likely to make them
brmg forward their produce in the greatest abundance,
and highest perfection.

Are the suggestions of the theorist to be immediately
adopted, and carried into practice? By no means—they
must undergo the test of experiment;—here the second
department of the Agricultural School, as arranged by me,
opens, and a new personage is introduced.

The EXPERIMENTALIST should be careful, patient, and
diligent, without prejudices, or even opinions on the
subjects before him; he is to make his experiments on the
very smallest scale, so that he can diversify them without
expence, and without having any interest in their success:
—failure is to him exactly the same thing, as information
is his sole object.

This personage adopts the ideas, and if you please the
whims of the theorist, which he is not to presume to call
Utopian :-—he gives them a fair and patient trial under dif-
ferent circumstances, and onasmall scale ; shouldhe discover
any thing in the slightest degree promising, he repeats, and
varies his experiments until he satisfies himself, either that
the measure is a vain one, or that it deserves attention ; in
this latter case, the experimentalist makes his report to the
agriculturists, recommends to them to try the measure on
a larger scale, and in actual practice.

Even expence, ultimately so important, is not in an early
stage to stop proceedings; for the object immediately

3

before the school is to devise, by what means the vegetable
in their hands can be brought to the highest degree of
perfection and utility: the question of expence comes
next; this, on his diminutive scale, is nothing to the
experimentalist,—but should it threaten to be weighty,
the ingenuity of all parties is now to be exerted, to find
succedanea; anda knowledge of the subject being acquired,
measures may be devised, which will attain the object by —
more accessible means.

The third character in the drama is the PRACTICAL
AGRICULTURIST, of whom I complain that he has taken
upon himself the whole three characters 1 mentioned: he
treats the theorist with supercilious contempt, as presuming
to obtrude his wild speculations into a department of which
he considers himself as complete master.

Hence improvements are discouraged, and discoveries
that might have proved useful, are nipped in the bud.

The second character I wish to introduce, does not yet
exist; whence it comes, that discoveries which have been
forced into attention, rarely meet with a fair trial; they
are encountered by the practical farmer with prejudice,
and even with jealousy. ‘They are considered as obtru-
sions; and treated as uninvited, unwelcome strangers.

Sometimes, indeed, the practical farmer persuades him-
self, that he has assumed the character of the experimen-
talist, and tells us he has made the experiment ;—that is,
he has cultivated a field in a particular way: but it is not
from solitary trials on a great scale, that information is to
be obtained; experiments lead us to knowledge by compa-
rison ; they should be multiplied and diversified.

Hence agriculture, as a science, is at a stand :—the
present possessor of the field, perfectly satisfied with his
own attainments, and in high admiration of his own

|
Y
4

4

practices, (often very good) does not admit improvement to
be necessary, and indignantly rejects any innovation.

He is encouraged in his contempt for theoretical spe-
culations, by the ridicule which a witty author throws on
the agricultural projectors of his day.

It is just a century since SwiFT made a bitter attack on
the Royau Socigry, which he describes, “ as a Set of
Prajectors lately incorporated by Royal Patent.”

It is not for me to defend this respectable body : a century
has intervened since this wanton attack was made upon
them, and their merits or demerits are best appreciated
by their intermediate proceedings and transactions.

My object in referring to the passage in SwirFt’s
LAPUTA, is to throw light on the arrangement I have
made in the agricultural science, and to afford proof of its
propriety.

SWIFT says, “ the professors contrive new rules and
methods of agriculture—new instruments and tools ; all the
fruits of the earth shall come to maturity, at whatever
season we think fit to chouse, and increase an hundred fold
more than they do at present.”

He states, “ the result of all this to be, that none of
these projects are yet brought to perfection, and in the
mean time the whole country lies miserably wasted, by all
which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times
more bent on prosecuting their schemes.”

Admitting this to be a fair account of the facts in Swift's
day, (which I much doubt) the picture he draws is a neces-
sary result of his own statements, from which we can infer,
—That in his time projectors were wild and speculative,
practical agriculturists not quite so averse from imnova-
tions as at present, but equally tenacious of their shes
when once adopted.

% 5

The whole mischief (admitting it to have existed) obvi-
ously arose from Swift's having omitted a personage in
the agricultural drama; forming a coalition between the
wild theorist and the positive practical farmer ; omitting
the intermediate personage, the experimentalist, who
would have protected them both from mischief; suppressing
the extravagancies of the projecfor, and paying every at-
tention to his suggestions that bore the test of experiment ;
and suffering nothing to pass into practice, which did not
afford a reasonable prospect of advancing the agricultural
science, and multiplying the benefits derived from it.

Let us try two or three agricultural questions, by the
test of the arrangement I have suggested, and we shall
see what progress the science has made without them, and
to what state it probably would have advanced, had they
been adopted.

Fcommence with the Gramina, my own immediate de-
partment. The importance of grassy produce to the agri-
culturist is obvious: his summer pasture, and winter
provision for his cattle, are derived from the Gramina ;—
for the latter, HAY is his grand resource.

NATURE has been very liberal to usin this department,
and has given us, as my friend Sir HumpHry Davy
states, 215 varieties of grass, of which he complains, prac-
tical agriculturists sow but two, rye-grass and cock’s-foot ;
the latter too is of very recent introduction, and first re-
commended to the world by myself.

The seedsmen, indeed, who have the commodity for
sale, are very ready to recommend certain varieties of
grass, and to state the proportions in which their seed
ought to be mixed.

I have on former occasions (and have not yet done)
exposed the consummate ignorance, and mischievous dis-
honesty of these charlatans.

6

We have Sir Humphry Davy’s high authority for the
wretched progress this important branch of agriculture
has made. Let us then suppose it to be taken out of the
possession of mercenary seedsmen and opinionated far-
mers, and placed in the hands of the agricultural school, ar-
ranged as I have supposed, and we may easily foretell the
result.

The THEORIST takes up the question a@ priori, and
inquires what are the uses to which the gramina are
applied ? and then, with a reference to these uses, what are
the qualities, or properties that should make a grass
valuable? Hesoon finds three are predominant, earliness,
luxuriance, and quick powers of reproduction when
mowed or eaten down.

The theorist now hands over the question to the ex-
perimentalist, and desires him to find out by numerous
experiments, what varieties possess these properties in
the highest degree, that they may be recommended to the
practical farmer.

Sir H. Davy now steps in to aid both: he states, a priori,
another most valuable property of grass, the quantity of
nutritive matter produced by a given portion of each, and,
availing himself of his exquisite chemical skill, he makes
the experiments himself, and gives the valuable result
to the world.

I know not any question in Rural practice that more
requires the interference of the scientific theorist than the
proper period for mowing, nor any point upon which the
practical farmer is more ignorant or more opinionated. He
prides himself on having saved his hay before others, and
boasts of its fragrance and tea-like verdure. -

The THEORIST acquainted with natural history would
have told him, that the juices of all vegetables attain their

a

greatest perfection in their inflorescence,—that it is at this
period alone, all extracts from vegetable substances are
taken; and as in the case of hay the whole vegetable is
preserved, it is of great importance that it should be mowed
in its highest state of perfection, that is, when the pre-
dominant varieties of grass are in flower.

The practical farmer knows nothing of all this. He has
his own rules for deciding on maturity, and generally cuts
his crop, before either the cock’s foot or the rye grass (the
two earliest of our predominant grasses) are in flower.

I sometimes feel an ill-natured pleasure, when I see the
trampcocks of these early gentry collapse considerably for
want of substance, giving evidence of premature mowing,
and establishing the inferiority of the hay.

Here the experimentalist would be useful, by enabling
us to compare portions of hay from the same crop, cut
at different periods ;—even the farmer himself, would he
condescend to doubt, might soon satisfy himself, by leaving
the amount of a trampcock uncut for one, two, or perhaps
three weeks later than the rest, he would probably find
his hay firmer and better ; he is certain, also, the quantity
is somewhat increased.

Were the arrangement I recommend adopted, many
agricultural questions of much importance would receive
speedy solutions.—That of the proper seasons for sow-
ing our several grains has been much agitated.

Upon this question the theorist would pronounce gene-
rally, that agricultural policy directed the season for
sowing each vegetable to be so chosen, that it might remain
above ground in the very best portion of the year, neither
exposed unnecessarily to late frosts in its tender state,
nor to premature winter severities when ripening its seed. |

Hence the season for sowing each vegetable, should be

8

determined by the interval between the seed and the
sickle, which nature has assigned to each species, corre-
sponding with the period of gestation in animals, and unal-
terably fixed at the time of their original formation. Upon
this principle it is obvious, that the vegetables of slowest
growth should be sown first, while those of quicker progress
should be delayed longer.

The question has now reached the experimentalist, who
will probably sow many varieties in distinct plots on the
same day, and by accurately observing their times of
ripening, will make himself acquainted with their respective
periods. |

What [ recommend here as experiment, is the actual
practice in EcyprT, where they sow all their grains, of
whatsoever species, on the same day, that is, the first
moment the retreat of the NILE gives them access to
their land, just relieved from its annual inundation.

We have scriptural authority for the result, marking the
progress each separate grain has made in the same time.

Mosss tells us, that at the time of a particular event,
‘the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled, but
the wheat and the rye were not grown up.”

The experimentalist will now diversify his trials, and by
sowing the same grain at different times, i many small
plots, he will soon be able to determine how far, for the
security of the young tendril, he can delay sowing, without
throwing the mature plant into a season unfit for ripening
its seed.

It has been made a question, whether in selecting our
corn for seed, we should choose our weightiest pickle, or
whether the smaller and lighter might not answer just as
well; in other words, from which side of our winnowing
heap are we to take our seed—the windward, or the lee-

9

ward? The fuller, plumper, and larger grain, will not
cover so much ground as the smaller, and is also of higher
price ; hence by sowing the smaller and lighter grain, we
should save considerably ; and Sir JoserH BANKs is of
opinion we may safely take our seed from the leeward side
of the heap.

Were the question brought before the agricultural school,
arranged as I suppose,—the theorist would tell us, that the
farina constitutes the whole value of the corn; that this
portion of the vegetable forms no part of its organic con-
struction, has no connexion with the vital principle of the
germ, but is merely a mass of unorganized matter, pro-
vided by nature for the sustenance of ‘the nascent plant,
until by its roots it can extract food for itself; that the
farina in vegetables, corresponds with the yolk of the egg
im oviparous animals.

Now we observe that in every thing connected with the
preservation of species, nature is not only liberal, but ge-
nerally profuse, and (no doubt to provide against difficul-
ties,) often redundant :—besides, the provision was made
when the vegetable tribe was left to propagate itself, with-
out any of the facilities devised by man, which he now
gives to assist vegetation, and increase produce.

More farina, it is obvious, would be required under the
hardships of a state of nature; and a greater quantity
wilt be formed under cultivation, as animals fostered by
man acquire a degree of obesity, which they never reach
in a state of nature; thus it appears the quantity of
farina is increased, and the expenditure of it diminished;
of course it is highly probable, we may with safety avail
ourselves ef the redundance, that is, sow the lighter, and
consume the weightier grain.

‘The question is now brought before the experamentalist,

10

and. one of the lightest he has to encounter: he need only
sow a few small plots with seeds taken from the opposite
side of the winnowing heap ; and by a careful comparative
view of the crops when ripe, he will be able to pronounce
upon the safety of the measure, and by attention he will
soon discover what he will gain by pursuing it. -

The preservation of the vigour of our soils, and the
reparation of the waste they sustain by our perpetual call
upon them for crops, and consequent loosening of their
texture by over-frequent cultivation, is a subject of vast
importance, and has already excited much attention.

The mechanical mode is simple; to renovate and con-
solidate our harassed and open soils by mixtures of firmer
materials ; that is, compost formed of strong earth, or pure
clay, well attenuated: but in loose, light, and sandy
ground, such consolidating materials are rarely found ;
the agriculturist is therefore thrown upon his own inge-
nuity; and 1 know not any instance in which it has been
more successfully exerted.

He has found, that by alternating what are known to be
exhausting crops, with those that are deemed to be melio-
rating,—culmiferous, with root crops—farmaceous, with
green crops—he has brought his ground to bear more con-
stant pressure than it was supposed capable of sustaining ;
still the exhaustion, though much abated, is evidently per-
ceivable, and the Norrouk farmers complain their
grounds are TIRING of their favourite turnip.

Mr. Greece, now become very eminent as a practical
agriculturist, admits rest to be indispensably necessary,
and recommends two successive crops of grass.

To make that rest as effective as possible, let us specu-
late a priori—Which are the grass crops that exhaust the

Bt

ground least ?—which are those that will consolidate, and
renovate it most effectually, and which, during the period
of rest, will yield the greatest produce?

It is in adversity, when the vegetables he is cultivating
are attacked by various disorders, that the agriculturist
will find the benefit of the arrangement I have suggested,
as it will enable him to meet with strength, and I may say,
discipline, the difficulties he will have to encounter.

That the vegetables we cultivate should be subject to

disorders, is to be expected; since it appears, that not a
single one of them is a native of the climate to which we
have introduced them, all transplanted from regions more
favoured by nature, habituated to a warmer, and generally
a drier atmosphere.

Thus then as the strangers we have transferred to our
ungenial climate, have acquired disorders from which they
were probably exempt im their own milder regions, it be-
comes the duty of the naturalist, that is, according to my
arrangement, the theorist, to investigate the causes of
these disorders, and to exert his ingenuity in devising
remedies, to which the experimentalist is to give a fair
trial on a small scale.

Many of these disorders, I apprehend, will be found to
arise from parasitic plants attaching themselves to the
one we foster, and intercepting its nourishment; others, I
know, will be found to proceed from myriads of microsco-
pic animals invading our plant, and forming their nidus in
the most delicate and important parts of its structure ;
destroying its germ, or consuming and spoiling its farina.

Here the theorist will advise various alterations in the
culture of the vegetable, and in the periods of sowing the
seed ; trying if he can discover what will be unfavourable

_to the invader, without injuring his grain. -

12

Where the enemy is an animal ;—as we have good reason
to believe every animal (at least insect) has its own poison,
the theorist, by diversifying the experiments he orders, may
be fortunate enough to discover what will be injurious to
the hostile insect.

Some of these are known to us, and (like the FLY so
mischievous to our turnips) provoke the attack :—the
slug, and cutworm, I find formidable enemies to our young
mangel wurzel, and often oblige me to repair their depre-
dations by new plants, and, as the season advances, to fill
up the vacancies they have occasioned, by a quicker-grow-
ing vegetable, requiring the very same culture, — the
potato. |

That new enemies are pouring in upon us from the
animal kingdom, is a fact too well known. Mr. CLERK
thinks the mosquito, the torment of the inhabitants of tro-
pical climates, is advaneing on our more temperate re-
gions. The cyder counties in England are alarmed by
the invasion of new animalcule, hostile to their apple-
trees; and the peach, for a century the luxury of Sr.
HELENA, which had proved a favourite soil and climate
for that most delicious fruit, has been nearly exterminated
in that island, by an insect imported from the Cape of
Good Hope with the Constantia grape, but which seems
to have considered the peach-tree as a more appropriate
nidus ;—the lamentations of the inhabitants on this unex-
pected calamity, are pitiable.

The most formidable of the disorders by which our
crops are injured, and for which the most numerous reme-
dies have been suggested, seems to be the SMUT in wheat ;
this too I suspect to arise from the depredations of ani-
malcule. The weight of the mischief requires unremitted
exertions, and the steady co-operation of the theorist and

13

experimentalist : the former will suggest whatever occurs
to himself, and he will make a list of the nostrums already
recommended in our agricultural papers, even by the
Grub-street gentry, who are very ready to obtrude them,
as if they themselves, IN THEIR AGRICULTURAL PRAC-
TICE, had tried them with success: any number of these
experiments may be made on one ridge in a wheat field,
without in the least disturbing the farmer in his process.

Steeping the seed in various strong mixtures has been
often recommended, and is said to have succeeded. No
doubt this is commencing very early ; and the expectations
are sanguine, that look, from medicating the seed, to affect
the new germ nine months afterwards: still, however, the
trial is easy, and the experimentalist is not allowed to pre-
judge questions; but he should be most careful to mark
the plots where his steeped seed is sown, to distinguish
them from those where his plain wheat is sown.

Until some nostrum shall be discovered injurious to the
enemy, let us try if by any variation in our present prac-
tice, we can strike out some process injurious to the in-
vader, but inoffensive to our grain, and not affecting its
produce.

We have many varieties of wheat, bearded, smooth, &c.:
the experimentalist is to discover which of these is least
liable to be affected by blight or smut; and having ascer-
tained the proportions of their produce, he is then to
decide, whether security from these disorders will be suf-
ficient to compensate for some diminution of produce,
admitting such to be the case with the new-chosen grain.

Wueats have different periods of attaining their matu-
rity: what the French call March wheat, is of quick growth,
and is sown with us in February, on account of our more
languid climate; or if our own earliest wheats were sown at
later periods than usual, it is possible they may not afford

14

so good a nidus to the parasitic fungus, which my friend
Sir JosepH BANKS has discovered to be the cause of
blight, or to the animal or vegetable that produces the
smut in our wheats, cultivated in the common way.

Among my earliest recollections, I remember the
Christmas dark of the moon to be pronounced the best
time for sowing wheat: I suspect my northern’ friends
could not have justified their practice by sufficient reasons ;
but the experimentalist has nothing to do with reasons a
priort; he has only to diversify his trials, and to report
results.

I should be happy to see an intelligent agriculturist,
when preparing a field of wheat, regulating the great mass
of his practice by the common and safe rules, but dedicating
one ridge to a variety of experiments suggested by his own
good sense :-—-the expence would be nothing ; the requisite
attention from himself in many cases an acquisition ; the
scanty produce of his diversified ridge might be used in
domestic consumption, so as not to create any mixture in
the main body of his crop, whether intended for sale
or seed.

Of all the grains we cultivate, wheat is the slowest in
) growth; whence, in order to bring its crop to maturity in
an early season, in our languid climate, we are obliged to
borrow from the preceding year, and sow late in autumn,
and have thus a considerable period in which we may try
experiments.

OATS, too, may be sown in the preceding year, and the
speculation is plausible :—I have tried it more than once;
the appearance was promising, but the birds, very nume-
rous in this country, devoured my crop as soon as it co-
loured. Whoever wishes to try this experiment, should
select the slowest growing variety of oats; and 1 recom-

15

mend for trial that species which produces its grain on
one side like a feather: it is very late in ripening, likes
a strong cold clay, and never shakes with wind.

The oat tribe seems more diversified than any other spe-
cies of our grain, and, as it forms an important part of the
food of the lower orders in many parts of the United King-
dom, well deserves the attention of the agricultural school.

A vegetable remains, probably of more value to man,
than any other with which he has yet formed an acquaint-
ance—I mean the potato:—the use of this excellent
root is more extended than that of any other plant we cul-
tivate: for, it not only affords a pleasant and nourishing
food to man, and in treble the quantity he can obtain from
any other vegetable he cultivates on the same area, but is
equally well adapted to the sustenance of every domestic
animal we keep, either for our own food, or for labour.

The field too, in which the potato may be cultivated, is
more widely extended than that we deem adapted to our
other favourite vegetables: every soil suits it, and we see
it ascend to very considerable elevations, and we find it
productive on our very wettest bogs, when sufficiently
drained.

To the agriculturist, the potato is of the utmost con-
sequence; for it is a meliorating crop, renovating and re-
freshing his exhausted ground, and effectually preparing it
for whatever other crops he chooses it to be succeeded by.

To the naturalist, the potato is a curious subject for
his attention. This vegetable has two distinct modes of
propagation, by the root and by the seed: the former gives
us an abundant crop of excellent food, while the latter,
like the stones and seeds cf our fruit-trees, gives. us
varieties, sometimes new, which never had been noticed
before. |

16

When we look to the potato, with respect to political
economy, it will probably be found of more importance
than in any other point of view I have considered it ; for,
as this root is good food, both for man and his domestic
animals, it is plain, that by speculating on it steadily, and
more extensively as a food for the latter, we secure a
resource for ourselves on a failure of our grain crops.

The most valuable property of the potato, is probably
the facility of its culture on coarse grounds, hitherto un-
touched by man, which are thus brought within the agri-
cultural pale, and in perfect preparation for other crops.
How many hundred, I might say thousand acres, of ScROGG,
have vanished from the face of my country in my own
time ; by scrogg, I mean tracts covered with stunted
bushes, marks of ancient woods, once occupying these
grounds, which have never since been broken up. The
labour of preparing such stubborn soils for grain crops,
would be very severe, and the return intolerably slow ;
but the labour expended in May, and even JUNE, in the
culture of the potato on these wilds, is abundantly repaid
in November. |

Barren peaty heaths and mountain skirts are rapidly
vanishing before the spade of the potato-grower, yield-
ing him most valuable crops of the food he is chiefly sus-
tained by. Deprive us of the potato, and see what a
tedious and expensive process would be required to
prepare the same ground for any farinaceous crop.

The consequence of the potato, in a national point of
view, how appears; it is the grand instrument for the fur-
ther improvement of our islands. IRELAND shows, that
by the aid of the potato, the spade of the peasant out-
strips the efforts of wealth, and advances tillage to scenes
which the powers of man could not have reached without
the aid of this valuable root. The plough, we are told,

17

has not yet touched one half of the English area: with the
potato for its precursor, how rapidly would the plough
follow ?

I have dwelled so long upon the excellencies of this ac-
commodating vegetable, that I shall not enter upon the
question, to which the study of its natural history,
habits, and properties, must give rise, in the distri-
bution of the departments of the agricultural science
T have made ;—the theorist and experimentalist must adjust
these between themselves, baving the double task before
them, of making us better acquainted with the varieties
of the potato we already possess, and also of discovering
to us the new varieties of this vegetable, which nature has
yet in store for us, to reward our industry and sagacity.

1 have often complained that the agricultural science
was left almost exclusively in the hands of PRACTICAL
FARMERS and AGRICULTURAL BOOKMAKERS.

I now speculate upon the assistance and co-operation
of avery different description of persons, whose zeal I hope
to animate, and whose force I shall labour to concentrate,
in pursuit of a favourite object, the improvement of this
useful and necessary science.

In every part of the United Kingdom, I see -acricuL-
TURAL SOCIETIES formed, and in these the respectability
of the contiguous country collected: we have thus every
where assemblages formed of the friends of agriculture,
and the well-wishers to its improvement ;— talents, wealth,
zeal, and liberality, are embodied, for the avowed, and
sole purpose of benefiting their country, by the advance-
ment and improvement of this useful and necessary science
or art, in which soever light we choose to consider it.

1 am proud of having my name enrolled on the lists of
many of those respectable societies; I look up to these

C

18

incorporated amateurs as the source from which the per-
fection of this favourite object is to be derived; and Ihope
to be forgiven by them, for complaining, that notwith-
standing their activity and good sense, the most effectual
means have not yet been adopted of attaining their ends.

Instead of availing themselves of the talents which I
know them to possess, and calling forth their own energies ;
they employ themselves in rousing those of others, and
throw the whole business on a description of persons far
worse qualified: they endeavour, by honorary and pecu-
niary rewards, to stimulate the practical farmers to make
the experiments, and to decide the delicate questions upon
which agricultural success depends.

They call upon indocile and prejudiced persons, who
have each of them probably already formed their opinions
upon these questions, and whose object will be to establish
what they have already decided upon.

Let agricultural societies rely upon themselves and act
for themselves.—1 may be told they are tumultuary assem-
blages, incapable of acting, and of necessity must employ
others ; let them look to another tumultuary assembly, THE
Hous or Commons, and they will see the great mass of
business of a mighty nation, transacted in the most com-
plete manner by themselves ; they will see their committees
encounter the most intricate and delicate questions, with
acuteness and perseverance, and deciding them in the most
satisfactory manner.

The science of agriculture is of immense extent, beyond
the powers of any individual, or even any body of men,
to make themselves masters of the whole together: it must
be divided into departments, before it can be encountered
with any hopes of success.

Let me then suggest to the respectable societies already
mcorporated, to form each of them committees of arrange-

19

ment: whose office it shall be to distribute the great mass
of the science into manageable parts or departments, and
to assign to distinct committees, their separate portions of
the great business before them.

The grand object of agricultural societies, and their
committees, should be to investigate the natural history of
the vegetables we cultivate, that we may become acquainted
with their habits and periods, that we may apply the
culture most likely to bring them to the highest state of
perfection they are capable of attaining.

The varieties of each species, with their properties,
the soils they affect most, their comparative advantages
and defects, form most important subjects of inquiry ; even
the most cursory view will shew here is a source of full
employment for many committees.

The reports of these committees when re-considered, and
perhaps abridged, will compose a code containing a mass
of information very different from what is now found in
the numerous volumes of agricultural bookmakers, compi-
ling from their predecessors, and from each other, with the
sole view of forming a vendible book.

Another most important object, and well worth the at-
tention of those respectable societies, formed with the
hopes of benefiting their immediate countries, and of
course mankind in general, is the inquiry—Can we add to
the stock of vegetables we already cultivate, any others,
likely to add to our own comforts, or to increase the fa-
cility of sustaining our domestic animals?

Of the great variety of vegetables we now cultivate, not
a single one is a native of our own climate; the introduc-
tion of some is recent, as the mangel wurzel. ‘The turnip
is not of a century standing; and it is owing to this root
that Norfolk boasts she now produces more food for man

20

than is grown on an equal area in any other part of
England.

The potato is known but for two centuries, and little
cultivated in England for more than one. The introduc-
tion of this valuable exotic into ScoTLAND is still later ;
and the beneficial effects it rapidly produced, are well
authenticated in the report of the proceedings of the Agri-
cultural Society of the SrEwARTRY OF KiRcUDBRIGHT,
presented to me when I had the honour of being elected a
member of that respectable society. Mr. MAXWELL OF
MANCHES, a venerable gentleman of that country, born
in the year 1720, had been requested to report, so far as
his remembrance went, the state of agriculture in the
Stewartry of Kircudbright in his early days: the whole of
his report is very interesting ; I shall take the liberty of
transcribing the passage, where he mentions the introduc-
tion of the potato.

*« It is not proper for me here to narrate the distresses
‘* and poverty that were felt in the country in these times,
** which continued till about the year 1735 :—in 1725, po-
‘* tatoes were first introduced into this Stewartry by WIL-
“ LIAM HEYLAND, from Ireland, ‘who carried-them on
*« horses’ backs to Edinburgh, where he sold them by
** pounds and ounces ;—during these times, when potatoes
‘¢ were not generally raised in this country, there was for
‘‘ the most part a great scarcity of food, bordering on
«¢ famine ; for in the Stewartry of Kircudbright and County
‘¢ of Dumfries, there was not as much victual produced,
“ as was necessary for supplying the inhabitants.”

That the spontaneous produce of the earth affords but
scanty nourishment to man, at least in our climates, is
obvious ; nor would the cultivation of our indigenous vege-
tables add much to our stock of food: the early habitants |

21

of our earth were thinly scattered over a widely extended

surface, and poorly fed:

“ Quippe aliter tune, orbe novo, cceloque recentt

“ Vivebant homines.”

And we ought not to reject as fiction what the poet tells
us of our ancestors living on “ glandes et arbuta,”’ when
we see the miserable state in respect of food, in which
savages are often found.

The ingenuity of man, and his intercourse with his
brethren in different climates, haye discovered and com-
municated new sources of nourishment, which had long
escaped notice; and when HUMBOLDT saw the natives of
the TENERIFFE Islands making bread of fern root, he ex-
claims : ‘‘ How little does the finest climate and most fertile
soil defend the lower classes of mankind from the most
wretched poverty !”

With a redundance of food for centuries, our popula-
tion has increased to an enormous amount, and notwith-
standing the new sources, so numerous and various,—our
supply of provisions sometimes falls short of the demand
for consumption, and we occasionally feel those scarczties,
I might almost say famines, to which our early ancestors
Were more accustomed.

“ Cum glandes et arbuta, sacre
“ Deficerent sylve, victumque dodenu negarat.”

An history of the successive additions that have been
made in many centuries to the vegetables upon which the
human species and its domestic animals are maintained,
would be curious and amusing; and the contrast between
our present modes of sustenance, and that to which the

22

early inhabitants of these countries was limited, would be
most striking.

This is not idle talk ; it leads us to inquire if the resources
of nature, although so heavily drawn upon, be entirely ex-
hausted ; and if she has any thing left in store to reward
the ingenuity and sagacity of man.

Could an intelligent committee have a more important
department consigned to them than such inquiry?—At
present it is no man’s business ; but the moment it becomes
a duty, active individuals will discover on what food the
inhabitants of other climates are maintained: something
new will often come out, to which it is a part of their
office to give a fair trial.

Accident often I admit gives rise to the most important
discoveries; but should, at present, accident bring into the
way of any man a new and promising vegetable, where is
he to bring his discovery !—Is it to the practical farmer,
proud of what he already possesses, and vain of his skill
in the management of it? His maxim is:

“ Quod sapio satis est mihi, non ego curo.”
“ T am for none of your novelties.”

Had such a committee as I suggest existed, would a
deaf ear have been turned to Dr. LETsSom? and would
mangel wurzel have been thirty years making its way into
the farms of practical agriculturists? Even supposing the
latter to be less opinionated, and the members of the agri-
cultural societies less enlightened than I assume, and be-
lieve them to be; the question of the introduction of a new
vegetable would come before these separate tribunals,
under very different circumstances.. The practical farmer
would commence with doubts, and before he proceeded

23

would weigh the degrees of probability; while the com-
mittee, whose object it was to increase our stock of vege-
tables, would deem simple possibility a sufficient ground to
proceed upon.

If such a committee was established, many contributions
would be made to it: whoever met with, in other countries,
a promising vegetable, would be sure to see it get a fair
trial at home. |

I should be happy to see a committee also appointed to
study our indigenous vegetables. I suspect they would
afford us more resources than we are aware of; I know
not whether attention has ever been paid to the comparative
values of our indigenous and foreign cloyers.

I may say the same of the vetch tribe, for my late period
of mowing gives some spontaneous vetches time to acquire
a great and valuable luxuriance.

Another measure remains, which I earnestly recom-
mend to all agricultural societies to adopt: that is, to take
into their own hands a small piece of ground, to be used
in trying the several experiments, which their com-
mittees will find it desirable to make ;—it is by experiments
alone that valuable and useful information will be received.
Ocular demonstration, too, may perhaps subdue prejudice,
and stagger incredulity.

i have little doubt that two acres might be sufficient to
answer every purpose; but as agricultural societies are
always liberal, and generally wealthy, 1 think it probable,
that it may be desirable to extend the scale a little, as our
experimental field will not only instruct, but will also
afford great amusement to the members, and probably
seduce them into a more skilful, as well as a more zealous
pursuit of the science.

24

The grand committee of arrangement will state the
several questions, on the decision of which, light may be
thrown by experiment, and will assign them to subordinate
committees. I shall not presume to anticipate any of
them; but supposing a ridge of many small divisions,
or compartments, to be assigned to the several varieties of
the oat tribe ; another to wheat, for the purpose of trying
the efficacy of the several specifics that have been recom-
mended, as preventives of the disorders to which that most
important grain is subject, and by which its value is so
often diminished ;—let me suppose another ridge consigned
to the untried vegetables of other climes, upon which man
or his domestic animals are sustained in their native coun-
tries; another to the indigenous vegetables of our own,
which hold out the most distant probability, or even pos-
sibility of repaying the expense of culture, or of bemg im-
proved by it into value. What a mixture of instruction
and amusement, would a walk in such a field give to agri-
cultural amateurs? Their interest in the pursuit would be
increased ; they would become in some sort experimen-
talists themselves; and their suggestions would, no doubt,
be attended to and deserve a fair trial.

PART IL.

INTRODUCTION.

Havine executed the first part of my
promise, and considered A oriculture in a ge-
neral, and in some sort in a scientific point
of view, I shall now proceed to the remaining
parts of my engagement, and describe the
different fields upon which, with a view to their
improvement, I propose to employ the in-
dustrious and unoccupied poor, whose present
situation has so properly excited the attention
of the Boarp or AGRICULTURE.

The theatre upon which the labour and in-
genuity of man may be exerted in the agri-
cultural line, L consider as of two descriptions:
The former, that which he has already broken

up, and from which, by the due course of

96 INTRODUCTION.

tillage, he extracts food for himself and his
domestic animals.

The second description is that which still
remains in its natural state, though in the
possession of man, and, without any labour
on his part, yields him some produce for his
cattle, far short indeed in value to that which
he is used to obtain, by breaking the surface,
and expending his labour and seed.

This description also includes other tracts,
at present. either nearly or totally unproduc-
tive.

‘The vegetables also by which his own wants
and those of his domestic animals are supplied,
are likewise of two descriptions :---the one,
natives of more genial climes, which imported
into our own, and long fostered with unre-
mitted care, have afforded us so superior
a supply, as to remove all necessity of culti-
vating our indigenous vegetables, not one of
which is deemed worth the notice of the agri-
culturist.

The second description. of vegetables, in-

INTRODUCTION. v3 f

cludes those which are natives of our own
country, and indigenous to our soil, being
the stock with which nature originally fa-
voured us, as most suitable to our climate.

To the Jatter description of soil, and to the
latter class of vegetables, I propose to limit
myself ;---satisfied that if I find abundant em-
ployment for the industrious and unoccupied
poor, THE Boarp or AGRicuLTURE will
not be displeased to find that it is to be on
hitherto untouched ground ; and that they
will be gratified when they see the exertions
they have taken such pains to call out, are
to be expended in giving some value to
grounds that never had any before, and in
improving the produce of others, that had
hitherto been but scanty. Nor, should these
ends be answered, will the Board complain,
when they find that the vegetables I mean
to throw into greater luxuriance, are not de-
scended from a foregn breed, but the zndige-
nous, aboriginal occupants of our soil.

I do not mean, in any instance, to adopt

98 INTRODUCTION.

the common usage of tilling the soil, or
breaking the surface, for the extermination of
the plants in actual possession—-nor shall I
attempt to force Nature to throw up the
crops I wish for, by obtruding their seed upon
her, hoping to carry the same point by kind-
ness and accommodation, by adapting the
soul to the habits and likings of the vegetables
I wish for, and thus tempting them to choose
it, and settle on it.

The untouched domains of Nature, to which
I propose to call attention, are detailed in the

following eight chapters.

CONTENTS.

GRASSY MOUNTAINS.

These are to be made more valuable in three ways, to
each of which a distinct chapter is assigned.

CHAP. “TF:
First, By making them produce winter food for all the

cattle that graze upon them in summer.

CHAP. If.
Secondly, By making them habitable by man, and ¢o-

lonizing them with industriovs manufacturers.

CHAP. III.

Thirdly, By improving their grassy sole, so as to make
them yield more, and a better description of pasture, more
grateful to the cattle that graze upon them, more nutritive,
and more fattening.

CHAP. IV.
HEATHY MOUNTAINS.

These, under favourable circumstances, which are most
abundant, 1 hope to make produce tolerable green pasture,
an place of the useless heath now covering them. -

30 CONTENTS.

CHAP. V.
NAKED SANDS.
These too I hope, in many instances, to clothe with a

green sole, productive of some pasture, substituting a
pleasant werdure in the place of deformity and barrenness.

CHAP. VI.
UNTOUCHED SURFACES IN ENGLAND.

A description rather scarce in that highly improved
country.

CHAP. VII.
UNTOUCHED PEAT MOSS AND MOOR
UPPER SURFACE.

This extensive description £ hope in many cases to
improve considerably ; but £ confess my expectations fall
very short of what F have often seen promised on the
subject.

CHAP. VIII.
CUT OUT MOSS UNDER SURFACE.

This disgusting and useless description of ground, £
engage in almost every instance to make produce crops
more valuable than what now grows upon our best and
most highly manured meadows.

oh. Be Sagal i

GRASSY MOUNTAINS.

HiTHERTO, while the grand elevations by which our
surface is so much diversified, formed the subject of my
inquiries ; I considered mountaims merely in a geological
point of view, and hazarded my conjectures upon the ope-
rations of nature, by which they had acquired their present
forms.

I shall now cease to look back to original formation ; but,
taking a prospective view of the subject, I shall inquire—
How these widely-extended tracts can be made more useful
to man, and more productive to his domestic animals ;—
whether the scanty food these wilds now afford to them at
the best season, can be increased ;—whether these same
mountains can produce, in themselves, storeable provisions
to sustain their four-footed inhabitants in winter, while the
powers of Nature seem torpid, and vegetation completely
at a stand in these dreary regions.

It is here natural to ask—Have I discovered or im-
ported any new vegetables, which yield greater produce in
bleak elevations than their native plants are able to do?
Have I discovered any new culture by which the plants
we foster will be thrown inte greater luxuriance, than
under those we have hitherto adopted? No.—I shall avail
myself of no other plants (that is, grasses) than those with

32

which Nature has already clothed the surface of our moun-
tains ; and instead of introducing a new mode of culture,
I shall not adopt any, nor break up in any instance the
grassy sole I find ready formed.

A watchful attention to Nature herself, and to the habits
of the spontaneous vegetables which she is perpetually
obtruding on us, will enable us to apply the measures that
will call into more vigorous action those whose produce is
valuable, and to repress the plants which are useless, and
of course injurious, by pressing on, and crowding those
(the more kindly grasses) which, if at liberty, would luxu-
riate into higher value. |

I shall generalize no longer, but proceed to the field of
action, MOUNTAIN; a description widely extended over
many parts of our British islands; so widely, that a
facility of adding in any degree to the improvement of these
tracts, would add materially to the wealth and prosperity
of the British empire.

I may be told, this is not a time for engaging in specu-
lations,—that the present distress pervades all ranks of
society,—that the great mountain proprietors have suffered
as severely as any other class, and are at this moment
little able to raise the funds necessary for carrying on ex-
tensive improvement.

I rely, that the most important of the improvements FE
propose to commence with, are not extensive; for, widely
spread as a mountain grazing farm may be, it is but upon
a very small part of it £ mean to act ;—a park or meadow,
of a very few acres, will be sufficient to supply a very large
mountain farm ; and the cost of effectually inclosing such
small area, will amount to full two thirds of the whole
expense to be incurred.

The BoARD oF AGRICULTURE give a full answer to
this objection, and, by proposing their premiums, show it.

33

to be their opinion, that this is the most favourable
moment chosen, for engaging in such improvements ;
CAPITAL is not required, and whatever is to be expended
will be laid out in manual labour alone; and at this very
moment we see great landed proprietors and other public-
Spirited gentlemen, as well as that honourable Board, ex-
erting themselves to create employment for the industrious
but distressed labourers and manufacturers, at present
thrown out of work.

How then could such unfortunate and suffering people
be better relieved, than by applying their labour to the
permanent improvement of the country, by engaging them,
by contract or daily labour, in the formation of those en-
closures I shall mention, and in the execution of the other
more diminutive works I shall point out.

Our Grassy Mounrains.are chiefly employed as
pasture, and in that view alone I shall at present consider
them ;—stocked with many flocks and herds through the
summer, not one of which they are able to sustain through
the winter, or even should a few starvelings be left, half of
them perish from cold and want of food.

Hence the winter sustenance of the mountain stock
must be sought for elsewhere than at home, or they must
be disposed of at low rates, to the inhabitants of milder
regions, who contrive means of sustaining them. Thus
it appears, the great desideratum in mountain pastures is
winter food for their cattle—Teach their occupants to
raise provender within themselves, and so to maintain their
stock at home, through the winter, and you increase their .
profits, and of course the value of mountain lands, tenfold.

This is my present object ; and I hope to show that this
important point may be carried at light expense, and in a
short time, that is, in the very first year in which the
necessary operations are commenced early, and with spirit.

D

34

I had long observed, that great elevations did not
repress the luxuriance of some grasses; and a few years
ago, I persuaded my noble friend the Marquis or HERT-
FORD, to make the experiment on ascale of seven acres,
on his own mountains, at an elevation of nine hundred feet;
and the success was complete. My worthy friend Sir
CHARLES Ross laboured to seduce me to RossHIRE, and
probably would have succeeded, had not our speculations
been stopped by his untimely and much-lamented death.

Further observations smoothed the difficulties in the
way of mountain meadows, so as to reduce them nearly to
nothing. I now discovered that our agrostis stolonifera
formed a component part in all elevated green soles, and
that its proportion to the other grasses with which nature
mixed it, increased as the elevation became greater, and
the severities they had to sustain more weighty.

I had previously discovered, that even in low ground,
where circumstances were favourable, (that is, where, by
the nature of the soil, some difficulties were thrown
in the way of spontaneous common grasses,) that by severe
weeding, draining, top-dressing, and late mowing, I could
convert the natural mixed sole, without breaking the
surface, into pure fiorin meadow, of great value and per-
manent continuance.

I did not venture to bring forward the hardy paradox,
until my friends Sir J. Srewart of CoLTNEss, Sir A.
MACKENZIE, and COLONEL LocKHART, member for Sel-
; kirkshire, transmitted to me a document, well authenticated,
establishing the existence of a portion of pure fiorin
meadow of great value, though quite spontaneous, in Co-
lonel Lockhart’s plantations; small indeed, but sufficient to
prove, that under circumstances, fiorin could of itself take
possession of the surface ; nor was Colonel Lockhart’s a
solitary instance that reached me.

35

Determined now both to establish the truth of this
position, by irresistible evidence, and also to show its
easy application to use ;—in February, 1815, I requested
my noble friends the EARLS oF CALEDON and GOSFORD,
to inspect a poor coarse piece of ground never broken up,
promising their Lordships, that if they would be so good
as to call again late in October, they should see the same
ground, (48 English perches) covered with a crop of
hay of superior quality, and double the quantity of any other
crop grown in Ireland that season; without breaking the
surface, sowing or planting fiorin, or performing any other
operation than surface draining, weeding, and top dressing.

My two noble friends, and many other persons of respec-
tability, attended in February 1815; and, fully satisfied of the
wretchedness of the 48 perches I laid off before them,
were much amused at my promise of producing a double
crop on that same portion within the year.

The two Earls attended again in November, each ac-
companied by friends ; and I observed them impressing on
these strangers, the poor state in which they had viewed
this ground in the preceding February, but now covered
by a crop (different parts of which were mowed before
them,) that their Lordships authorized me to say, seemed
treble the amount of those they were used to seecut. The
crop of 1816 yielded above thirty tons green sward to the
English acre, and now (June 1817,) the third crop seems to
promise better than either of the preceding.

Having thus established the power of changing a spon-
taneous grassy surface, into most luxuriant fiorin meadow,
at little expense, first by experiment on a small scale,
and afterwards with much publicity on a far more ex-
tended one; and then having carried this new measure
into actual practice with complete success, [I shall recur
again to the principles upon which it depends; point out.

36

the grounds fittest for the purpose, and then proceed to
give such instructions as I conceive will be useful.

The measure of changing a natural, mixed, grassy sole,
into a pure fiorin sole, is founded on the assumption, that
in every grassy surface, undisturbed for three or four
years, there is a mixture of agrostis stolonifera; and I
have invariably found the quantity of this agrostis, propor-
tioned to the difficulties it had to encounter. At Porta-
down, GENERAL CARR and IJ found, that after seven
months submersion, the emerging verdant sole was pure
fiorin: a hard gravelly bottom precluded the aquatics;
and other grasses would have been drowned.

I showed EArt O'NEIL, that the sole of an old turn-
pike road (now shut up) was pure fiorin, and offered to
throw it instantly into a rich crop.

Walking afterwards with his Lordship ina weak moory
part of his estate early in August, we observed a tenant
mowing a poor spritty meadow; I told his Lordship he
was cutting it quite too early.

T went over the ditch, and having examined it, called his
Lordship and showed him great abundance of young fiorin
stolones running among the sprit: his Lordship persuaded
his tenant to listen to my advice, and abstain from mowing
for a long time.

Some weeks afterwards his Lordship informed me, that
his tenant had been obliged to cut his meadow, which had
improved far beyond his. expectations; and I have no
doubt, had he abstained some weeks longer, his meadow
would have more than double the quantity it had produced
when I stopped_him.

It is in the harshest parts of low regions alone, that we
can expect to succeed in converting a mixed sole into a
pure fiorin one; should we select a rich, or even a mode-
rately rich surface, in a low country, however well stocked

37

by nature with the true agrostis, the rush of intruders
would be such, that no efforts in weeding would secure the
exclusive possession to our favourite.

Why then do I boast of having succeeded in my own
low country? Because [used policy: I selected ungenial
spots, long loaded with undischarged water, become acrid
about the roots of the plants growing on it; poor and
stunted ; fiorin as well as the rest. I first changed the
nature of the ground by severe surface drainage, and en-
riched it by top-dressings. ‘The paltry aquatics in posses-
sion derived no benefit from the change; Nature had not
adapted them to such a soil; while the amphibious fiorin,
finding itself in its own favourite soil, instantly rushed into
luxuriance, smothering its rivals by the mass of its stolones;
—nor this without a struggle, calling for my interference,
as some of the old possessors, like fiorin, reconciled to
the change, started up into vigour requiring occasional
extirpation.

The management of spontaneous elevated soles requires
no policy. Fiorin, as I have often proved by respectable
testimony, confirmed by my own ten years’ experience,
luxuriates equally at the top of the mountain and bottom
of the valley.—Not so the rivals it has to contend with in
lower regions. Every one of these shrinks from, or
pines under the severities of an alpine climate ; and should I
be called upon to except sprit and rush,—I reply that these
coarse intruders soon disappear under drainage and top-
dressing ; nor need the mountain-meadow maker take the
trouble of inquiring which of the portions he is able to
select, is best stocked with fiorin by Nature; he may rely
upon it, there is not a spot in which he will not find abun-
dance before him.

There are indeed other circumstances of importance to
be attended to; the roots of fiorin penetrate a very short

38

way into the ground; whence we might infer, that. this
grass would agree with a very shallow soil:—by no means ;
on the contrary, I never found it permanently luxuriant,
except in very deep soil. My worthy friend the late
BisHop oF LLANDAFF, with his usual ingenuity, dis-
covered the cause ;—an important secret which agriculture,
in all its branches, owes to that venerable prelate. His
Lordship told me, that there was a perspiration from the
earth highly favourable and encouraging to vegetation ;
weak where the soil was shallow, but powerful where it
was deep; and these positions the Bishop confirmed to me
by the most conclusive experiments.

Our field is ample; mountain grazing farms are widely
extended ; and asa very few acres of meadow will suffice
for all the cattle in winter, that were maintained on it in
summer, we have great room for selection, and in the
variety of surface shall surely find a sufficient area fa-
vourable to our purpose ; nor am [ hard to please. Much
of the green mountains I have traversed, are of the fol-
lowing description—peaty soil, from nine to fifteen inches
deep, fibre decomposed.

_ This is a very good description, especially if the sub-
stratum be clayey, so as, when reached by the drains, to
afford a material that will improve the peaty compost;
should the peat be graduating into moor, and either by
decay or mixture with earth be unfit for fuel, I consider
this soil as still better.

Where there is not peat, alluvial clay or: earth is very
favourable ; and where the ground is spouty, generally
sufficiently deep, a point to be carefully attended to ; and
in general I would choose wet marshy ground, for the
drainage is cheap, and most productive of soil for compost,
when drains are frequent.

Where the peaty soil is fibrous, we generally find it

39

covered with heath; but even were the surface grassy, I
do not like to encounter a fibrous soil; nor have we any
necessity for engaging in difficulties, for few mountain
erazing farms will occur, in which suitable sites for
meadows will not be found, in far greater abundance than
can be required.

Many, no doubt, will start at the thought of finding
luxuriant meadows at great elevations; I have already
touched on this subject, and shall add a few words for the
encouragement of timid gentlemen.

In my geological pursuits, I have for many years been
in the habit of ascending every mountain I came near ;
and from the time I discovered fiorin, I have always looked
for it wherever I went ; and affirm, that on every mountain
I went up, I found fiorin more abundant the higher I
_ ascended ; and at the summits of the two highest, Bessy
BELL and Knock arp, I found no other grass.

My friend the EARL oF SELKIRK, on his return from a
visit to me, was to pass near KNOCKLAID, and intended
to go to its summit; I requested his Lordship when
there to look for fiorin ;-—-he wrote to me, that he had found
it in abundance at the very top, and carried some roots
home with him.

At the request of the IRish Farmine Society, I
went to the summit of the ridge above Dublin, separating
that county from Wicklow; I was accompanied by some
members of the Society :—as we ascended, we found spon-
taneous fiorin every where, but, to our surprize, more vi-
gorous as we approached the summit. 1 pointed out this
curious fact to the gentlemen who accompanied me, and
who entirely agreed with me in my mode of accounting
for it; which was; that in the lower regions, fiorin had
rivals to contend with; but these, unable to bear the se-
verities of great elevation, could not exist beyond a certain

40

altitude, above which, fiorin unincumbered with rivals
became, when in exclusive possession, more vigorous.

What then is the object of this part of my memoir? Is
it not to induce the proprietors of mountain districts, in the
most favourable parts of these regions, by drainage, ma-
nure, and protection, to encourage the growth of a vege-
table, which we have demonstration will thrive and luxu-
riate in the bleakest parts of the same regions, without
any one of these aids?

But however well fiorin might sustain the harshness of
the mountain tops, it can never be desirable that our
meadows should approach them; for when I talked of
great elevations, Mr. CRITCHLEY, who at the request of
the Farming Society attended me in the tour I made
through the Wicklow Mountains by their desire, showed
me, that from convenience, our meadows must always
approach the inhabited country, and be near to the dwell-
ings of the herds who were to attend to the feeding of the
cattle in winter, and distributing their stored provisions
with care and prudence.

The measures I recommend for raising crops of excel-
lent hay through all mountain tracts are little expensive,
as will appear by my detail of the whole of them: effec-
tual protectionis necessary, consequently strong inclosures ;
and these constitute the principal part of the expense.

Nor will there be any delay in the execution, if set
about with spirit ; crops will rapidly follow, and the interval
between commencing the work, and mowing the produce,
willnot extend to one full year. The EARL oF CALEDON’S
patch, as he calls it, was begun late in February, 1815,
and yielded its great crop that same season. On the 14th
of May, I began to lay down an acre for my friend Mr.
Bairp, at SHOTTS, in Scotland, and that same season he
mowed a better crop than had ever been cut in the country.

$

. 41

The progress of the improvement I suggest, if exten-
sively adopted, would not be gradual; for should incredu-
lity be suppressed, and a confidence in me substituted in
its place, and acted upon, the change in the value of
the mountains in the British islands would be instantaneous.

Bacon tells us, that man and Nature execute their opera-
tions very differently. Man commences with parts,
finishes one, and then ‘proceeds to another, and so on till
the whole be completed. Nature, on the contrary, com-
mences with the whole, advances all the parts uniformly,
finishing none, until the whole be completed.

Hence, it appears, that should I be seconded as I wish,
the promise I made to some of my Scotch friends would
be performed; and every mountain grazing farm, from
CAITHNESS to DUMBARTON, enabled to sustain through
the winter the whole stock that had grazed upon it in
summer.

Having stated the principles upon which the conversion
of a green sole of grass into valuable meadow depend ;
having detailed generally the measures to be adopted ; and
having by various and most respectable testimonies esta-
blished the success that has attended them on different
occasions, I shall proceed to the immediate object of the
BoaRD OF AGRICULTURE, and show how extensively the
industrious and unoccupied poor may be employed in car-
rying these measures into execution.

In the selection of the ground to be converted into mea-
dow, depth of soil is an important consideration; I wish it
not to be less than twelve, or at least ten inches deep; to a
peaty soil I have no objection, provided it be not fibrous
and spongy.

_ The only operation we have to perform on the area
chosen, is to relieve it effectually from all under water,
and to enrich the surface by good top-dressings. |

AZ

The former point we carry by frequent open drains, pa-
rallel to each other; their distance governed by the nature
of the ground ; if the subsoil be retentive, they should be
the more frequent and deeper, not less than fifteen inches,
and in the form of an equilateral, or perhaps a right-angled
- triangle, that they may not be easily choaked up; and
also that they may be readily cleared when necessary :
the stuff raised in the formation of these draims is to be
thrown into tall heaps, their distance from each other
governed by the power of the labourer in pitching.

For top-dressings, our resources are most abundant ; the
heaps I mention are upon the spot, and when improved,
only require to be thrown by the shovel on the contiguous
surface.

Our sources for this improvement are two, lime and
ashes :—the former may be deemed expensive; but as this
manure is created entirely by manual labour, whether we
look to the quarrying, the burning, or to the raising of the
fuel; making lime and finding uses for it may be consi-
dered in some sort as forming part of the object of the
Board of Agriculture, finding employment jor the indus-
trious and unoccupied.

Should the objection be still pressed, I reply, that the
very smallest quantity will be of value to me; and should
that be refused me, I can do very well without the article.

Ashes form a grand and inexhaustible source of manure,
at least for my purpose; these are also procured by manual
labour, for peat and moor, or peaty earth, are most abun-
dantly disseminated through all our mountains, and easily
- converted into ashes; whose quantity may be greatly in-

creased by adding earth or clay to the fire, or kiln, we
employ. |

For burning ashes, mountain is an excellent situation,

43

so airy that the combustion is easily excited, and the fires
_ kept up even in wet weather ; the cheapness with which
this valuahle article will be furnished, is scarcely credible.

Lime and ashes both possess a quality extremely conve-
nient in the formation of composts, great divisibility ; and
by this, can also be spread pure on the surface, in what-
ever proportions we can afford, with corresponding ad-
vantage.

I dwell on these two descriptions of manure for several
reasons: I know of no other that can be procured in
quantities commensurate to the immense extent of surface
I propose to embrace. Ashes are to be made every where;
for the peat of our mountains is inexhaustible ; and PLINY
asks, “ Quoto enim in loco non suum marmor invenitur ?”
I have the fullest experience of their successful application
to the use for which I now recommend them ;—I have re-
peatedly ascertained the extreme cheapness with which
they, at least ashes, are procured: and they are the prin-
cipal instruments upon which I depend, for enabling me to
fulfil the bold promises I have made, and both procured by
manual labour alone.

Though they both can be administered pure, it is upon
the composts enlivened by them [I chiefly depend.

We left the bases of these composts, the prime material
from which they are formed, in small heaps on the edges
of the drain we had opened; our object now is to enrich
and to make them friable. For the latter purpose, when
they shall have stood some time to dry and mellow, we
throw every two contiguous heaps into one; and as we
break and mince them small, we throw in some shovel-
fulls of well-powdered lime, regulating the penety by the
facility with which it is to be procured.

When these second and larger heaps shall have stood a

44

reasonable time, they are again to be turned; and now
during the operation, ashes inas great quantities as we can
afford are to be thrown in.—Should the material raised from
the drains be loose or peaty, the compost will very soon
be sufficiently friable ; but should the subsoil be viscid or
tough clay, (materials I like) they will require a third
turning ; and in this case I wish for as much lime as conye-
nient, reluctantly dispensing with it: but in loose and
more open materials, pure ashes, if profusely bestowed,
will be abundantly sufficient; and with fair, good, top-
dressings of this compost, so easily made, I engage to raise
from SUTHERLAND, by the skirts of BEN NEvis and BEN
LoMOND, SKIDDAU and SNowDoN, and finally far up, on
DARTMOOR, crops of hay of superior quality, and double
the quantity of what is now raised on the best meadows in
MIDDDESEX, with the aid of London dung.

As our drains are the sources of our composts, so hap-
pily placed as to be spread on the surface without portage,
it may be convenient to increase their size beyond what is
immediately necessary for the discharge of the water; and
also to make them more frequent than we should otherwise
have done.

Our desire of obtaining more material for our compost
will be increased, when we find it well adapted to our pur-
pose, deep viscid loam or clay ;—in this case, I should not
hesitate to make the drains two or two and half feet deep
—still equilateral triangles.

I cannot generally pronounce on the distance between
the parallel drains, it must depend on the depth and tena-
city of the subsoil; nor is parallelism essentially necessary ;
—to discharge the water is the object, and inequality of
surface may make a deviation desirable.

The frequency of my drains has been objected to, as

45

occasioning loss of surface ; important where the ground
sets high. I reply, I gain surface ; for the stolones, by their
propensity to run down declivities, soon make the sloping
sides the best part of the meadow.

Our material for forming compost, may also be got on
the outside of our strong inclosure ; but this depends upon
local circumstances.

When we have selected our area, we should commence
by lighting fires; these will be kept up by the men em-
ployed in making the drains and fencing the meadow;
and as I never break the surface myself for the purpose of
cultivation, I will not allow it to be broken up by paring _
for burning.

As the immediate object of the Board of Agriculture is
to find employment for the industrious and unoccupied
poor, I fear the very slight operations I require to be per-
formed, are so trifling in themselves, and so speedily exe-
cuted, that they will be deemed insufficient for the
purpose, and as not affording the occupation required.

I admit, that when we compare these labours with those
that in the common course of cultivation are expended
on equal areas, we shall find the employment afforded by
these new measures to occupy much fewer hands.

And when we compare the great profits to be derived
from them, for which I am pledged, so far to exceed those
usually made by similar exertions of manual labour, I fear
I shall be deemed to have failed in my engagement of |
finding employment for the industrious and unoccupied,

But when it shall be considered, that the exertions I
propose to call out, require not either previous preparation
or weighty capital, and that they may be employed in an
infinite number of places at the same time; I expect that
the complaints of my not finding sufficient employment for

46

tlie industrious and unoccupied poor will be abandoned ;
more especially when it shall be recollected, thatno labour
has as yet been expended on the grounds I select; nor pro-
bably ever would, had not J pointed out the measures that
will make them valuable, by the pure exertion of manual
labour,—the very article now so loudly called for by the
world, and the particular object of the Boarp oF
AGRICULTURE'S premium. )

CHAP. II.

ON THE COLONIZATION OF UNINHABITED
GRASSY MOUNTAINS.

IN the preceding Chapter on the improvement of
Grassy Mountains, 1 limited my views solely to their
present inhabitants, the cattle that graze upon them;
pointing out measures by which these mountains might
be enabled to maintain their cattle, at seasons when
NATURE is torpid in such elevated regions, and, ceasing
to produce food for these, their sole inhabitants, lays their
proprietors under the necessity of either selling them, or

removing them to other countries where food can be pro-
cured for them.

I shall now consider these regions in another point of
view, and show that by a judicious application of the same
measures, those extensive uninhabited tracts may be
made the seat of a numerous population, enlivened by
Agriculture, and enriched by Manufactures.

Before we speculate on extending our agricultural field,
and adding to the number of our manufactures, it may be
proper to take a short view of these two interests, the
agricultural and the manufacturing, jointly and sepa-

48

rately. I live in a country where every farmer is also a
manufacturer, and if not personally employed, yet, scarcely
with any exception, has manufacture in some form carried
on in his house. Such has been our practice for more
than a century; and the result has been, that with the
weakest soil, and from the most thinly inhabited part of
IRELAND, we are become by far the most populous, our
cultivated field bears a greater proportion to our whole
area than in other provinces, and we have carried tillage
farther up our mountains, and reclaimed more of our bogs
than will be observed in any part of the kingdom.

Hence, I confess, I am prejudiced in favour of the
usages to which I have been a witness in my own imme-
diate country; and in my plan for domestic colonization,
wish to assimilate the measures to those which I see at-
tended with complete success.

I know it to be the habit of many wise ones, to condemn
the union of agriculture and manufacture as injurious to
each other, and I have often listened with impatience to
lectures on the prudence of keeping these two arts distinct
from each other; for, say they, when united, neither can
attain the perfection to which they would arrive sepa-
rately; and I have heard the inferior style of our practical
agriculture brought in proof of the position, that the
union is injurious.

1 have often taken the other side of the question, and
admitting the agricultural produce of a given area,
divided into small farms, to be decidedly inferior to that of
an equal area laid out in greater farms, and more skilfully
cultivated, yet still I have sustained, that the whole
produce, including manufacture, afforded by the mass of

49

the small farms, was of more actual value than the pure
farinaceous crops of the more knowing farmers.

The state is decidedly on my side of the question; for
even were the value of the whole produce of each area only
equal, it would be enriched by the superior number. of
inhabitants, the most important part of its wealth consisting
in its population.

This topic is well illustrated in a pamphlet published in
PHILADELPHIA during the late war, and held in much
estimation in ENGLAND: it says—‘ It is admitted by most

** writers on political arithmetic, that one thousand inha-

c

un

bitants collected within a square league, will, when com-

ce

pared with five hundred spread over the same surface,

ce

sustain much more than double the amount of taxes,
** and cost much less trouble and expense in collecting

them.” And again: “ War as waged by BONAPARTE is

not now principally a question of finance, but of the

resources of population. ‘The strength of a state

** opposed to FRANCE, must be estimated by the sum of
its population, divided by the extent of its tenritory.”
We have been repeatedly advised to collect our manu-

facturers into towns, and to leave the country exclusively

to the agriculturists. We well know that we should not

improve the morals of our people by collecting them

together into such masses; and recent experience proves

that the tranquillity of the country, and even of the state,
may be endangered by bringing numerous bodies together,

so as to be within the grasp of factious demagogues,

zealous to inflame them into outrage, sedition, and re-

bellion.

“ec

When vast numbers, especially of very young persozs,
E

50

are collected together into great manufactories, we well
know their morals are corrupted, and their character
debased ; of this we have too many proofs. Indeed, it is a
necessary consequence of their new situation ; for, removed
from domestic society, and the mild influence of parental
authority, they naturally take the turn of that company
they fall into, and the worst description generally takes
the lead.

The proportion of our manufacturing, to our agricultural
and commercial population, is by far too great; and it
might be desirable, if practicable, to reduce it: but, exclu-
sive of the difficulty, I fear the state to which we are re-
duced, after a tremendous contest of unparalleled duration
and enormous expense, would not bear an alteration that
might diminish our resources. When, therefore, I spe-
culate on increasing or manufacturing population, I have
no thoughts of separating it from the agricultural; no
thought of carrying off the children from their father’s
house, or depriving them of parental care and instruction:
they shall continue to dwell together in patriarchal inno-
cence. Manufactures can be found, in which the children
have employment at their own fire-side ; and while the
father bears his part, or rests from the labours of his
diminutive farm, as of old,—

“ Arguto conjux percurrit pectine telas.”

In cottage industry, as well as in great manufactories,
employment is found for very young children: the sisters,
as they advance, take to their wheels; the brothers to the
loom ; and sometimes we see a loom in a corner occupied
by ajourneyman. Such is the picture of most small farm-
houses in the North of Ireland: but domestic industry is

4 /

dl

not limited to the lmen manufacture, which may be over-
stocked; perhaps is'so already by the interference of
cotton, and abatement of demand.

The judicious proprietor, when he speculates on co-
lonizing his wilds, will coolly consider what manufacture is
best suited to his local circumstances, and likely to have a
permanent demand. As he will not disturb his sheep or
remove them from his mountains, his own wool holds out
an inducement to commence with the woollen manulfacture :
nor is he limited to his own crude materials; others may
be found, easily imported, and to which the industry and
ingenuity of man can give such additional value as to
make the trade highly profitable. :

It remains for me to show how these speculations, so
advantageous both to the state, and to the local proprietor,
may he carried into effect, at a cost not beyond the reach
of our present contracted means, and an immediate em.
ployment found to the industrious and unoccupied poor.

In my former Chapter, on Grassy Mountains, my object
was limited to the provision of winter food for their summer
stock. i did not look forward to human inhabitants, nor
carry my views beyond the cattle themselves now in pos-
session ; nor was I careful as to the elevation of the small
tracts upon which I wished to operate, leaving the pro-
prietor to consult his own convenience, ready to attend
him to whatever altitudes he might think fit to ascend.
But when our object is changed, and we look to asettle-
ment for human inhabitants, where, by their own industry,
they may extract from the soil their own food as well as
that of their domestic cattle, we must take care not to —
carry our colony into regions, where the powers of Nature

o2

are inadequate to these purposes—to elevations too great
for the production of the vegetables necessary to sustain
our new inhabitants.

The limitation we are now under is merely, that we
advance upon ground not yet occupied by man; but we
will surely choose the mildest of the description, that is, the
skirts of the mountains, and the most favourable vyallies,
where we can find a depth of soil suitable to our objects,
and not encumbered with undischargeable water, nor too
deeply loaded with spongy peat moss; a description
abundantly scattered through all the mountains I have
traversed, and amply sufficient for an immense number of
inhabitants, though perhaps covering but a comparatively
small portion of the whole area of our alpine regions,
every where exhibiting immense tracts of shallow stony
surface, and a still greater portion elevated above the
zone where esculent vegetables can be cultivated.

T may be told I am speculating on sending inhabitants
to people our mountains, at the very time we see the
HIGHLANDS of a neighbouring country depopulated ; that
it is probable our efforts to establish colonies, will only be
the means of producing emigrations, similar to those we
have lately witnessed, and which have been so generally
deplored.

Before we propose to stock uninhabited mountain tracts
with colonists, it is necessary to inquire, how other moun-
tain districts came to be forsaken by those who, born on
the spot, were probably descended from the aborigines of
the country, and yet, forgetting their attachment to the soil,
emigrated from the habitations of their ancestors. For si-
milar causes produce similar effects ; and less powerful ones

a3

would induce strangers to forsake anew settlement, than
would be sufficient to compel old residents to quit their
native homes.

The inhabitants of the Scotch Highlands, at least those
who have emigrated, were all pastoral tribes; they culéz-
vated very little of their soil; their flocks and herds
supplied some of their food, and the profits of their cattle
were the source from which their rent, their necessaries,
their comforts, and any of the few redundancies they may
have had, were supplied.

As the population and the wealth of the nation increased,
the prices of every thing gradually rising, these profits be-
came greater and greater. The landlords observed this, and
soon saw that they themselves might enjoy these profits ;
that the cattle grazing on their mountains required very
little attendance, and that by throwing many of these
_ small grazing farms into one, a far higher rent might be
obtained for it; or the landlord himself might stock it,
(as was often done) and thus carry on the grazing business
at his own suit to great advantage.

The inhabitants thus reduced to their diminutive culti-
vable-farms, scarcely able in an ungrateful soil to produce
sufficient food, and totally deprived of all means of pro-
curing other necessaries, or of making their rent, were
soon reduced to the greatest distress. The alternative
before them was, that they must either strike out new
modes of raising the means of supplying themselves with
necessaries, or they must emigrate from a country where
they could no longer exist.

Here then those who form plans of colonization receive

oA

a good lesson; they must consider not only, how their new
inhabitants are to be supplied with food, but also what
sources they have, whence other necessaries and comforts

are to be supplied.

The bleak countries, to which we are about to ascend,
are not favourable to agriculture: moderate exertions
may procure sufficient produce for domestic consumption ;
but it is from lower and richer soils, that markets are to
be supplied, and funds raised to reward the labour of the
agriculturist.

Domestic manufacture seems to me the only resource
for our new colonists; and the proprietor must be well
prepared on this subject, and must have effectually se-
cured domestic occupation for them, before he ventures to
transplant them ; otherwise he may be certain of seeing his

colony soon deserted.

What this domestic occupation is to be, I leave to
those to determine who have more knowledge in such
matters, and who may be acquainted with the local cir-
cumstances of the country in question. I shall content
myself with showing how the necessaries which the soil
can produce are to be procured. [I shall not mention fuel,
because the regions | look to generally abound with turf ;
and no proprietor would think of a colony, where a copious
supply of that article of prime necessity was not under
his command.

{ shall now assume the proprietor of a mountain dis-—
trict to be determined to establish a colony in his wilds,
and to avail himself of his own means to induce settlers to
repair to it. He builds for each a comfortable cottage,

59)

with a small cow-housc. He lays off for each a very
small farm, and engages to give summer grazing for one,
perhaps two cows, with some immediate assistance neces-
sary for new settlers. Admit them to arrive; how can
they proceed? The new colonist cannot maintain his cow
in the winter, for he has not hay; he cannot till his small
farm, for he has not manure ;—and as he cannot avail himself
of what alone his landlord can give him, his domestic
industry, whatever it may be, cannot reach so far as to
supply his entire food, his other necessaries, and also to
pay his rent—he must of course soon migrate.

A very little attention to the preceding statement will
show, where the progress of our alpine colony was ar-
rested. Winter sustenance for the settlers’ cows was not
provided ; hence no source of manure.

Hay, no doubt, is the grand desideratum in all highly
elevated countries. The knowledge of this induced me to
compose my preceding Chapter, on the tmprovement of
Grassy Mountains, in which I limited myself to the pro-
duction of Hay alone ; and as I conceive I have fully es-
tablished the facility of forming, at a trifling expense, most
productive meadows in all parts of such mountains, I
shall not repeat what I have said, but, merely referring to
that Chapter, I shall at once assume the practicability of
forming luxuriant meadows wherever we please, by the
- simple operations of draining, weeding, and top-dressing,
with cheap and contiguous materials, as I have there more
fully detailed.

The proprietor, having now taken me into his council,
resumes his operations; and as he commences the build-
ing of the cottage, he at the same time incloses—suppose

D6

one acre—for a fiorin meadow, which, if managed as I have
directed, will produce an abundant crop the first year ;
and if properly attended to, will continue its luxuriance I
know not how long—perhaps for ever, but I can only answer
for eleven years.

The tenant is now arrived, and things proceed very dif-
ferently. The landlord, no doubt, fosters him a little,
until the powers of his small farm are brought into action,
and its produce able to maintain the family.

The first winter, his well-fed cow (perhaps two) gives
him milk, and manure follows, with which in May he plants
PoTATOS as far as it goes: this is followed the ensuing
year by a small crop of Ryze, or Oats. New ground is
broken up for potatoes the next year; his tillage field of
course is extended, until it reaches the limit his landlord is
pleased to set to it. BLACK Oars will probably be the va-
riety he will select,—as more hardy, as of quicker growth, of
course ripening sooner, so as to escape the blighting early
frosts of the ungenial climate. Black oats too, less dis-
posed to lodge than the white, will agree with his potato
ground, which he probably can enrich further, by burning
some ashes on contiguous peaty soil. The facility of
raising potatos by tne manure of their cattle and ashes,
will enable the colonists to rear pigs; a source of food,

and perhaps profit.

To speculate on our mountains, as a new field for cul-
tivation, will no doubt be deemed wild; but in these
alpine tracts, I look upon agriculture rather as a secondary
consideration, subsidiary to the maintenance of the inhabi-
tants; MILK, as with his pastoral ancestors, an impor-
tant part of his food; potatoes also a serious addition ;

D7

and we know this valuable root will thrive at very great
elevations : his demand for farinaceous produce will thus
be moderate, and easily supplied by the rye and oats im-
mediately following his potatoes, whose strongly manured,
and well prepared ground will yield tolerable crops, even
in this unfavourable climate. It will be his landlord’s
policy to restrain his agricultural speculations, by limiting
his farm.

Four, perhaps five acres, without including summer's
grazing for his cows, may be abundantly sufficient, in-
cluding his meadow. He will have no more labour to
perform in the field than what will be a relief to a sedentary
manufacturer ; of course the attention of himself and family
be little diverted from domestic industry.

What extensive tracts of grassy mountain and moor
have I passed through in IRELAND, in the North of
ENGLAND, and above all in ScoTLAND, admirably
adapted to these speculations: but the incredulity of man
is a more formidable obstacle to improvement, than any
resistance thrown in our way by Nature; and as the po-
sition that a natural sole of grass in ungenial soils and
harsh climates, can at once be thrown into a more pro-
ductive state, than the highest cultivation of man can
bring his most favourite grounds to, is both so extraordi-
nary and SO NEW as to justify unbelief, I have taken
pains in my former Letter to establish the position by
well-attested facts ; and now, as the success of the pro-
posed plan of colonization depends entirely on the truth of
the same position, I shall state another strong and weli-
attested fact.

1 had by previous correspondence, and afterwards in

58

person, on his grassy PEAT LANDS, taken much pains
to teach Mr. Young, of Harburn, the culture of fiorin
grass, in my usual way, by tilling the ground, and planting
stolones. Last year, Mr. Young, with much exultation,
reported complete success. I replied, that I had of
late changed my measures, and did not now break the
surface of grassy mountains. Mr. Young’s answer was
very important; he told me he had taken with him, on
receipt of my letter, to his new meadow, Mr. Barrp of
Shotts, a gentleman well skilled in the cultivation of fiorin,
who had obtained in 1815 the highest fiorim premium, and
whose crop appears on the records of the HIGHLAND
SocieTY to be far greater than any ever raised in
GREAT BRITAIN, unless by the CoUNTESS oF HARp-
WICKE. ‘These gentlemen reported, that a stripe of
Mr. Young’s meadow had not been broken up, and that
upon this they found a good crop of spontaneous fiorin ;
and Mr. Young now lamented, that he had broken up any
of the meadow. This decided success followed protec-
tion alone. Had the stripe got a light top-dressing, the
crop would have been much finer ; and it is probable the
contiguous fence, or drain, relieved it from water.

The establishment of a colony will give various employ-
ment to the industrious and unoccupied ; for, in addition to
the formation of meadows, houses are to be built and roads
made, that the colony may be accessible with convenience.

CHAP. LH.

GREEN PASTURE MOUNTAINS.

My speculations for the employment of the industrious
and unoccupied poor, in the improvement of their country,
have in two preceding chapters been limited to the for-
mation of MEADOWS. Inthe jist, for the winter main-
tenance of the numerous herds and flocks that graze upon
them in summer; and in the second, for the winter main-
tenance of the cows who are to supply with milk the
colonists and manufactures I hope to establish in these
wilds.

I now proceed to new measures; still affording ample
employment to the industrious and unoccupied ; but witha
different object in view ;—the improvement of these pasture
grounds, as such.

I have hitherto limited myself to select portions and di-
minutive patches, operating upon these alone; but now
I embrace the whole area, excluding only such parts as
are‘not of sufficient promise to encourage us to expend
our labour upon them. I have as yet also limited myself
to one grass, the agrostis stolonifera, diligently extirpat-
ing every other as it appears. But where pasture is my
object, [make no selections; I avail myself of the assistance
of all grasses.

“ Spnonte sua que se tollunt in luminis auras.”
‘pp :

As pasture grounds have at all times afforded suste-

60

nance to such immense numbers of cattle, in many coun-
tries the sole support of the human species, it may be
deemed rash to trust the maintenance of these domesticated
animals, im so many cases our sole resource for our own
food, to the precarious supply of provisions spontaneously
afforded by unassisted nature.

It seems also to imply great want of ingenuity in those
concerned in agricultural speculations, that they have not
devised means of improving our pastures, to enable them
to supply the increasing demands upon them, made neces-
sary for an increasing population.

Such seems to be the opinion of my friend Sir Hum-
PHRY Davy, who complains, “ that very little attention
‘“« has been paid to the nature of the grasses best adapted
*“* to permanent pasture ; perhaps pastures superior to the
** natural ones, may be made by selecting due proportions
“« of those suited to the soil.”

My able friend is not satisfied with mere complaint; in
the true philosophical style, he encounters the question
a priori, and exerts his chemical skill to investigate the
characters and properties of the several grasses, from
which he may form a reasonable judgment of those that
are most likely to afford the best pasture to our cattle.

This was the object in view, when the laborious suite
of experiments was instituted at WOBURN by the noble
proprietor, and in which this eminent chemist so fortu-
nately joined ;—yet with such associates, with the pa-
tronage, the liberality, and the great agricultural skill of
the DUKE oF BEpForD, the experience and persevering
diligence of Mr. SINCLAIR, it is mortifying to give up a
pursuit so strenuously sustained.

NATURE is against us, and has rigidly limited the powers
of man, and will not suffer him to interfere in the formation
of a permanent sole of grass.

61

To clothe our surface with a verdant coat, seemsa fa-
vourite object of Nature, and for the most beneficent
purposes: but she will execute it in her own way, and by
the mixture of a prodigious number of vegetables; so
many, that M. Sr. PreRRE tells us, all the research and
diligence of man could not give the complete natural
history of all the spontaneous vegetables contained in
one square perch of ground.

Let us, by breaking the surface, and by severe tillage,
exterminate every one of these vegetables, and sow the
mixture of grass seed we think most desirable ; yet, though
they should all vegetate the first year, they will soon vanish,
and we shall find, in two or three seasons, the surface
eccupied by the same mixture that Nature usually pro-
duces in such soils, and our labour completely thrown
away. k

My first agricultural pursuit was to discover how to
form the best permanent sole of grass ; and twenty years
before I laid off the gramina as a peculiar department for
myself, I made it a point to dedicate a small portion of
every field I laid down to such experiments, and to try
both mixtures, and one variety of grass, in small plots.

The first year, the produce was true to ihe seed; in
the second, the varieties sown were little predominant, and
in the third not to be found. ;

Many years afterwards, accident gaye me the same
result in a more extended and more decided manner.

Investigating the natural history of the several varieties
of grass, | made many plots, not less than fifty, sowing them
with all the different kinds, and by attentive weeding for
four years, keeping out all mixtures. At length, having
obtained the information I sought for, and given it to the
world, I ceased weeding ; and in two or three years could
not distinguish in any plot, the predominance cf the va-

62

riety that had so long occupied it; all assimilated-to the con-
tiguous meadow, and were not to be distinguished from it.

Are we then to give up the attempt to form such a sole
as we would prefer, or to improve a sole already esta-
blished? or is it beyond our power to change the poor and
unkindly grasses with which spontaneous nature has
stocked it, for others more nutritive—now (thanks to Sir
Humpury Davy) that we know them ?—By no means.
But we must pursue different measures from those my inge-
nious friends speculate upon. We must not attempt to
force Nature, and carry our point by violent alterations ;—
we must conciliate her by kindness, We must improve the
soil which we wish to see clothed with a more kindly de-
scription of grasses; and we must change it from a state
favourable to the production only of coarse, sour grasses,
and weeds, into one favourable to the production, and
encouraging to the growth of more kindly and more nu-
tritive grasses. |

It has been generally supposed, that spontaneous
Nature clothes our surface with the vegetables, and par-
ticularly with the grasses, best adapted to the soil in which
they are to grow. But an attentive observer will soon
discover, that this is not her usage ; on the contrary, that
she sows an indiscriminate mixture of grasses on all soils.
Of these, such as suit the soil they fall in, come forward in
health, while the grasses ill adapted to it fail off and
scarcely appear, yet generally preserve their existence.

If these positions, the result of many years’ diligent ob-
servation, be well founded, it is upon the soil we should
operate to change its produce, without troubling ourselves
to change the grasses, over which we have no power.

Let us take a cool and careful view of our extensive
pasture grounds, especially our mountain districts; let us
try if we can find any very common description of soil,

63

which we know to be unfavourable to the production of
kindly pasture.

I answer for it, such description will perpetually occur
to us, and to the greatest extent ;—I mean, that where
an impervious substratum, stopping the passage of the at-
mospheric waters downwards, oversaturates the upper
stratum, the vegetable soil, where it remains and becomes
acrid, injuring the roots of the grasses that are placed in
it, and derive their nourishment from it,—tbis undis-
charged water occasions our grassy surfaces to yield a
scanty and unkindly produce, to fail in their verdure,
and to give up every effort to continue their vegetation
early in autumn.

The fact is, the kindly grasses can scarcely exist in
so ungenial a soil, leaving the possession of the surface
to the unkindly amphibious tribe, or coarse aquatics.

I am thus brought back te the very same measures I
recommended in the two preceding chapters, for the
formation of spontaneous meadows :—relieve the roots of
your grasses from this noxious water, by frequent shallow
drains; stimulate your surface by a sprinkling of ani-
mating material, pure or in compost; and the unkindly
tribe in possession, now placed in a soil not suited to
their nature, will pine and decline, while those more
grateful to the. cattle, long barely existing in the unge-
nial soil, so soon as it is changed into one more suitable to
their nature, will take the lead, and come forward ,with
improved luxuriance and verdure.

These theoretical speculations of mine receive the
happiest confirmation from the result of a recent experi-
ment, sufficiently pregnant with important consequences,
were its own immediate object alone to be looked to.

i have in my first chapter dwelt sufficiently on the
experiment I had made under the inspection of my noble
friends the Earls of CALEDON and GosrorD, on the

64

formation of valuable meadow, without breaking the
surface, I here looked only to meadow, and that from
the produce of one solitary grass, carefully extirpating all
others.

It is from the operation of weeding that I derive the
information I consider as of so much importance; for the
greater part of the intruders upon me is the COCK’S-FOOT,
and the weightiest share of my labour is to extirpate this
grass, on all other occasions my greatest favourite.

I was well acquainted with this ungenial piece of ground,
always in meadow, and for thirty years had never observed
a single panicle of cock’s-foot in it; but so soon as the
nature of the soil was changed by the simple operations I
so often detail, this valuable grass emerges from its obscu-
rity, and presses forward to occupy its share of a surface,
now made congenial to its nature.

Several years ago, I had recommended cock’s-foot as
the very best grass for pasture, assigning my reasons; to
wit, that it possessed three qualities that make a pasture
grass valuable, earliness, luxuriance, and quick powers of
reproduction, after being eaten down. Cock’s-foot also
stands high on Sir Humphry Davy’s list, as yieldmg much
nutritive matter. ;

Is it then unreasonable to expect, that the same ope-
rations will produce similay effects on other grounds;
and that when we relieve them from water, and enrich their
surface, that spontaneous cock’s-foot will spring up in our
mountain pasture, as well as in our cold, wet, low-land
meadow, though this most excellent grass had never been
seen in either before?

I may be too sanguine in my expectations, that this ©
most valuable of grasses will instantly obey our call, and
enrich our mountain pastures, so soon as we shall have
prepared the soil for its reception; but £ know that a total
change in the herbage will most rapidly take place, and

65

that whatever may be the varieties that now come forward,
they will be kindly and grateful.

I have in the two preceding chapters detailed the mea-
sures for discharging the waters and enriching the surface :
they are precisely similar to those that will be required for
mountain pastures; but with this important difference,
that in the latter we are relieved from the expense of
weeding and inclosing.

Whether after so very considerable an abatement of
expense, we can look forward with prudence to the en-
counter of these boundless tracts, is a question that de-
serves the most serious discussion ;—but what occasion
have we to look to the magnitude of the whole, when
the improvement of one or of a few acres brings with it a
certain value by itself, without inducing any necessity of
advancing one step farther? Letus recollect, that whatever
improvement we make in this way is permanent ; our pas-
ture ground, so far as our exertions reach, amended for
ever ; and the proofs of our success or failure unequivocal :
for if we change the nature of our soil, we change the
colour of the sole; and the contrast between the original
surface and that operated on as I have directed, will in
a very few weeks be most striking.

We shali soon have other unsuspected testimony: shail
we, as I promise, change the sour unkindly grasses,
now occupying the surface, “into ethers more grateful to
the cattle grazmg upon it; they themselves wi!l instantly
discover the more desirable food, select and dwell upon
the spots. Shall even their actual preference escape our
view, in the short visits we may make to our mountain pas~
tures, we shall find they have left unequivocal proofs behind
them, distinguishing and pointing out the favourite spots
they had preferred, and dwelled longest upon. 3

It would be very desirable to ascertain what it would

F

66

cost to improve a given area by the process I lay down;
for although the expense of my small drains might soon
be determined, the number of them required is perpetually
varying with the nature of the ground.

ASHES, our grand fertilizing material, I know, in fa-
vourable ground (and all moory mountains are such) will
not cost more than threepence per cart-load.

I am unwilling entirely to give up lime, it is so encou-
raging to the kindly grasses, and particularly to the
smallest of the clover tribe, known to be most grateful
to all cattle; and the certainty of such herbage instantly
following lime, is well known by the experiment perpetually
made, of scattering some lime ona peaty mountain, to
show that the place willimmediately be covered with white
clover.

How far we can avail ourselves of this costly material
in our great area, is for the experimentalist to determine ;
he is, by trying different quantities of this most divisible
manure, to find what is the smallest quantity that will pro-
duce a sensible effect, and then the actual reclaimer must
consider if even this quantity be within his reach; while
we know that ashes alone, at threepence per cart, will give,
pure or in compost, a good stimulating top-dressing on
very reasonable terms.

Is not this the moment for us to ascertain all these
doints?—whether our cold’ wet grassy mountains be
actually capable of receiving a considerable degree of im-
provement?—and whether that improvement is to be at-
tained by the measures I recommend?—and whether
these can be executed at an expense that will be amply
repaid by success?

Calculations and estimates before-hand, often prove
erroneous when they come to be tried, and the expense
resulting very different from what was promised: let us

67

try a mode in which we cannot be misled as to expense;
but be able to calculate it with precision before we com-
mence.

Let the great proprietors of grassy mountains relieve
their distressed tenants, by employing the industrious and
unoccupied, in executing such operations as I recommend,
whether under the name of experiment or actual practice
I care not; let them send parties of ten or twelve, pro-
perly governed, into different parts of their wilds; let
them point out the commencement for each, and desire
them to proceed according to my directions. After such
atime as the proprietor can afford to employ them, he
tries what work they have each executed, and he knows
to a shilling what he has expended ; he can judge whether
the prospect of valuable improvement held out by me be
realized; and whether, when the present stimulus of finding
employment for the poor be oyer, it is worth his while to
continue the same operations, with no other view than
that of the benefit he is to derive from them. Shall he
determine it is not, he has at least the consolation of
knowing, that every shilling he has expended on my spe-
culations, has been divided among his own industrious
tenants, and that he has better bestowed it, in giving
employment with it, than if he had distributed it among them
gratis.

CHAP. dM.

HEATHY MOUNTAINS.

FROM green pasture mountains, I proceed to a much
wilder description, whose improvement has as yet scarcely
been attempted; and this seems the moment for experiment,
when, in addition to the prospect of valuable improvement
from our labours, we know through the Board of Agri-
culture, that the devising occasion for calling labour ito
action is deemed laudable ; and of course, should unfortu-
nately our speculations fail, yet the employment found by
them for the industrious and unoccupied, may fairly be
considered, at this time, as some abatement of the loss
sustained by the expense incurred in an unsuccessful
attempt.

I have sanguine hopes that our efforts will not be un-
successful, and shall state my reasons for expecting that
parts at least of these dreary, unproductive wastes, may be
made of some value to their proprietors, in place of their
present nullity.

Our field is immense, and of very different description,
graduating from grounds sufficiently encouraging, into
ampracticability, and even inaccessibility. But it is not to
this wild extreme we are to look, nor are we to argue from
its horrors : the whole field is our own ; we have the option of
its most favourable parts ; nor need we look forward to spe-

G9

culate how far we shall be able to proceed ; the contiguous,
and most promising parts, even in case of complete success,
will long give employment to our most spirited exertions.

In my plan for improving heathy mountains, T look no
farther than to their conversion from useless heath, to grassy
pasture of some value; nor can this be deemed a hopeless
scheme, as we often see green mountain pasture mixed
with the heathy, and often, even of more considerable
elevation.

Our task is then to investigate the cause,—why nature
in the one case prefers a vegetable useless to man, or his
cattle ; and in other cases, at the same, or a greater altitude,
throws up grassy produce of considerable value ;—and to
inquire, can we operate upon the surface so as to make the
soil a more favourable matrix for the gramina, and a less
favourable one to the heath! - .

In my former chapter, I have gone sufficiently into the
subject of the grasses which we mean to encourage, and
shall now proceed to the natural history of HEATH, whose
extermination is our object.

In addition to the power which Heath possesses of sus-
taining the severities of great elevation, it seems endowed
by nature with another important property, that of bearing
with much wet, and also with the alternations of drought and
moisture. From the latter, itis adapted to a peaty soil,
whose open spongy texture exposes it to such alternations ;
and thus we find it nearly in exclusive possession of such
soils at all elevations. HEATH is also a species of timber,
a tree in miniature ; its solid woody texture requiring years
to attain their full growth, and totally different from the
succulent vegetables, which, whether annuals or perennials,
lose in the winter, the whole growth and ve they have ac-
quired in summer.

70

This last character is important, as it implies slowness
of growth, and consequent difficulty in recovering pos-
session of the surface, after extermination, or even serious
injury.

Before I proceed to avail myself of this knowledge. of
the nature of heath and the habits of the grasses 1 mean
to substitute in its place ; I shall quote one strong instance,
in which this substitution actually took place, without any
previous intention of transferring possession from heath to
the gramina.

Some twenty-five years ago, the MARQuIS OF ABER-
CORN attempted to form a plantation near the conical
summit of his mountain, BEsSy BELL: an acre was in-
closed, the peaty surface dug, and of course the heath
exterminated.

Being on a visit to his Lordship, fifteen or sixteen years
after this acre had been planted with forest trees, and then
having taken up the gramina as a department; and ob-
serving, at about a mile distance, the strong contrast
between the verdure of this small spot, (as it appeared)
and the brown heath every where surroundingit, I ascended
the mountain, to make observations on the effect produced
by operations at so great an elevation.

I found the young trees ail quite dead, except the alders,
which were making weak suckers from their roots; that
the heath had not resumed possession ; that some varieties
of grass were there in tolerable good health, particularly
the agrostis slolonifera; but that the growth of these
grasses was much impeded by a profusion of moss or fog,
choaking them up :—anxious to give the grasses fair play on
such disadvantageous ground, I requested his Lordship’s
agent, who accompanied me, to send up some men with
rakes to destroy this fog, which was done; and three
ycars afterwards, when I paid another visit to BaRons-

71

Court, | found the green patch at the top of the mountain,
far more splendid than when I saw it before.

The circumstances attending this acre are most encou-
raging: the elevation was very great—an height to which
it cannot be necessary to ascend, until the improvement on
the skirts and lower regions are executed to a vast extent.
The heath, once exterminated, had not attempted to resume
possession ; the gramina had come forward of themselves,
without the encouragement we can so easily hold out to
them by draining and top-dressing.

Let us then avail ourselves of the lesson taught us by
my noble host, and, with the object more directly in view,
take the necessary steps for converting the russet surface
of our mountain into a more cheerful green, and for making
what is now unproductive, valuable, as well as beautiful.

I proceed to describe the soils we are to select, having
an option on which we shall commence our operations,
small at first, but which I hope we shall soon receive en-
couragement to extend widely.

A characteristic feature by which peaty soil (more es-
pecially when spongy) differs from our common soil, is
its facility of absorbing a great quantity of water, and also
of parting with it; hence light boggy soils are subject to
the extremes of wet and drought. Yo such violent alterna-
tions Nature seems to have enabled heath to accommodate
itself, while they are fatal to all the vegetables we cultivate,
as well as the grasses. We must therefore avoid spongy
FIBROUS soz/, and select the firmer peat, common in all
mountains ; as the turf we cut for fuel, at considerable
elevations, is far superior to what we obtain from cur
lower mosses.

We commence by exterminating the old possessor, heath,
_by the best means we can devise, fire or spade; indeed,
we often can pull them up by the roots, by hand. If the

72

surface be unequal, we must bring it to a coarse level,
striking off with the spade the small rising tammocks, and
tufts of heath; which when dry will assist us greatly in
lighting our fires.

Our following measures are exactly the same as in the
case of grassy mountains :—discharge the waters, enrich
the surface, and invoke Nature to stock it with excellent
food for your grazing cattle; and I pledge myself she
answers your call.

it is not easy, a priort, to determine the distance at
which the drains are to be cut from each other; discharge
of the water is the object, and this must be done effectually.
I should guess eighteen feet to be a good distance, and
eighteen or twenty inches the depth of the drains. Their
angle (the vertex down) should be obtuse, or at least a
right one, to prevent the tread of cattle filling them up;
and the eveater the width at the top, the more stuff we
raise. ‘ihis is the source of our fuel for ashes; and as we
raise it, we should dispose it for drying, that we may kindle
our fires as soon as possible.

if in sinking we reach the substratum, its material will
probably be much more productive of ashes than the pure
peat, and of course very valuable to us: nor should we
hesitate to sink our drains deeper, for the purpose of ob-
taining a great quantity of combustible material ; for the
more we enrich the surface, the surer we are of grasses
springing up and clothing it.

We light our fires in the intervals between our drains,
and when burned out, we spread the ashes on the spot with
shovels; and I think would do well to rake them lightly
into the very upper surface.

‘These operations are in themselves slight, neither capital
nor previous preparation requisite. Shall the proprietors
of peaty mountains even deem my specuations plausible,

73

what a field do I open for the employment of the zndus-
trious and unoccupied ! The very experiment will afford
much, without opening a source of fraud and imposition.
Let the proprietor employ a party, from six to twelve, of
his distressed tenants or neighbours. He points out to them
the field for their exertions, the fountain of their present
relief, and I hope the theatre of his own approaching
enrichment. He puts this party into the hands of a discreet
person, with the above direction of mine as the rules they
are to be governed by. He orders them to commence, and
proceed one, two, or three weeks. He then examines the
area they have brought within. this new pale of improve-
ment. He pronounces whether, at this dscertained expendi-
ture, he has done enough for an experiment ; and, in pro-
portion to his confidence in me, and his zeal to find
employment for the industrious and unoccupied, he
will stop to await the result, or he will venture a few
weeks more, and perhaps increase the number of his parties
of labourers.

The success will by no means be equivocal; his opera-
tions have changed the brown surface of his mountains znio
black, and he must wait with patience for the next season
of powerful vegetation, to see if nature has answered his
call, and is proceeding in her usual way to clothe his black
surface with a green sole. I envy him the pleasure he
will feel, when he observes the nascent grasses appearing
gradually, and occupying in succession the favourable soil
he has prepared for them; and I anticipate the exultation
with which he will, from a distance, point out the contrast
between the splendid glow of his own area, and the
sombrous gloom of what still remains in the possession of
its old occupants, the heath.

CHAP. V.

NAKED SANDS.

.

THERE is another field of vast extent open to us, upon
which I am not without hopes, that a thorough acquaint-
ance with the habits of the grassy tribe may enable us to
make some impression, and that purely by the aid of the
same associate NATURE, upon whose assistance I show in
the preceding chapters I have so much reliance, and who,
I expect, may be induced to commence her favourite ope-
ration of clothing our surface with a verdant sole of grass
by some slight melioration of the present surface, through
means not beyond very moderate powers.

This field is of immeasurable extent, and far beyond the
reach of human exertions to make an impression upon it
that will bear any sensible proportion to its magnitude, or
even when viewed by itself be of very considerable extent ;
yet I have hopes that in the most favourable parts of it we
may rescue some small portions from the barrenness, and
desolation, which it at présent exhibits.

I mean the naked sands, often loose and blowing about
to the great injury of the contiguous grounds, too often
reduced by the agency of the winds to the same sterile state
with its dreary unproductive neighbour. Indeed, we have
good reason to believe, that such sandy deserts, already
occupying so much of the surface of our globe, have been

79

long on the increase, and have made mischievous en-
croachments on the habitable and cultivable world.

In our own islands, the blowing sands in the HEBRIDES,
and even in some parts of the main land of SCOTLAND,
have in the memory of man committed extensive depreda-
tions; and in Ireland, in the north of DONEGAL, we
have still remaining, the walls of a house begun by a LorD
Boyne, standing in the midst of a sandy desert, the
surface of which is now on a level with the second story
of the building.

1 have not hopes, that by any interference of ours, or
by any style of cultivation, we can entirely arrest the pro-
gress of. such desolating clouds of sand; but there may be
cases of less violence, where, under favourable circum-
stances, the ingenuity of man may devise means of clothing
the surface, so as to prevent the loose materials from
being blown over other grounds, to their injury and ruin.

Let us remember, that, if we can clothe our sandy surface
with a grassy sole, we carry two important poimts; we
arrest the loose sand made mischievous by every stirring
wind, and we create a valuable] grassy surface where
nothing was produced before ; for we know the diminutive
varieties of grass that occupy such dry soil always to
afford a most kindly pasture.

Let those who start at the wildness of my projects,
retollect that this is the moment for experiment; that
though our hopes of success may not be very sanguine, yet,
shall we make the trial, one result is certain, that the pro-
_ prietor lightens the distress of his unfortunate tenants, and
that whatever expenditure he chooses to encounter, his
money is disposed of in the most charitable manner, in
finding employment for the industrious and unoccupied poor.

It remains for me to show, that my speculations are not

76

so wild as they may at first appear; that the idea of con-
verting barren sands into kindly pastures, is not suggested
by the pressure of the moment, and by the mere wish of
giving employment to the poor; for it had years ago oc-
curred both to myself and others; and is now brought
forward as subsidiary to the exertions of the Board of
Agriculture, as one measure, among others, by which em-
ployment may be given to the industrious and unoccupied
poor.

Some six or seven years ago, being on a visit to my
friend EARL O’ NEIL, his Lordship pointed out to me some
naked sand hills, which injured the view from the front of
SHANEH'S CASTLE; and, as he knew grass to be my depart-
ment, asked me if 1 could make these little hills green.

We went to examine them, and found every where,
though most thinly scattered, detached roots of the agrostic
tribe, with two or tliree poor stolones issuing from each.
I observed to his Lordship, that as this grass grew there
spontaneously, and preserved its existence in such poverty,
that by enriching the surface a little, we must both add to
the number of rocts and increase the length of the stolones ;
and that having thus formed the commencement of a sole, a
great number of diminutive grasses would soon start up
and forma perfect sole, both verdant to the eye, and yield-
ing some very kindly pasture.

Where is the material to enrich the surface with? Bu
ashes in the contiguous moor, sprinkle the surface with
this divisible material, harrow it in lightly with a bush; and.
you not only meliorate the surface to encourage it to be
productive, but you change the very loose texture of the
sands, and by forming them into a sort of paste, make them
less liable to be disturbed by the wind.

The idea of clothing naked, and even blowing sands by

rf

means of the stolones of my favourite agrostis, occurred
also to another gentleman, weil acquainted with the incon-
venience occasioned by such a moveable surface.

Two years after my intercourse with Earl O’Neil on the
subject, being in Edinburgh, I was told by my kind host
Mr. AINSLIE, that a Mr. Brown had requested to be in-
troduced to me, for the purpose of consulting me on a
question relative to grass, which he considered as of much
importance.

When Mr. Brown came, he told me he had been exten-
sively employed in managing estates in the LEWIs ISLANDS,
where great injury was done by the moving sand; that
he had observed in many spots and patches, the sand held
down by a grass running its shoots along the surface; that
he had returned lately from the main, and, hearing much of
fiorin grass, had been shown some, and immediately recog-
nized the long-stringed grass he had seen in the Hebrides,
holding down the sand: that his object in seeking an
introduction to me was, to request my opinion on the
practicability of cultivating this grass on loose sands,
where he had observed such beneficial effects from its
spontaneous growth. I gave Mr. Brown my opinion deci-
dedly on the practicability of the measure, with full written
directions as to the mode I thought he ought to pursue;
and I promised to communicate further with him by letter,
when he should apply to me. Not hearing from him, I
wrote to my friend to inquire about him, and found he had
got into employ ina part of Scotland not troubled with
blowing sands.

With Mr. Brown f did not limit myself, as in the former
case, to the spontaneous efforts of Nature, for clothing his
surface, and arresting the progress of his mischievous
enemy. I advised him, very late in August, when the sto-
lones had acquired strength enough for vegetation, and

78

were also in the greatest abundance, to scatter as many of
them over the surface as he could afford, and then to
throw some shovelfulls of sand over them; hoping that
until they exerted their vegetative powers, and actually
rooted in the sand, they would act mechanically, and by
their long strings entangle the sand, and increase the difli-
culty of disturbing it.

I advised also, in his Islands, to gather such sea-wrack
as would not make kelp, and, having previously suffered it
to ferment a little in heaps, to make it dissolve more readily,
to scatter it over the surface, both with a view to enrich it,
and also as in the former case to entangle the sand.

Although I had on all other occasions decidedly forbid
the propagation of this agrostis by seed, on account of its
slowness of growth, and the certainty of its being choked
up by intruding rivals; yet I advised Mr. Brown to try
seed, of which this grass is very productive, secure that, at
least in this field, we should not be disturbed by rivals ; nor
was I so anxious about the species of grasses that should
grow on this untried soil, as to get any thing to vegetate,
and aid by its roots to fix the loose sand.

I have, in this and the preceding chapters, laid open fields
of immeasurable extent to the ingenuity and industry of
man; the magnitude of the areas should not discourage us,
for it is not to their magnitude our efforts are to be pro-
portioned. Let us endeavour to advance a httle upon
their peripheries, and thus: |

—__—_—_—_—“ Oras magni evolvere belli.”

i must repeat, that where pasture is our object, as in
this and the two preceding chapters, we have great encou-
ragement. We are relieved from many previous operations ;
no inclosure nor even weeding necessary ; we press di-
rectly to our point, and operate immediately. |

79

e

Let not grave agriculturists, in the excess of their
wisdom, pronounce at once on the folly of these measures.
No doubt I may be too sanguine ; but before these solemn
gentlemen take upon themselves to arrest proceedings, I
intreat them to take a cool view of the subject.

The question is, can we make any advance in im-
proving certain wilds of vast extent, and in rendering
them of some use to man?—to such extent ashe can each,
and particularly at this time, when he has got so powerful
a force in his hand as the Board of Agriculture wishes to
find employment for? Is this question to be decided a
priori, and in the negative, by pompous wisdom!—Or are
we, even doubting, to try practicability by experiment, on a
small scale and at trifling expense?

CHAP... Vb.

UNTOUCHED SURFACES IN ENGLAND.

I HAVE often lamented, that the agrostis stolonifera,
whose hitherto unknown value I had taken so much
pains to press upon the world with so much success, had
not made the same progress in ENGLAND as in other
countries, and had in so many instances been received
with coldness, and more than doubt, of the great acqui-
sition I had boasted it to be to the agricultural world ;
and I had determined, and even declared my intention of
giving up both hopes, and attempts, to establish its culture
South of the TWEED.

Some recent circumstances have changed my determi-
nation ; the cause of so many failures has been ascertained ;
the ENGLISH agrostides, which I persisted too long in
assuming to be the same variety with the IRISH, are proved
to be of varieties decidedly inferior tothe Ivish in luxuriance ;
and, as I have great reason to believe, much less furnished
with saccharum.

My noble correspondent the Marchioness of Salisbury
had early given me a caution on this subject, remmding me
of the great inferiority of the English Ivy to the Irish;
but my too great confidence in the similarity of the pro-
ductions of Nature in latitudes so nearly the same, made

me incredulous.

31

The variety that comes forward spontaneously in DEVoN-
SHIRE is mostly the agrostis vulgaris, as his GRACE OF
BEDFORD was so good as to inform me; and my friend
Mr. Preston, M. P., assures me, that in his plantations
the agrostis vulgaris is to the stolonifera as three to one.

The other circumstance that induces me to resume my
efforts to establish this valuable grass in at least some parts
of England, is the flattering attention I have received
from the BarH AGRICULTURAL Society, whose worthy
President Str BEN. HosHouseE has done me the honour
of transmitting to me, the last volume of the Transactions
of that respectable Society; by which I find the subject
has been treated with the greatest attention: and I have
no doubt, the memoirs there published by Sir I. Cox
HIpPPISLEY, and the Rev. W. B. BARTER, who was
honoured by the Society with a premium for his successful
cultivation of fiorin, will stimulate others to partake of the
advantages deriving by their neighbours from the intro-
duction of this new vegetable.

Industrious and unoccupied poor, are as abundant in
ENGLAND aselsewhere ; and, it is probable, the more im-
mediate object in the contemplation of the Board of Agri-
culture. MounrTaAIns are more thinly scattered over the
Southern than the Northern parts of the island ; and it is
mostly on highly elevated districts that I have found em-
ployment for the unoccupied.

When I descend into the low country of ENGLAND, I
lose my grand coadjutor, severity of climate ; and here
too I find there is a rival, the agrostis vuigaris, already in
possession of at least the more Southern part of the island.

Can I find no other ally, but elevation? no other seve-
rities, but those of climate ?—I think I can. Cold, moist,
_ moory, and peaty lands are unfavourable to agriculture ;
and I pointed out to my friend Mr. CURWEN, as we tra-

G

82

velled through CUMBERLAND, considerable tracts of this
description, that never had been broken up ; and we agreed,
they were well adapted to fiorin culture, for then I was
not aware of what spontaneous Nature could do.

These grounds were generally covered with a grassy sole,
no doubt chiefly our own agrostis ; for I met with it every
where in CUMBERLAND as abundant and as luxuriant as
in IRELAND, and the agrostis vulgaris never obtruded
itself upon me. Here then we have a wide field, even
what I saw ; and I hear the same description is extensively
spread over the North of England; and their never having
been broken up, proves that the proprietors deemed them
unfit for agricultural purposes. Can we then change these
weak pastures into rich meadows? What a stimulus do
we give to the agriculture of the better parts of the
country! We greatly reduce the price of hay, and thus
enable farmers to keep more cattle to labour their lands
better, and to make more manure.

This description too has generally a cold retentive bottom,
and is saturated with undischarged water, exactly the same
case with much of the grassy mountains, and fitted pre-
cisely for the same measures I have dwelled upon so
much with respect to them. The same severe surface-
draining and plentiful top-dressing, must produce the same
effects: the rapid change from a poor soil to a rich one,
from a wet, to a dry one, would (as I have so often seen)
throw the native agrostis stolonifera into high luxu-
riance, and repress the aquatics, now the chief possessors.
More careful weeding would probably be required, as
we have not severity of climate to aid us in combating
intruders.

I have no personal knowledge of England South of
Cumberland ; but I have no doubt there must be other
tracts in their low countries, adapted to the measures I

83

have recommended, and by them affording employment to
the industrious and unoccupied.

I have long looked wishfully to the ENexLisH Ferns,
and have often shown to gentlemen connected with LIn-
COLN and CAMBRIDGESHIRE, and particularly to EARL
Sr. GERMAINS, a rich fiorin meadow, so low that its
surface never rose-more than twelve inches above the level
of the perpetually stagnant water: no other crop that I
am acquainted with could have been advantageously pur-
sued on such low ground ; yet my seventh crop is now pro-
mising well upon it. I am indeed particularly careful to
extirpate nascent aquatics; but I know too little of the
English fens to press the subject.

I expect that, as often in my own country, the fen or
bog passes into a firm soil by a slow gradation, leaving a
broad belt of flat moist soil, little elevated above the adja-
cent bog or fen, and which, when opened, would show the
stagnant water at the bottom of the drains, and probably
at a greater distance than the twelve inches I mentioned.
The perpetual discharge by these, would prevent the
water from over-saturating the soil, and becoming acrid
about the roots of the plants ; such description, if it exists,
isno doubt covered with a grassy sole, and would of
course be well adapted to the preceding measures. The
vicinity of the water would, I am confident, prevent the ob-
trusion of the agrostis vulgaris, while it would not injure
our amphibious stolonifera.

DEEP ALLUVIAL BOTTOM occasionally submerged,
would be far more productive in this way than in any other.
Ishould hope that upon such grounds the agrostis vulgaris
would not obtrude, and occasional submersions would not
injure my crop, standing or cut. Very frequent drains
indeed will be required to let off the water rapidly, and to

34

keep it as far distant as we can from the surface and roots
of the grass.

Attentive and persevering weeding will be found parti-
cularly necessary on such low moist meadows, most pro-
ductive in coarse aquatics; but this drainage, and weeding,
more severe and requisite here, will occasion more labour,
and secure employment to the industrious and unoccupied.

An interesting field remains in the South of England, to
which my attention has been more than once called m the
most flattering manner.—I mean DARTMOOR mountain, in
DEVONSHIRE. 3

The liberality of the RoyaL PrRopristor to the BATH
AND WEsT OF ENGLAND Agricultural Society, excited
their gratitude, and roused their exertions, to attempt the
improvement of this most ungenial tract. For years they
offered premiums for an Essay on the improvement of
DARTMOOR, but did not succeed in obtaining any ; and
when afterwards I gave them my sentiments on the
subject, they honoured me with a valuable medal, and
immediately proposed a premium for the cultivation of
fiorin oN DARTMOOR.

Most flattering and lucrative offers were made to myself
from high authority, through a most respectable Vice-
President of the Bath Society, to induce me to engage in
this Herculean labour; but my late period of life deterred
me from accepting the tempting offer.

Where could we find a finer field for the employment of
the industrious and unoccupied? Am I not justified for
stepping out myself, and for calling on the BATH SociETY
as my coadjutor? Strange as my former measures may
have seemed, that respectable Society gave me their most
decided support ; and their premiums have produced mea-
dows, though not equal either to my expectations or pre-

$5

mises, yet exceeding the hay crops ever raisedin ENG-
LAND.

Their late Transactions show, that of themselves they
took a most judicious step; and by proposing a premium
for the cultivation of their own agrostides, brought a most
important point to issue ; and having luckily fallen into the
hands of an acute and patient gentleman, the Rev. W. B:
BarTER, have ascertained, as I shall prove from Mr.
Barter’s facts, that the English agrostides are inferior to
the Irish, both in the quantity and sweetness of their hay;
and yet exceed, in quantity at least of their crops, those of
any other grasses they mow in England.

The Bath Society, having kept pace with me so long,
will not I hope decline to follow me one step farther; and
having tried what their own agrostides can do under cul-
tivation, when planted out, will permit me to try through
them, if I can call their spontaneous agrostides into luxu-
riance as I cando our own. We have now anew motive
common to us both, for the Bath Society seems as anxious
to find employment for the industrious and unoccupied, as
the Board of Agriculture, or myself: let us then make our
joint effort on the alpine wastes of Dartmoor. My hopes
of success are sanguine ; and should we fail, we have the
comfort of knowing that no other has as yet succeeded.

My measures are already fully detailed; the local appli-
cation of them alone remains. Let the Bath Society
persuade the proprietors of the ground [I shall describe,
to permit them to improve at the utmost ¢wo acres for ex-
periment at their own expense, the produce belonging still
to the proprietor; who must be interested as owner of the
contiguous ground, whose improvement depends on the
success of the experiment.

One acre of grassy sole, and one acre of heath, the
former not too shallow, and the peat of the latter not

86 ‘

fibrous or spongy;—the inclosure, drainage, and top-
dressing of these will cost the Society very little. Weeding
I have no doubt I shall scarcely trouble. I have often
complained when I have not severities to assist me in this
operation ; but I am well assured I shall not be stinted on
DarTMooR, as Nature has bestowed them in greater pro-
fusion on this mountain tract, than it seems entitled to,
either from latitude or elevation.

Both Bessy BELL and KNOCKLAID are higher moun-
tains than DARTMOOR; yet I saw our spontaneous stolo-
nifera in good health on the summit of each; and the
strong stolo my friend Mr. DicKENSON inclosed to me,
which he had himself found growing near the prison on
Dartmoor, was not like the agrostides of LOWER Devon,
the vulgaris, but the true stolonifera.

cS EAP iV LL

PEAT BOG.

lst, WITH A VIEW TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF ITS

SURFACE.

-

THE immeasurable peat bogs that cover so much of our
surface in the British Isles, have been long considered as
a most extensive field, requiring only the exertions of man
to bring them within the agriculturist’s pale, and to make
them, like the rest of our surface, produce food for himself
and his cattle.

I am confident this immense area has not escaped the
attention of the Board of Agriculture, and that the re-
claiming some of these desolate tracts has been Speculated
on by them among the means of employing the industrious
and wnoccupied ; and I fear that where the nation itself,
with its purse open, has totally failed, the Board of Agri-
culture will not be successful to a great extent.

It is now eight years since Parliament directed their
attention to the improvement of the bogs in one part of the
United Kingdom, and, pointing out the measures by which
it was thought this great object was likely to be forwarded,
most liberally voted £5000. to be applied to the purpose.
They afterwards voted £5000. more ; and, in full confidence
that their money would be honestly applied to the great

88

national object for which it was voted, gave another grant
of a much larger sum, and added £12,000. to the former
£10,000.

Were not the expenditure of this whole sum, with that
of a debt incurred, minutely detailed to the Parliament
itself, and by them to the public; I should be afraid to
assert, THAT not one shilling of the £22,000. was laid out
on any of the operations held out to be necessary for the
improvement of these bogs; but that the whole sum was
distributed among individuals, under the names (assumed
as a qualification) of ENGINEERS and SURVEYORS, while
a spade was never put into the ground.

Though not the slightest attempt was made to carry the
object of Parliament into effect practically, it might be
expected information on the subject at least would have
been obtained from national liberality ; and though actual
practice might have cut too deep into a fund from the
beginning destined to other purposes, yet that public ex-
pectation might have been gratified by a few experiments,
holding out encouragement to future exertions, and
pointing ovt by their success, the measures to be adopted
by those who should make new efforts to reclaim this un-
subdued domain of Nature.

Nothing similar occurs ; I cannot find that a single acre,
or even perch of bog was reclaimed out of the grant. The
unbroken sum was appropriated to the sole purpose of
‘PATRONAGE; and the reports made to Parliament give
the lists of the individuals among whom it was distributed,
with the fortunes made by each sins. from their
share of national liberality. :

J have more than once entered into the obscure question
of the original formation of the unwieldy masses of com-
bustible substance, that load and render barren so much of
our surface, ‘Their improvement too has been a favourite

89

subject with me, and not now encountered by me for the
first time ; yet, Herculean as the labour may be that is re-
quired for reclaiming such formidable morasses, I fear it
is not so manageable as to serve the purpose of the Board
of Agriculture, by affording prompt employment for the
industrious and unoccupied.

My speculations on the subject shall be limited to two
fields of action ;—the immediate surface of these bogs as
they now stand, and the lower surface that remains after
the unwieldy mass of peaty matter is carried away.

The soil of these great bogs, like all the surfaces we
haye hitherto encountered, is loaded with undischarged
water, which must be let off with much caution ; fordrought
is an enemy equally formidable and, I fear, not to be sub-
dued, where the fibrous light spongy peat reaches to the
depth ofa very few feet; nor would I be tempted to the
encounter of such a bog.

Where we find the sponge of the upper surface very
shallow, and the fibre of the peat in an advanced stage of
decomposition, we may hope to give it such consolidation
as will fit it for agricultural purposes ; for the danger of
our drought is not here so great ; and this can only be done
by carrying in great quantities of earthy or clayey mate-
rial from the exterior, to be well mixed up, and blended
with the actual surface peat.

_ The late Bog Commissioners, in their instructions, refer
much to the subsoil for these consolidating materials, and
talk warmly of lime-stone gravel, which they seem to expect
to find beneath the peaty moss.

I never was fortunate in my searches for a valuable sub-
stratum, though I know it sometimes exists, but always
inaccessible ; for so soon as we open a pit, it soon fills with
water, and from that time we are disabled from availing
ourselves of the lower material, however valuable for

90

agricultural purposes; and when this material is to be
carried to any, even small distance, the portage over deep
wet bog becomes intolerably expensive. Hence it soon
appears, that contiguity of the consolidating material is of
more importance than its quality.

The formidable extent of most of these bogs, and the
load of water they are always incumbered with, and which
previous to operations for reclaiming them must be dis-
charged, has given rise to an opinion, that the work is too
great to be encountered by individuals,—that the force of
the nation, or at least of the great proprietor, must be
called into action, to execute these general operations,
before the field will be ready for the diminutive exertions of
the individuals who are to encounter their smaller portions.

This opinion is founded in error; I have shown more at
large, that the work cannot be facilitated by any previous
operations ; that there is but one description of persons, by
whom the business of reclaiming our bogs, great or small,
can be undertaken, that is, the actual holder of the con-
tiguous farm, I mean the land continuous with the bog.

This personage must level and scarify the surface of the
bog he advances into with small drains ; and he must carry
into it the consolidating material from the nearest place he
can find itin. Can the industrious and unoccupied poor
be called in to assist in these diminutive operations, their
employment will be abundant; for small as each portion
may be in itself, the number of the whole is infinite.

This I am confident is the only mode in which the re-
claiming our great bogs can be encountered with any pro-
spect of advancing upon them with success. Shall Par-
LIAMENT or the great proprietors contrive to aid the
adjoining landholders, by“assisting them in paying for the

91

labour of the industrious and unoccupied, two important
points will be carried ;—improvement will advance, and
employment will be found for the distressed labourers.

But who can expect that the Parliament, after having
been already so gulled, will again embark in this adventure ?'
The great proprietor is differently circumstanced ; it is uport
his own estate the improvement is to be carried on, and the
ground reclaimed must in some years revert to himself.
Besides, the persons who will earn the money he is laying
out, are probably (and he may make it a condition) his
own starving tenants, or under-tenants. His own situation,
or that of his agent, must enable him to see that he is not
imposed on. Let him give, at his own suit, a small namber
of the distressed and unoccupied \abourers to as many in-
dustrious tenants, holding the edge of his bog, as he finds
willing to engage in the work with spirit: let him stipulate
the assistance the tenant himself is to give in carrying on
his own work for his own sole benefit during his lease ; and
let the landlord rigidly hold in his own hand, the payment
of these additional forces he has raised for the melioration
of his own estate, and for the laudable purposes held out by
the Beard of Agriculture.

There is an extensive description of peaty surface
spread over much of England as well as the other parts of
the United Kingdom, which I am sanguine enough to
hope would admit a considerable degree of improvement
at an expense within bounds ; and at the same time would
afford employment to the industrious and unoccupied.

I mean peat moss thinly covering a barren vapid sand,,
and generally clothed with a poor stunted heath. I know
not a description of ground more decidedly unproductive:,
and which seems improvable for agricultural purposes

only by the importation ofa firmer material, and its mixture
with stimulating manure.

92

I wish much to see-the spontaneous powers of Nature
tried also on this wretched surface; the expense would be
less than in any of the former cases, as we are relieved
from drainage. Can ashes be procured by the combustion
of some of the peat, with a portion of the substratum or
contiguous clay, the surface could be enriched on very
moderate terms. Coal is cheap in many parts of Eng-
land, and kilns for the combustion of any earthy material
may be lighted at very little expense, and thus ashes pro-
cured in sufficient quantities.

Were the surface levelled, peat and sand mixed, we
know the heath would not resume possession, and I am
certain with moderate encouragement the gramina would ;
for I have often observed, where the surface of a vapid
red sand has been laid bare, that some scattered solitary
agrostides have appeared.

It is very many years since I saw BacsHotT HEATH;
and from my faint recollection, it was exactly of this
description. Now we know that the stolones sold by
London seedsmen for fiorin were gathered on Bagshot
Heath ;—the question is not, were these the true stoloni-
fera? The fact is certain, that spontaneous agrostides
are abundant there; and since they come forward without
encouragement, no doubt when the surface was prepared
to invite them, they would spring up in greater abundance,
and would soon be accompanied by other diminutive
grasses, together forming agreen sole, and affording some
pasture.

The experiment at least might be tried on a small scale,
and some employment thus afforded to the poor; and se
far as experiment, a very small quantity of lime might be
tried.

CHAP. VIII.

PEAT BOG.

WITH A VIEW TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF ITS

UNDER-SURFACE. .

By the under surface, (perhaps the phrase may be im-
proper) I mean the new surface laid bare when the un-
wieldy mass of peat that touched it, and impeded its
improvement, is carried off.

This is an Herculean labour, too weighty to be repaid by
the acquisition of the ground hitherto useless, but now ap-
plicable to agricultural purposes. Some very favourable
circumstances must occur, to enable the proprietor to
disencumber himself of this Homeric

—Etlacioy axB05 apoupys—

this cumbrous mass of earth, before he can avail himself
of the new field that has not yet been exposed to the view
of man.

In ScoTLAND, ingenuity has devised means of making
the under-surface accessible. Mr. DRUMMOND HoMg has
contrived means of conveying his useless masses of peat
into the river ForTH, which carries them off, leaving him-
self a valuable soil, inaccessible to him before, but of

94

which he is now availing himself with much spirit, and to a
considerable extent.

Our great consumption of peat as fuel, assists us
powerfully in getting rid of the load of uncultivable ma-
terial that so often encumbers us. My friend JAMEs
Scott, Esq., following the practice of his father, has
supplied the Ciry oF DERRY with turf for very many
years ; and has carried off the peaty mass, some feet deep,
from a large area, now by his exertions bearing valuable
crops.

These, at least so far as considerable extent goes, are
I fear solitary instances. Many circumstances must concur
to make this under surface fit for agricultural purposes.
Mr. Scort luckily has a good clay; so I find has Mr.
DrumMonpD Home; but the under soil is seldom encou-
raging. When my chemical friends tried the material of
the substratum I sent them, (and it was a most common
one, a@ whitish ponderous viscid clay,) they found, on
analysing it, eighty-three parts silex, sixteen aluminé,
and one oxide of iron ;—a soil little favourable to the pro-
duction of grain crops: besides, it is generally low; and
complete discharge of the water, attended with much dif-
ficulty, is indispensably necessary. We must then, in
ninety-nine places out of a hundred, where the upper
peat is cut away, look for other crops than the farinaceous,
and a style of culture adapted to the harsh, and more
generally the peaty soil we have still to work upon. |

The improvement of cuUT-oUT Moss has long occupied
my attention: it was the first agricultural topic 1 ventured
to bring before the public, and I now resume the subject
with peculiar pleasure ; for I consider this species of im-
provement, as the most copious source extant for the
employment of the industrious and unoccupied; and that

95

upon which their labour may be constantly put in action
in innumerable places at once, and with a certainty that
the most valuable results will follow, and with a rapidity
unequalled in any other style of improvement; and also
that the value created by it will bear a far greater propor-
tion to the expense incurred, than could be procured by
any other exertions of pure manual labour.

I have also to add in favour of the measures I wish to
see carried into effect, that they are not theoretical specu-
lations, founded on general principles and high probabi-
lities, like some of the preceding: for before I ventured
to propose them to the world, experiments were carefully
and patiently made, success ascertained; and now, after the
lapse of several years, the meadows formed on cut-out moss
of the very worst description, and utterly unfit for any
other culture, continue to produce crops, not to be ap-
proached in quantity or quality by the meadows formed
in the old way, and loaded with the best dung to any
amount.

It is eight or nine years since I published a pamphlet,
the most important topic in which was the improvement
of cut-out moss. Now as the positions there laid down
have never been controverted, and as the experience
of so many years has given to myself the most complete
confirmation of their truth, I shall state some few of
them as laid down in that pamphlet, which was honoured
with a medal.

Page 17.—Under the head of Wet Morass ; comes a
“« description of a ground well known to, and actually in the
possession of most farmers and gentlemen in the North
‘« of Ireland, as well as in many other parts of the United
‘* Kingdom—J mean cut-out moss.

‘* The facility with which the very worst and. wettest of

96

these. abandoned spots can be completely clothed with
grass, is hardly credible ; the only difficulty to be encoun-
tered is effectual protection from cattle.”

Page 18.—* The immense extent to which this species
of agricultural improvement may be carried, or rather
would imperceptibly carry itself if attended to, is scarcely
to be believed.

‘« The process of cutting out moss is going on steadily
in all peat countries; but the conversion of the ground,
after being cut out, into profitable land, is practised by
few, and by those‘only under the most favourable circum-
stances; that is, when the ground is left sufficiently dry
and solid to bear a crop of potatoes, to be followed by
rye, perhaps meadow.

‘* But where the ground is wet, low, and soft, itis gene-
rally left to Nature to clothe such surfaces as she best
can. It is even very seldom she is aided by any attempt
to level or let off the water.”

Page 20.—‘ Now if the small portion of moss annually
cut out by such person or family be laid down with
grass, so soon as the turf-cutting is finished, the business
is done, and the meadow will follow close on the steps
of the turf-cutter, as far into the main bog as his in-
dustry shall have carried him.

*“* I shall now indulge myself with a little utopian spe-
culation on the subject, and shall suppose for a moment
thatthe feasibility of the measure I recommend is ad-
mitted, and the practice universally adopted; let us try
what will be the result in my own country.

“« To suppose that there are in the Kingdom of Ireland
only 600,000 families using turf fuel, is a very moderate
computation; and I know that I shall be greatly within
bounds, if we allow to each family, on an average, only

97

* one perch English measure annually; that is giving the
*« family 160 years to cut an English acre of moss: thence
“ it follows, if this improvement be carried into its ex-
“* treme extent,—that is, ifall the bog be reclaimed as soon
“ as cut out,—we shall add annually to our profitable
“ ground 3750 acres.” ; |

Page 25.—< I have thus opened to many in the NorTH
‘¢ oF ENGLAND, to more in SCOTLAND, and to immense
“ numbers in MY OWN CoUNTRY, a sort of domestic spe-
** culation of extreme lightness, when considered’ by
‘* them as individuals, but of immense consequence when
“ we view the probable result of their united efforts.
“ J invite in some sort the mass of the people to co-operate
“ jn the improvement of their country, rather by imper-
“« ceptible attention, than by laborious or expensive exer-
“« tions ; and I stake my credit on the success.”

It may be thought extraordinary that I should make so
long a quotation from a paper already before the Public;
but it must be remembered, that the objects in view, when
those two papers were written, were totally different :-—that
the former, a new style of improvement laid before a re-
spectable Boarp, the proper tribunal to pronounce upon
the merit of all such Plans tendered to them.

This second paper is laid before the Board of. Agricul-
ture on their own invitation; its immediate object, explicitly
pointed out by themselves, to find means of employment for
the industrious and unoccupied poor. .The Board of Agri-
eulture will not be displeased to find, that.the two objects
coincide, and that when I find copious employment for the
persons they point out, their labours shall contribute most
powerfully to the improvement of the country:

« Alterius sic
“ Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amice.”
= ;

96

The ceierity with which the measures I recommend are
to become productive, is a point of much consequence ; and
TI can establish it by a strong fact.

In spring 1811, the Farming Society of Ireland proposed
a, medal of five guineas value for the best Essay on fiorin
grass. I gave in one; and, to prove quickness of return,
promised, when I cut my turf in April, I would lay down
a.part of the ground from which the turf had been cut,
and engaged to mow from it that same season a crop of
hay of superior quality, and double the quantity, of any cut
that year from an equal area.

I called upon my most respectable neighbours, particu-
larly. the Hon. and Rey. Charles Knox, to inspect the
ground before the turf was cut, and afterwards when the
crop. was growing; and they reported, that I had com-
pletely fulfilled my promise. The same ground was in-
spected in October, by Committees of the Agricultural
Societies of the STEWARTRY of KIRCUDBRIGHT and

County of Wierown, who saw with astonishment the

meadows cut, and made a most favourable report.

About the same time, a Gentleman was sent over from
DUMFRIESSHIRE to inspect these meadows, and his
first question was—Where is your meadow on cut-out
moss? I took him there, and showed him the luxuriant
meadow, pursuing the turf-cutter. He examined it with the
greatest attention, ascertained the bounds of the narrow
stripes made after each year’s cutting, and then said: “ If
T see nothing else, [ am amply repaid for the trouble and
expense of my journey.” This Gentleman, on his return
home, published his report of what he saw.

The late Ricut Hon. Isaac Corry also inspected
these meadows, and published | his report a — to

the present Lord Colchester, an amateur. 1 shall quote

his own words.
«« T now inguired for my friend’s experiments on bog,

nw

‘ particularly on cut-out moss; being well aware of the
“ oreat benefit that might be derived from that seat
* tion of ground being made productive.

«« He took me to the place where he had cut -turf last
« year, laying it down in September 1808. ‘The crop
«“ here seemed equal to any I had examined, and was
‘in beautiful verdure. As I considered this description
“ of ground as my principal object of inquiry, I was very
“ particular, and made the mower cut in different places:
«* 1 found the sward enormous.”

I shall produce but one witness more to establish my
successful practice of converting cut-out moss into most
valuable meadows ; a name which I know will be respected
by every English agriculturist.

Mr. CuRWEN was so good as to visit me, and inspected
my crops of every description with much attention, and
published his report upon them on his return. When he
comes to the conversion of cut-out moss into meadow, he
says :

“The view of this could not fail of moving the most
** phlegmatic. My friend’s persevering labours have de-
monstrated the practicability of converting millions.
of acres in the United Empire, which are now unpro-
ductive :—what a benefit, to draw from a lifeless mass
“ an equivalent of victual, to the major part of what:
* is under tillage! Permit me to say, in a country that has
so much worthy of admiration, no sight has afforded
me more gratification than such a produce on a lifeless
** bog. What a source of riches is here!” |
The calculation I have made above, of the quantity of

\

100

peat moss cut out annually in Iveland alone, increased
by what has been cut out in England and Scotland,
and multiplied by the number of years in which the
quantity of cut-out moss has been accumulating, will
show that Mr. CuURWEN’S phrase of millions of acres
will not be considered merely as an hyperbolical mode of ex-
pression. But the materials from which Mr. CURWEN and
I pronounce upon the magnitude of this unhappy deserip-
tion of ground, are very different. I speculate a priori,
calculating from stated data; while my friend, well ac-
quainted with each of the three kingdoms, speaks from
his own observation, and pronounces, vaguely indeed, from
what he had actually seen.

The meadows in England and Wales are estimated at
six millions of acres; and Mr. Curwen himself, several years
ago, estimated their average crops at a ton and half to
the English acre. Shall we be content with such scanty
produce from the meadows formed in our way on cut-out
moss?—By no means. Mine have never fallen short of
treble that amount.

Whatever additions then shall be made to the meadows
of the United Empire in this way, a still greater diminu-
tion must take place in the area now under meadow; and
much of this must be added to our present agricultural
field, to the great increase of our stock of grain crops,
and to the increase of the agricultural population, already
(in England, at least) bearing too small a proportion to the
manufacturing population.

I hope I have said enough to convince the Board of
Agriculture of the extreme importance it would be to the
whole Empire, to have the cut-out moss, scattered over so
much of its surface, brought into a productive state; and I
hope the high authorities I have quoted, will also convince

101

them that the mode I have practised would effectually
answer the purpose, if extensively adopted and with
spirit. |

When I first published my sentiments on this subject
my own conviction was complete; and it was not my
fault that the important topic was not further pressed on
the Public, for the attempt was made and stopped in its
progress. :

I occasionally brought forward the subject in the cir-
culating agricultural publications; but finding it not taken”
up, I began to consider who were the persons to begin,
that I might endeavour to rouse them into action. The
proprietors of the estates studded with these disgraceful
tracts and patches, instantly occurred to me: these were the
persons interested, as the reversion when leases expired
was theirs. They possessed the means of assisting, and
had power to enforce; but the landlords through the
United Empire were so unconnected a body, that I knew
not how to apply to them with any prospect of attaining
attention. I found I must address myself to a particular
proprietor, and, could I find great extent of territory ac-
companied with public spirit and liberality in the pro-
prietor, I might possibly rouse exertion sufficient to set an
example that would be followed.

In my own country I could nothesitate. The CorPoRa-
TIONS OF THE CITy oF Lonpown, I have no doubt, are the
greatest landed proprietors in IRELAND, possessing nearly
the whole ofthe Country oF DERRY. Other circumstances
determined my selection. The public spirit and liberality
ef the Corporations were to the Gentlemen (of that country)
matter of great notoriety; always ready to afford ample as-
sistance on every public occasion, and only requiring to be

called upon. I know their character was well drawn by the
poet:

102
Dui tibi divitias dederunt, artemque fruendi.

To these respectable Corporations I addressed a memoir,
premising, that though well acquainted with their libe-
rality, I did not call for their money. I went into the
subject of cut-out moss; stating, I presume, the facts I
have mentioned here; and showing, from the local circum-
stances of great population, and a most frequent dispersion
of peat bog over the whole surface of the County of Derry,
that it was more disfigured by unreclaimed cut-out moss,
than any other county, and might be considered as well
described by Tacirus—

Lerra in universum paludibus fada.

Relying on the influence these respectable Corporations
possessed, and secure of the attachment of their tenants,
and of the prompt obedience that would be paid to every
thing recommended by them, I pointed out the directions
they should give their tenants when cutting their turf; a
compliance with which would effectually prevent the
further increase of these odious morasses.

In case I should be mistaken in the disposition I had
-assumed to exist, 1 showed how, by the mildest measures,
their tenants might be compelled to consult ther own in-
terests, and to improve without expense and to the greatest
advantage their own properties during their leases, with
other matters which I conceived interesting to the —
of Derry and its great proprietors.

This memoir, together with a letter I addressed to
himself, were given to Mr. SLADE their Secretary, by the
Lorp Bisuor of Derry: but neither were favoured
with any notice on the part of Mr. Slade, or the Lon-
DON SOCIETY, to whom it-was addressed.

In the course of a long life, I had some experience of

1038

the hauteur, and rudeness of office; and seeing I was not
likely to obtain attention, after waiting a long time, I re-
quested my friend Sir George Hill to call on Mr. Slade
for my memoir, that I might bring my sentiments on the
improvement of my country before the Public through
‘some other channel, that which I had chosen as a desirable
one being shut up by the Secretary of the Society. Sir
George’s application failed. I thenspoke to Mr. Slade
personally, requesting my manuscript might be returned
to me, as I had not a copy. Mr, Slade promised it should,
but I heard no more of it.

Though my whole manuscript seems irrecoverable, I
found one sheet among my loose papers, where it had lain
three or four years. I shall quote it as it stood:

«« The question then I have taken the liberty to bring
* before your respectable ~Corporations is—Are these
« 3750 acres, as formerly, to be added to our national field

of barrenness and deformity? or are they, by exertion
and attention, without expense, to be thrown into a style
of great beauty and high profit, adding every year to our
“* most valuable lands, and fully equal to any of them ?”

I then detail the measures to be recommended to, and en-
forced upon the turf-cutters, in their annual proceedings ;
by which the portions contained in the COUNTY OF DERRY,
of the 3750 acres cut out ANNUALLY in all Ireland, will
be-reclaimed, and made profitable in regular course.

I next call the attention of the London Corporations
to the wide field of desolation, the result of indolence and
neglect accumulated for centuries; and I encourage them
toencounter it. I tell them, “ There is a mighty agent,
‘“* whom it has been the fashion to threaten to rouse into
“ action upon any emergency, THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE.

‘« Buonaparte talked of the thirty or forty millions,

104

© who would rise en masse, and overwhelm an invading
‘enemy. Party, too, can make the same threat, and
** tell us of the millions that are ready to rise in support
“ of their demands.”

‘“* Let us avail ourselves of the same instrument, and
** rouse the population of the County of Derry, to the
** encounter of these scenes of desolation.” I then pro-
ceed to show with what facility these respected landlords
could carry this important point, and rouse the population
of the county, to sweep these disgraceful morasses from
the face of their county, in a few weeks ;—and now, after
four years, in the hour of distress, I call upon the same
landlords to employ the industrious and unoccupied pee
of the same population on the same work.

The task I shall put upon them, provided I can get
access to them, the usual channel being obstructed, will be
very light. Several of their great leases having made a
near approach to their termination, and one of the
largest, THE DRAPERS’, having fallen, and in their own
actual possession, their attention is brought more imme-
diately to the spot; and the offensive morasses I complain
of, cannot escape their observation in the midst of a fine
country.

At this moment the Board of Agriculture speculate
upon raising an army, to invade the unimproved parts of
the empire—and where can we put them on actual service
so effectually, as on the estate of the Drapers’ proportion,
now in their own hands?

Let me not be charged with partiality to my own country
for endeavouring to concentrate general efforts, and
bringing them to bear upon one favourite spot. The mea-
sures I shall recommend are equally applicable to all
countries ; and when I address myself to the Corporation

105

of Drapers, I tell every landlord in the empire possessing
peat bog,

— Mutaio nomine, de te
Fabula narratur

I now proceed to measures of practice applicable to all
peat countries.

Let the Drapers’ Corporation employ five parties of
twelve each, composed of their industrious and unoccu-
pied poor tenants, with an overseer to each of them; let
these five corps, under proper general directions, move
about their estate encountering cut-out moss wherever they
meet it, and converting it into valuable meadows by the
following simple process.

' First, light a few fires to form ashes for compost; then
level the surface, and make frequent drains, so as effec-
tually to discharge all stagnant water, and then draw a
strong fence round the whole area ;—the great work is now
over, and on this occasion I shall not, as on others, wait
until Nature sows or plants for me. I desire the prepared
surface be sprinkled over with a little compost, and then’
strings or stolones of the agrostis stolonifera (IRISH
FIoRIN) to be spread on the surface, and the remainder
of the compost thrown over them.

This compost is to be formed of the peat or earth thrown
out from the drains, and fence; and the ashes to be mixed
with it, will be ready in due time; while the stolones with
which it is to be laid down, are gathered in abundance on
the spot, in the bog itself.

I have now five corps prowling about the Drapers’
estate, seeking what morasses they shall devour; and I
answer for it, the odious description vanishes in ONE

MONTH from the face of their territory—let us see at what
| expense.

106

Twelve men at Is. per day, and an overseer at 2s. 6d.,
amount to 41. ds. per week; 17]. Os. per month: so that
the whole five parties, employed for one month, will cost
the Drapers’ Corporation less than 100/., and make the
entire of their newly resumed estate presentable.

But this hundred pounds I will not take off the Corpo-
ration’s hands in money ; they must in some sort act perso-
nally, and adopt the arrangement I have laid down. I
am ready to communicate or confer with their agent on the
general management of these measures ; and a distance of
17 or 18 miles need not prevent all, or any of the overseers
coming to receive instructions from me, and encou-
ragement from the inspection of my long-reclaimed cuT-
OUT MOSS, and a lesson on the mode of proceeding,
where the process is still continued regularly every year.

I cannot let off the London Corporations for the ex-
ertions of the Drapers’ alone, however strenuous. There
are eleven companies more, exclusive of the London
Society, all possessing extensive estates in the County of
Derry, and all disfigured by the morasses I have de-
scribed.

[ consider myself as in the employment of the Board of
Agriculture, raising corps from the mass of the indus-
trious and unoccupied, for their service; and I do not
think I am unreasonable in asking one corps from each
of the 12 estates, to be employed like the Drapers’ 5, in
waging a war of extermination on their odious morasses:
the result, I answer for it, will be, that their Lessees raise
similar corps, and carry on the same unremitting hostility,
in conjunction with their principals: 20/. each is all I ask ;
but, as before, I will not have their money. I insist’ on
their own exertions; and if I be gratified with the sum
and the mode, I pledge myself to the Ciry or Lonpon,
that with their 324/. they will materially change the face of

a

107

/

the country they are interested in; while Parliament, with
their twenty-two thousand pounds laid down, could not
reach a single acre.

The London citizens cannot be very general agricul-
turists; but as many have villas, and grow their own hay,
and all of them see the SURREY and MIDDLESEX crops ;
I am glad to seize the opportunity of showing them what
this cut-out moss on their own estate may be made to pro-
duce in a style of crop with which they are acquainted.

Mr. Wart, a Derry merchant, holds some lands under
the London Society, from which he has cut a deep co-
vering of moss:—meeting some Essays on reclaiming
Bog, Mr. Watt encountered his own in the same way,
with much spirit.

Coming not long afterwards to Derry, and hearing of his
proceedings, I waited on him, and went to see his ground ;
which I found highly elevated, and so coarse, that I am
certain the culture of farinaceous crops could not have
been pursued upon it with success.

THe Farmine Society or IRELAND propesed a
premium for the two best acres of Fiorin raised in the
year 1816; and when the amount was rigidly inquired
into, and established upon oath, Mr. Warr’s was found
the best; and he obtained the first premium, 50/. while
the second 30/. was adjudged to another.

The records of the Farming Society, and the English
Farmers Journal for May 26, 1817, state the amount of
the two crops, 2 acres each; they were weighed on the
following March, to secure the hay being quite dry at
the time: the one amounted to 5 tons 19 cwt. and 17
pounds, to the English acre; while Mr. Watrt’s reached
6 tons 16 cwt. 3 quarters and 14 pounds. |

The London Corporations holding estates.in the County

108

of Derry, would do well to inquire if the SURREY and
MIDDLESEX hay crops, stimulated by so much London
dung, amount to ONE-THIRD of what can be raised on
their own estate on the very description of ground to which
I am labouring to bring their attention, cut-out moss, and
upon which I am anxious to see their own industrious and
unoccupied tenants employed.

MEMOIR

CULTIVATION

OF

FIORIN GRASS.

DRAWN UP BY DESIRE, AND FOR 'THE INFORMATION
OF

HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS

THE

ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA.

eee

1818.

a“

MOI tAaay

PREFACE.

THOUGH I have already appeared so
often before the Public on the subject of
Fiorin Grass, [ cannot decline complying with
the wish of the ARcuDUKE JOHN oF AUs-
TRIA, signified to me by Sir Thomas Ack-
LAND; who tells me his Imperial Highness is
very desirous to obtain fiorin roots and sto-
lones from InELanp, and particularly from
me, with information and instructions on the
subject of this newly noticed grass.

That his Highness was now cultivating
fiorin from stolones he had obtained from
Drxmark, and was desirous to compare the
Danish fiorin with that of the country where
the plant was indigenous, and first brought
within the pale of cultivation.

I feel myself highly honoured by the ex-

pression of the Archduke’s wish; and in com-

112

pliance with it, have thrown together, for his
Highness’s information, every thing relative to
this grass that I conceive to be sufficient to
make him acquainted with the natural history
and habits of fiorin, and the proper mode of
cultivating it, so as to raise from it such im-
mense crops of hay as we are used to see it
produce in this country.

I return my most sincere thanks to my
Danisu Pupits for mtroducinmg my fa-
vourite to an amateur of such exalted rank ; I
well know the success with which they have
cultivated fiorin in their own country, and
the pains they have taken to make their
neighbours of SWEDEN and Norway pai-
takers of the advantages they themselves are
deriving from this grass, and for which they
express so much gratitude.

I am proud to find my protégé travelling
southward, and may live to see the dominions
of our Imperial Ally highly benefited by the
introduction of this grass; for when such

eminent personages as their Highnesses the

1135

Archdukes enter with zeal into agricultural
pursuits, the improvement of their country is

a necessary consequence.

Moy, Ireland, Jan. 22, 1818.

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CONTENTS.

The natural history—the habits—the culture—with the
history of the original discovery of fiorin grass—and
the successive additions made to its value—epitomised
for the instruction of His IMpERIAL HIGHNESS THE
ARCHDUKE JOHN OF AUSTRIA.

Author pleased with the opportunity of giving up some
practices he found tt imprudent to persist in—and of
urging the adoption of new ones of still greater import-
ance.—Extreme ignorance of the agricultural world on
the subject of grasses.—The gramina laid off by the
Author as a distinct department for himself—Disco-
very of the great value and strange properties of fiorin
grass not accidental. Curious results of early experi-
ments on this grass.—First notice of fiorin stolones.—
Author assisted by Sir Humpurey Davy in discover-
ing their continued growth and great value.—Author
assisted by GENERAL TROTTER in ascertaining the
animation of fiorin, and the continuation of its vege-
tating powers for months after being severed and dried.
—Important results from this discovery.—Facility of
propagating fiorin grass.—Facility of saving its hay
in winter—founded on philosophical principles.—Im-
mense quantity of fiorin crops—superior quality of its
hay—greater abundance of its saccharum—all established
by irresistible evidence.—Aborigines of the British Isles
all acquainted with fiorin and its value.-—The writers
in the lVth century speak favourably of fiorin—The

116

writers of the 18th century reprobate it.—Facility of
raising great fiorin crops without breaking the surface,
sowing or planting.—Spontancous luxuriance of fiorin
more easily excited in our worst than in our best grounds,
—Reasons, a priori, why it should be so.— Mountain
tracts peculiarly adapted to the spontaneous production
of great fiorin crops.—These paradoxes necessary con-
sequences of the properties with which Nature has en-
dowed fiorin grass.

APPENDIX.

Instructions for cultwating fiorin.— Best soil for fiorin
—its preparation — frequent weeding indispensable—
also frequent top-dressings.— How to lay down fiorin—
how to economize the stolones when scarce—how to get
into stock from seed.—Author ready to transmit seed
to any one.—Proper seasons for laying down fiorin.

%

MEMOIR

ON THE

CULTIVATION OF FIORIN GRASS.

TaoucH I have already given many desultory publica-
tions to the world, on the subject of fiorin grass, and
although the value of my discovery be now well esta-
blished and admitted; I am induced, by the acquisition of
a new pupilof exalted rank, HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS
THE ARCHDUKE JOHN oF AUSTRIA, to resume my pen,
and, for Ais information, to epitomise the most important
of them, and to give an account of the mode in which I
became acquainted with a vegetable, that, notwithstanding
its power of supplying man with the most important
article in rural ceconomy, Hay of the best quality, and
in treble -the quantity yielded by any other grass, had for
many ages escaped the attention of agriculturists:

Previous to the request from this eminent personage,
(communicated to me by Sir THomas ACKLAND) to
transmit to him Fiorin seed, roots, and stolones, with in-
structions how they were to be managed; I had of late
thought it incumbent on me, before I give up this favourite
subject, (which must be very soon) to detail the progress
of my discoveries; for, in the course of the eleven years ©

L

118

during which | have been making experiments on, and
cultivating Fiorin Grass, new properties and applications of
this curious vegetable were perpetually occurring; and
of these some of the latest will probably be found by far
the most important.

At the same time 1 must confess, that some of the appli-
cations and practices, which were at first so promising as
to induce me to recommend them to the world in the
strongest manner, I have since been obliged to abandon ;
finding that in the practice of years, the plant abated gra-
dually of the luxuriance it first exhibited under them,
shewing, after some time, that they were not to be persisted
in with prudence.

Of other applications of fiorin grass, upon which I was
at first very sanguine, I begin to entertain doubts, which
I think it incumbent on me fairly to state, leaving the
questions open to future amateurs to investigate, using
my own best endeavours to bring them to issue, if I can,
in my own time; contenting myself, at present, with stating
them openly, with my reasons for expecting fayeurable
decisions, and also my reasons for doubting.

From these concessions it may be inferred, that I am re-
linguishing the high expectations I had entertained of the
benefits to be derived from my discovery, lowering my
tone, and receding from the lofty promises I had so often
made to the world. |

This may be partly trae; but on the other hand I boldly
say, that my conviction of the value of this grass has never
been on the wane, and that from May 1806, when I
first began to make observations upon it, until this moment,
my expectations of the benefits to be derived from the
discovery of fiorin, have been increasing, and my hopes at
the end of every successive year more sanguine;—for,
though I was obliged to give up some uses and applica-

119

tions, that I had previously recommended, others were
perpetually occurring, that more than compensated for
them ; these variations being the consequence of the di-
versified, and I may almost say, contradictory habits of
this strange vegetable.

The grand, and I am willing to concede the sole, use of
fiorin is, to furnish dry hay to our winter cattle ; and that
it will do this in far greater quantities, and of superior
quality, from our best grounds, than they yield at present,
are positions I have never in the slightest degree receded
from.

That its crops can be raised and kept up in continued
luxuriance, on the same good grounds, on cheaper terms,
and with greater certainty, than those of any other grass,
I persist in asserting, having my tenth and eleventh succes-
sive crops now making up, without a trace of diminution
in their value.

Important as these advantages may be, when an artitle
of prime necessity is the object, yet they must appear insig-
nificant when compared to what follows ;—for it will be
seen, that crops similar to those thus obtained from our
best grounds, may also be raised from those we may call
our worst: such at least as never before were supposed
capable of bearing crops, either of hay or corn.

Shall I be told, that the ingenuity and industry of man,
supported by capital, may, at great expense, force cultiva-
tion beyond the bounds it was supposed capable of reaching?
1 reply, that in passing those bounds, I shall incur
scarcely any expense ; for, that when obliged to cultivate,
the process shall be light and simple, and the cost far less
than what is now incurred in preparing our very best
ground for only similar crops: but that in the more ge-
neral, and more extensive description of this new territory,
upon which I propose to advance, JI shall use no culture,

120

i shall only rely upon NATURE, with the slightest encou-
ragement, for throwing up, of herself, the very fiorin crops L
am so anxious to have produced, and for continuing them
in steady luxuriance, at one third of the expence now re-
quired to keep up the crops that grow on our best grounds.

Ihave thus, in addition to my desire of gratifying my
Imperial Pupil, two motives for now coming forward, and
probably for the last time, on the fiorin subject; the one,
to prevent some of my early positions from leading any one
into error, either by encouraging the continuance of some
practices, which I have found it prudent to abandon ;—or
by enabling the enemies of fiorin (and they are many) to
depreciate its value, by pointing out imstances, where I
myself have found it necessary to give up its culture, even
under the very circumstances where I had once most
strongly recommended it. :

My second motive is, to avail myself of the oppor-
tunity the late flattering application has afforded me, of
bringing forward an agricultural subject, and of recom-
mending measures, which I consider as of vital importance
to the nation, in the administration of a VICEROY of
known attachment to the agricultural interests of his own
country, and who, I have no doubt, will warmly patronize
and foster those of the kingdom over which he now
presides : and perhaps the more readily, when he finds the
style of improvement which I hope to see further advanced
in my own country, has already completely succeeded m
DENMARK: and that its success there, has reached the
ears of some of the most eminent personages, and most
zealous agricultural amateurs on the Continent; and has
inspired them with a wish to see the dominions of their
Imperial brother partake of the benefits so gratefully
acknowledged by their Danish neighbours.

Other governors, had I called on them, might have been

121

liberal, and possibly might have thought public money well
disposed of, in promoting the improvement of IRELAND ;
and of course would have granted abundance. —I call upon
EarL TALBOT with different hopes and expectations ;—
money J scarcely want, a perfect pittance will answer all
my purposes: but should I be so fortunate, through my
compliance with the Arch-Duke’s request, as to attract
EarRL TALzor’s notice, and to inlist his EXCELLENCY
in a new agricultural pursuit, I shall draw heavily on his
and even on his at-

countenance,—his encouragement,
tention. |

Nor am I without hopes of contributing to lis amuse-
ment ; for the grounds upon which I propose to make the
experiments, by the success of which I expect to en-
courage practice on a larger scale, shall be all within the
reach of his morning ride, so that his Excellency himself
will not only be enabled to form his judgment of my mea-
sures with his own eyes, but also to take a distant view of
some of the extensive fields, whose present wildness does
not discourage me from expecting to see them soon clothed
with valuable crops of hay.

From the sites which I hope to be allowed to choose as
the scenes of my experiments, his Excellency can look
down upon the wide field of highly-cultivated grounds,
(mostly meadow) beneath him, and on his Southern side
he. will see the embrowned and desolate tracts, to which I
mean to transfer the meadows that in future shall supply
his capital with hay. He will probably be disposed to smile
at my Utopian speculations: but when he looks to the in-
calculable benefits that would be derived to the nation he
governs, from their success; and when he is told of the
places, where similar measures have succeeded in similar
situations ; and above all, when he shall be shown the

vegetable 1 propose to cultivate, growing spontaneously

122

and in luxuriance, on the spot, in the very soils, and at the
elevations, where I mean to give it the exclusive posses-
sion, he will, I hope, repress the smile, and suspend his
opinion, awaiting for the result, which will enable him to
decide upon the feasibility of my schemes, and also to pro-
nounce whether the measures by which success has been
obtained under his eye, be so light in expense, as to admit
of being readily and generally adopted. The sites I
allude to, and the measures to be pursued, shall be pointed
out minutely, and in detail, when I shall have reason to
expect that experiments will be tried on them.

I hope my zeal for the interests of my own country, and
my wish to see its improvement commenced on the field
where I am most secure of success, and where the produce ~
1 can raise is most wanted, will plead my excuse for this
digression.

I shall now, for the information of his Imperial Highness,
proceed to give some account of the original discovery
of the value of this so long neglected grass,—of the order
in which its several strange qualities burst upon me in
succession,—my reasons for giving up some uses of it,
from which I once had formed high expectations ;—with
the increased estimation in which I hold others, having tex
years’ experience of the durability of this grass, and the
pertinacity with which it continues its luxuriance under
proper management ;—and finally, the facility of its cul-
ure and propagation in our wildest regions, where every
attempt to cultivate any other vegetable would be quite
vain.

My discovery of the great value, and strange properties
of fiorin grass, was not accidental ; the value and pro-
perties of the several varieties of the grassy tribe, were
the objects I was in pursuit of; and my discovery of those
of the AGROSTIS STOLONIFERA, (Irish fiorin) was the

123 _

result of experiments on this grass, instituted before 1
could form a conjecture what the results would be.

In my early agricultural pursuits, I soon discovered that
the gramina was a subject, on which the practical farmer,
and his instructors the modern agricultural writers, all
seedsmen, nurserymen, and agricultural book-makers,
mostly from GRUB-STREET, were equally ignorant.

This ignorance of the natural history of the gramina
has been often noticed. Mr. WHITE, in his Natural His-
tory of SELBORNE, says: ‘‘ But of all sorts of vegetation
“ the grasses seem to be the most neglected; neither the
** farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish the annual
from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, the succu-
** lent and the nutritious from the dry and juiceless.” (Mr.
White should have added the buloniferous from the stolo-
niferous.)

“ The study of grasses would be of great consequence
“ to a Northerly and grazing kingdom ; the botanist who
“‘ would improve the soil of the district where he lived,
““ would be a useful member of society; to raise a thick
“ turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of syste-
“ matic knowledge, and he would be the best common-
“* wealth’s man, who could occasion the growth of two
“« blades of grass, where but one grew before.”

Whether I be entitled to the credit which Mr. WHITE
so liberally bestows, those who have inspected the grass
crops I have raised on bleak mountains and cut-out moss,
can best determine; indeed Mr. WHITE’s praise, a thick
turf on a naked soil, seems a prophetic description of
many fiorin meadows.

I could quote other authorities also, for the small pro-
gress which this branch of agricultural knowledge has
made ; but I shall limit myself to one, whose weight will
-not be contested with me.

124

My friend Sin Humpurey Davy tells the world, that
of the two hundred and fifty-five varieties of grass, with
which Nature has clothed our surface, man cultivates only
two, RYE GRASS and COCK’S-FooT: the former, though a
kindly, is by no means a productive grass; and cock s-foot,
far more valuable, was first recommended to the agricul-
tural world by myself; for though many of the farming
papers mentioned it, I was the first that recommended its
cultivation in print; and the only one who, by numerous
experiments, investigated its habits and properties, and
then made the world acquainted with its value, with my
reasons at length for holding it so high as EF did.

Satisfied that information on the subject of the gramina
was much wanted, I for some years paid great attention
to this branch; and at length, at the solicitation of a noble
friend, laid it off as a distinct department for myself, and im-
mediately published what I called, An Elementary Trea-
tise on the indigenous Grasses of Ireland, requesting
assistance and co-operation—proceeding so far as my then
knowledge of the subject enabled me, and pointing out
the topics upon which further information was wanted.

I should not have mentioned this Essay, which I pub-
lished early in 1806, were it not for a particular passage in
it, which may now, when so much attention is brought on
fiorin grass, be considered as a matter of curiosity.
’ IT say in that Essay, i

‘¢ There is also a grass which grows in our low grounds,
*¢ that I have heard some farmers talk of with much de-
* light ; they call it fiorin or fioreen grass: I have taken
pains to procure some plants, but haye not yet suc-
frieeeded.” | :

Such is my first notice of this vegetable: Que ab ex-
iguis prefecta initiis, eo creverit, ut jam magnitudine
laboret sua.

a

6¢

125

I soon obtained nine roots, with their withered stolones
adhering ; I planted them in a plot, and, cutting off the
long strings from the eight, supported those of the ninth in
the centre with tall sticks.

When the vegetating season commenced (for it was
March when J planted them), the eight that were cropped
began to project their stolones horizontally, while the
bunch, apparently of dry hay, extending upward from the
ninth, began to produce green buds, which, soon acquiring
length, hung down in festoons to the ground, where they
rooted, extending themselves along the surface ; while the
erect mass increased in bulk, exhibiting a singular con-
trast between the withered hay, and the green strings
issuing from it.

In this state I left them in July; and in my annual visit
to the Northern coast, I commenced mowing my Portrush
meadow, (August 1,) when I discovered that the sward
was much composed of green stalks, without seed :—
culmi without panicles, were quite new to me, this being
the season in which most grasses produce their seed :—on
attentive observation, I likewise found, that all these culmi
came from fiorin roots, which also produced some stalks
with seed.

My scientific friénds, Str HumpHrey Davy and
Mr. GREENOUGH, happened then to be on a visit to me.
1 brought them to the meadow, and showed them this ex-
traordinary appearance, new also to them. Sir H. Davy
advised me to leave a small part uncut, and to watch what
these stalks without panicles would come to: I did so,
and observed them increasing in length, until unable to
support their own weight, they fell down, still continuing
to lengthen; and that when I mowed the piece of re-
served meadow, October Ist, its crop was double the
amount of what was cut August Ist, and very fine.

126

This was my first discovery of the stolones of fiorin, and
the first notice I had of a distinction made by Nature, be-
tween two tribes, or genera of her grasses, the culmiferous,
and the stolonzferous ; a distinction utterly unknown to the
practical farmer, though there be many varieties of each
description ; and some of the latter, as well as the agrostis
stolonifera (fiorin) of high promise, as showing great luxu-
riance, and containing much saccharum.

I was now most sanguine in the pursuit of this new grass,
andon November 15, 1806, after potatoes, laid down a
rood with it, in the followmg way:—I raised fiorin roots
in abundance, from my plots which had luxuriated greatly
in the summer. I planted them in drills eighteen inches
asunder, trusting that the sto/ones, with whose properties I
was now acquainted, would, in the summer, shoot across
the intervals, and clothe the whole surface.

I was right ; in May the stolones began to project across,
and so effectually to cover the new ground, that the rows
were soon no longer distinguishable ; the thick fleece was
uniform, and obviously a most valuable crop. I exulted in
the easy method I had discovered of raising fine crops of
hay, little suspecting it was the last I should lay down in
that way; for that new facilities would be discovered, by
which fiorin crops could be obtained at far less trouble
and expense.

I was now most anxious to see what sort of hay fiorin
grass would make; and the fleece on my rood was very
great, which I had determined to mow early in October ;
but in 1807 the weather had been so had, that all crops
were then still in the field, and much alarm excited, lest it
should not be possible to save them.

In this state of things, I had not authority over my own
people, to induce them to give up matters of prime neces-
sity, for the pursuit of what they called new whims of mine ;

127

and I was thus obliged to defer mowing my fiorin rood
until December 6; and on that day began, with little hopes
of being able to save the hay.

The weather was not different from what is usual at
that season; yet my hay was made up into trampcock,
with as much facility as if it had been July, and was re-
markably fine.

The vegetation of the withered stolones, which I had
tied up round sticks the year before, concurring with other
circumstances, made me suspect, that dry fiorin stolones,
even after they had been long severed, were still animated ;
and I determined to try if my conjecture was well founded.

My neighbour and friend, GENERAL TROTTER, now
commanding the Artillery in IRELAND, agreed to assist
me: we divided what remained of the hay into two shares;
one we put into the house, and of the other made acock in
the field ; and every second Monday we took some sto-
fones from each, and laid them on the surface of pots in
my hot-house, scattering some compost over them: they
always vegetated until the middle of April, when failures
began to appear ; these rapidly became more frequent, and
before the end of May, the powers of vegetation seemed
extinguished. The beginning of June was showery, and
my little cock,.which had braved the winter deluges, and
the spring rains, now collapsed, grew fusty, and rotted,
under a summer shower; like AZENEAS, when his tender
feelings were awakened : 7

Quem primum non ulla injecta movebant
Tela, nec adverso glomerati ex agmine Grait
Nunc ventus territat omnis, sonus excitat omnis.

The case was plain, for so long as life remained in the
stolones, the vital spark counteracted. the tendency to pu-
trefaction ; but when that was extinguished in the stolones,

128

the mass of them, having lost their protector, soon rotted ;
—philosophers having discovered that the cohesion of the
particles in animate and inanimate bodies depended on
different principles ;—in the former, on the principle of
life; in the latter, on the chemical affinities:—hence all
organized matter, animal or vegetable, so soon as deprived
of life, having lost the vinculum by which they were held
together, dissolve, that is, putrefy, and their component
particles form new combinations. according to their che-
mical affinities.

The facility of making up fiorin hay through the winter
being established, and the principle upon which the success
of this strange measure depended, being ascertained, I
amused myself by exhibiting my powers, and made it a
point to mow on the side of a great road for some years
on the first Fridays in December and January, (being fair
days,) to the astonishment of the numerous passengers :
nor under these late operations did I ever see a handful
of hay spoiled.

I now took great pains to ascertain the amount, and the
quality of fiorin hay crops;—that my own, for several years,
amounted to from six to eight tons dry hay, has been
proved upon oath repeatedly, before the noblemen and
most respectable magistrates of my country. Last season
the Earl of CHARLEMONT, with the Bishops of KILDARE
and Down, were so good as to stand by to see some
perches of my fiorin mowed, and weighed; and to certify
the amount of the damp green-sward to have run from
thirty-two to thirty-five tons, to the English acre.

I consider my crops this year as very fine, yet every one _
that has seen my friend Lord NoORTHLAND'S, assures
me it is superior to mine; and the Bishop or DERRY
often has raised as fine crops; and the Bishop or Down
is now cultivating fiorin with equal success.

129

The proceedings of the first agricultural societies in our
islands, bear record to the great crops of fiorin that have
been raised within their respective limits, and that their
cultivators were honoured with premiums, after a rigid
examination by respectable members of their own, and
the examination, upon oath, of those employed in mea-
suring the area, saving and weighing the hay ;—I allude to
the Farmince Society, IRELAND, the HIGHLAND So-
CIETY, ScoTLAND, and the BaTH AND WEST OF
ENGLAND Agricultural Society; who have all previously
encouraged, and afterwards in their proceedings recom-
mended, the cultivation of this grass, 1 must observe that
the average amount of hay from an acre of meadow is
stated by Mr. CurWEN, before the discovery of fiorin,
to be one ton and half to the English acre.

It has been objected, when the enormous crops of fiorin
hay was stated, that this hay is not so effectually dried as
common hay, and therefore must weigh heavier.

To obviate this objection, the Farming Society of Ire-
land, when they proposed premiums for the best crops of
fiorm hay, made it a condition, to ensure its being in a
quite dry state, that the weight certified to them on oath,
should not be taken before March Ist.

A pupil, Mr. Warr, obtained the first premium £50,
his produce of an English acre, weighed in March, amount-
ing to six tons, sixteen hundred, three quarters, and four-
teen pounds.

While mine, to which the second premium was ad-
judged, £30, amounted only to five tons, nineteen hundred,
two quarters, and seventeen pounds.

These amounts appear on the records of the Farming
Society of Ireland, short indeed of those which were often
stated before, upon high authority, to have reached eight

130

tons: but these were weighed in November, and much loss
must have been sustained by those kept until March.

The quantity of fiorin crops being effectually ascer-
tained by-so many respectable testimonies, it remains to
establish their quality; and this we can do in two ways,—
@ priori, and a posteriori.

To commence with the latter; we have an excellent test
of the quality of hay, the partiality which cattle show for
it: and here we have witnesses without end.

For years the horses of all strangers that came to my
house, and especially those whose object it was to obtain
information on the subject of fiorin grass, were tried with
it, and there did not occur one instance, except in cases of
hunger, where any horse who had tasted fiorin, would touch
a bundle of common hay when offered to him; for haying
once smelled the second sort he rejected it, and looked
about for the fiorin.

My cows were often tried by the curious, and showed
the same decided preference. It was a common trick with
my children, to hide a bundle of fiorin hay, under a mass
of common hay, and then to turn a cow to it; the beast
invariably smelt the fiorin, and tossed the bundle with
her horns, until she got access to it.

My sheep, in the same manner, always in winter fastened
on my fiorin cock; as, for years, I built two in my sheep
field to ascertain the point; and I am permitted to quote
the testimony of my friend the EARL oF GosForD, who,
having slept at my house, observed, early in the morning,
all my sheep gathered round the fiorm cock, and not one
of them touching the common hay.

Our proof, @ priori, of the good quality of fiorin hay is
equally decisive ; the value of any vegetable food with
which we sustain our domestic cattle, is best estimated by

131

the quantity of saccharum it contains; it is upon this rich
juice, that its nutritive powers, as well as its gratefulness
to cattle, depends ; and nature secms to have bestowed on
many vegetables, various portions of this delicious liquid,
which in aconcrete form has become almost a necessary to
man.

The AMERICANS have found a new source of it in their
MaPLE-TREE; and BoNAPARTE, when he could obtain
sugar only by enriching those whom he mortally hated, ex-
pected to extract the rich juice from BEET-ROOT.

To establish then the high value of fiorin grass, we have
only to show that it contains much saccharum, and compa-
ratively far more than any of the grassy tribe we are ac-
quainted with—and this will not be difficult.

By our own taste we can make a vague comparison on
this point, between fiorin and other hay. Once as I was
laying down my stolones, a neighbour took up one of them,
and said, this is the grass children chew for its sweetness:
—but we must have more decided proofs.

My friend the Hon. Grorce Knox, our first chemist,
undertook to find the comparative quantities of saccharwn,
in fiorin, and common hay: I furnished him with the
former, and he procured some of the best common hay in
the market.

I called at the laboratory of the Dublin Society, where
Mr. Knox carried on his operations. When he had re-
duced the residue from the two hays to a consistence like
tar, that from fiorin was like rich molasses, while the other
residuum was a nauseous and bitter extract.

Mr. Knox’s brother, the BisHor or DERRY, encou-
raged by this, attempted to distill spirits from a decoction
of fiorin hay, and completely succeeded. |

YT now applied to the Revenue Board for a licence to set
up a small temporary still, and made the experiment eight

152

several times, and always succeeded. Many respectable
persons called to witness the process. Among the rest,
the Marquis oF DoWNSHIRE, ViscouNT NorrtTnH-
LAND, and GENERAL M‘KeENzIz, who all saw the still
run, and tasted the spirits.

I once tried carefully what spirits | could produce from
a given quantity of hay, and obtaimed one quart double
spirits from twenty-one pounds of dry hay. I do not
state this as a claimant to the credit of having discovered
a new source from which alcohol can be obtained; but
as a strong, though indirect proof of the great quantity of
saccharum contained in fiorin, as vegetable saccharum is the
chief, perhaps the sole material, from which all our ardent
spirits are extracted.

I proceed now, as I promised, to state the imstances in
which fiorin has failed to produce the advantages I ex-
pected to derive from it, of which I had boasted to the
world, and to enumerate my practices and application of
this grass, which I have been obliged to abandon, after
having long entertained most sanguine hopes of the great
advantages that would be derived from them.

I commence with IRRIGATION ; a practice carried on in
ENGLAND some centuries ago bythe Monks with greatskill
and spirit, as appeared by the works found on the monastery
lands by the grantees of Henry VIII., which they neither
understood nor attempted to make use of, like their pre-
decessers, who seem to have been most knowing on the
subject.

TRRIGATION, as xow practised in England, was the dis-
covery of one ROWLAND VAUGHAN, who (as he tells us)
got the hint from a MOLE, who, perforating an embank-
ment, let a small stream run down a declivity, the verdant
sole being much enlivened wherever the water ran.

133

VAUGHAN was vain of his discovery; he published a
long account of it, with numerous Testimonia de Authore,
where the mole is not forgotten, and from some of which it
appears, that the phrase a Rowland for his Oliver is of old
standing, as the book was printed in James I.’s time.

A previous acquaintance with the benefits to be derived
from irrigation, was not required in the case of fiorin
grass; the luxuriance it attained in every small languid
streamlet was sufficient to suggest the probability of its
being much improved “vy irrigation. .

1 made several plots of fiorin which I irrigated dif-
ferently for experiment, and the measure succeeded with
all. In one plot I made the surface rich, but planted
nothing, leaving it quite raw. I poured a stream over this
plot also, and vegetation soon appeared, principally fiorin ;
I weeded out every thing else, continued to irrigate, and in
two years found this plot gave one of my best crops.

In the mean time I had been irrigating much of my
florin meadows, apparently with great success; and having
thus fully satisfied myself, I published a letter on the ap-
plication of irrigation to fiorin meadows, strenuously re-
commending the practice.

I was precipitate; for I began to observe, where the
subsoil was cold and retentive, that the luxuriance of the
crops began to abate, and the fiorin itself gradually to
vanish.

T- soon perceived that the progress of these failures was
proportioned to the coldness and imperviousness of the
bottom, and that in the course of years my lightest, and
even gravelly soils gave up, under the continued practice of
irrigation ;—whence, though with great command of water,
which I could pour upon many varieties of soil, I have
totally given up irrigations of fiorin meadows.

1 was farther induced to abandon this practice, as 3

M

>

134

found irrigation greatly encouraged the coarse aquatics,
particularly sprit, which I was not able to exterminate.

I proceed to the second instance in which fiorin has
disappointed my expectations, and obliged me to retract
my high-sounding promises ;—I mean, as affording a steady
supply of valuable winter green food.

That such a resource for our house cattle would have
been inestimable 1 well knew; and when I saw my fiorin
meadows affording immense crops of rich green soil, from
November to March, greedily devoured by my cattle, I
had no doubts I had actually obtained this great deside-
ratum.

I tried the experiment on a small scale, while my fiorin
was scant; and completely succeeding, I recommended the
practice to the world.

But when, by extending the culture of this grass, my
quantity of fiorin became very great, the result was no
longer the same; for when I fed twelve or fourteen winter
milch and dry cows, with fresh-cut fiorin, I observed they
grew thin and out of condition.

I now watched the process, and observed my people
gathered the green sward, (necessarily very wet in the
short brumal days) in large heaps, where it soon soured,
and became unhealthy food; and I found, that it was dif-
ficult, almost to impossibility, to govern correctly the dis-
tribution of the unwieldy and perishable mass, to a great
number of house cattle.

I have friends who; having completely succeeded, still
persist in the practice, and recommend the continuance.

Means might no doubt have been devised, under better |
discipline, for correcting the inconvenience I have men-
tioned ; and J should have exerted myself to discover them,
had not a new objection occurred to the use of fiorin as a
winter green food. |

135

1 began to suspect that the latter growth of the stolones,
(that is, the end of the string,) was inferior in quality to
the part nearer the root, and that the addition to its length.
made in the very late season, was weak and watery, adding.
to the quantity of crop, but that in very late, cold, and
moist weather, saccharum was not formed.

Nor was this all we suffered ; for I had reason to believe
that the saccharum, already formed in the early parts of
the season, was much dissipated by lying long in the damp
mat, in the winter months.

Hence arises a most important question ;—2. e. at what
precise period do the stolones cease to gain, and begin to
lose saccharum?

I took much pains to solve it thisseason, and think I
ean safely pronounce that there was no loss of sweetness
before the 10th of October; of course, that our HAY mowed
before that time suffers no deterioration.

My condemnation of irrigation as applied to fiorin is
decided ; its use as a green food, for at least some part of
the winter, not so desperate; the question is still in some
sort open to future amateurs, and cultivators of fiorin:
should my own knowledge on the subject become more
complete, I shall communicate it.

My friends who practise house feeding, think my con-
demnation of the use of fiorin in this way too decided,
and are confident that by cutting the sward a week before
use, shaking it out, and when aired a day, ‘putting it in
lapcock, though it may not then be quite dry, yet that it
makes excellent food, until Christmas ;—I believe they
are right, but I thought it incumbent on me to state my
own failure.

The third instance in which I was obliged to abandon
a practice that I had recommended to the world, is that
of deferring to mow a part of my fiorin until spring.

136

This custom I gave up with much reluctance, on ac-
count of its singularity, and the great convenience I de-
rived from throwing a part of my process of hay-making
into a season when the hay was made up with the greatest
facility, instead of the short December days, in which I
had much to save.

The quantity I saw was greatly increased; and I never
suspected a deterioration of quality, when I observed my
cattle consuming this hay, witb the same apparent avidity
they eat my other fiorin. ,

T only feared that by deferring to mow until spring, I
should injure the succeeding crop; I therefore directed
my attention to this subject, and by careful experiments,
ascertained that I might with great safety defer mowing
until the end of March.

Accident discovered how little mischief was incurred
by leaving my fiorin crop standing until a strangely late
period,

T was offered a grant of land on DartTMoor Mountain
in Devon, on condition I should cultivate it as far as
might be with fiorin grass.

While I was communicating with the late Colonel
McManon on the subject, I reserved a portion of my
fiorin meadow uncut, to furnish me with stolones, should
I require them at Dartmoor.

At length the negociation breaking off, I mowed the
portion on May 14th, and in the ensuing November found
a sharp eye was necessary to discover the inferiority of
this portion to the contiguous parts of the meadow.

I gained nothing by surmounting this difficulty ; for, my
suspicion of the hay losing its saccharum by being too
long uncut, gaining ground at this time, I made the expe-
periment decidedly, and going abroad for ten days at the
end of February, I ordered all my milch cows to be fed

137

until my return on fiorin hay, mowed February 10th, and
looking very fine, being well saved:—when I came back,
I found my butter indifferent, and that the milk had lost
its richness ; so I pressed the subject no farther, satisfied

-

that it was imprudent to defer mowing until after the turn |

of the year; leaving it to future experiments to determine
how long in the preceding part of the- winter we might
defer mowing without injury to the quality of our hay.

Though my knowledge of the great value of fiorin was
the result of my own experiments, the striking features,
and ieading qualities of this grass had not entirely escaped
notice; for the writers of the seventeenth century make
such mention of it, as might have induced agriculturists to
pursue the subject further, and to ascertain by experiment,
if a grass of such promise ought not to be introduced into
cultivation, especially as both the sweetness and length of
the stolones had been observed,—the two properties upon
which the quantity and quality of its produce were likely
to depend.

Mr. STONEHOUSE, quoted by Ray, seems the first
that mentions it,—it is noticed in FULLER’s WORTHIES ;
PARKINSON, in his Theatrum Botanicum, printed in
1640, particularly points out the sweetness of its stolones,
which, as he says, ‘‘ sometimes run to twentie feet long,”
while Ray makes them reach twenty-four feet. CAMDEN
mentions the trailing dog-grass, which obviously must have
been the gramen caninum, supinum, longissimum, of DR.
How ;—Morison also makes particular mention of it ;
and it is noticed in MERRIT’s PINAX, published in 1666.

The only writer since that century who has mentioned
this grass without abuse, is my friend WALTER Scorr,
who to his exquisite poetical talent, joins accurate obser-
vation, and careful study of Nature.

138

This eiegant poet, noticing the bones of forgotten war-
riers, scattered over an ancient battle field, says,

“« The knot-grass fetters there the hand
“ That once could burst an iron band.”

Can the fiorin grass be mistaken here?—the stolones
running along the surface, occasionally rooting and fasten-
ing down whatever they cross. I acknowledged to Mr.
Scotr my obligation for his correct description of my
favourite.

It is true that in the treatise on the Gramina, written by
Mr. SINCLAIR, accompanying the splendid Hortus Siccus,
which the DUKE OF BEDFORD was so kind as to send me,
and upon which so much pains had been expended at
Wosurn, Mr. SINCLAIR applies Mr. Scort’s descrip-
tion to another grass.

Had Mr. Scorvr studied Nature inthe South of England,
and had the battle he refers to been fought in that country,
Mr. SINCLAIR might have beenright; butwhere SCOTLAND
is the scene of action, I answer for it no grass but the
agrostis stolonifera has a claim to Mr. Scort’s correct
description. I speak with confidence of the natural pro-
duce of the Scottish soil, having examined it with much
attention, and ina great extent of country.

‘The Aborigines of the British Isles seem to have been
at all times acquainted with the value of this grass, I have
had repeated proofs transmitted to me, that the early
Scots knew it to be a sweet and good grass.

The WELSH also claim it; and Dr. Pueu labours to
prove that the verdant meadows in OWEN GLENDOWER’S
DEMESNE IN GLAMORGANSHIRE, were composed of
fiorin.

I myself found that the natives of a wild part of Doyn-

139

NEGAL, were well acquainted with fiorin, that they charged
a higher price for this than for common hay, and that it
was the custom to buy it for sick cattle, long antecedent
to the recent notice taken of it. |
- T have often lamented that my efforts to introduce fiorin
culture into those parts of the British Isles whence the
ABORIGINAL CELTS had been expelled by the SAXons,
had always failed, and that I had completely succeeded in
ENGLAND but in one instance;-—even here my fair and
noble pupil was herself a North Briton.

ENGLAND seems a sort of NON-CONDUCTOR, and stops
the passage of fiorin to those countries that are desirous to
cultivate this valuable grass: the DANES would have been
deprived of the benefits for which they are now so grate-
ful, had they not contrived to obtain it through another
channel, and fiorin found its way to my imperial pupil the
ARCHDUKE, not through ENGLAND but DENMARK.

ow,

I myself have been unable to procure attention to the \

subject, or a passage for my instructions, through the
channels of office most interested in the growing prospe-
rity of the important colony of NEWFOUNDLAND, where
the soil and climate are admirably adapted to this hardy
grass, and where hay now sells at twenty pounds per ton.
The prejudice of the English against fiorin may in some
sort be accounted for, by the perpetual intrusion upon
them of an inferior variety, the agrostis vulgaris, hard to
distinguish from the true stolonifera: happily, the former
is not able to sustain colder climates, and thus in IRE-
LAND, SCOTLAND, and DENMARK, we escape from it. |
T have shewn 4hat the writers, both agricultural and bo-
tanical, of the seventeenth century, had taken such notice
of the agrostis stolonifera, as might have induced their —
successors to form good expectations from it, or at least to
pay it some attention; but I was quite mistaken, for nothing

140

similar followed. These latter gentry seem to be as little
acquainted with the writings of their predecessors, as with
Nature herself, and to have taken no pains to improve their
acquaintance with her, either by actual experiment, or
further observations on this grass. :

They had indeed made a most important discovery, to
wit, that agricultural book-making was a most lucrative
trade; for that the public, anxious to acquire agricultural
knowledge, bought whatever was published on the sub-
ject.

There were enough ready to gratify them, and, without
taking the trouble to shew how they had acquired the
knowledge they were so ready to communicate, pronounce
upon all agricultural subjects, professoria lingué, as if their
authority could not be disputed.

It is not surprising that the readers of these compila-
tions should not easily be convinced of the value of the
agrostis stolonifera, when they find their habitual instruc-
tors talking of this grass with so much contempt.

I shall state what some of these gentlemen are pleased
to say of it.

I commence with Mr. Davis, the oracle of the WILT-
SHIRE agriculturists ; he says, ‘‘ The agrostis stolonifera
“‘ is one.of the worst grasses, the peculiar plague of the
_ © farmers in the S. E. district of Wiltshire’—“ it is of
‘ that coarse nature that no cattle will eat it.”

Mr. Don dreads “ lest under the recommendation of
‘old STILLINGFLEET, any agrestis should be culti-
“ vated.” Avain, particularly mentioning the agroséts
stolonifera among the grasses not eligible for cultivation,
he says, “ there is no species of agrostis that cattle are
“« fond of,” —“ there is no reason to believe that any of them
© would answer for hay;” yet my late friend GENERAL
VALLANCEY sent me from the DUBLIN SOCIERY some

141

seed of the agrostis stricla, sent to the society from AME-
RICA, as the best meadow grass, and the one chiefly sown
in that Trans-Atlantic country.

It even appears that Mr. Don had got some hints on
the value of this grass, which he treats with contempt; he
says, ‘“ Some gentlemen of considerable observation and
experience have thought, that the agrostis was an eli-
gible plant for cultivation, and that it makes good hay;
but to this I am persuaded no practical farmer would
“ agree.”

He says, in another place, “‘ a stranger is often asto-
nished at the apparent luxuriance of this useless grass.”
He proceeds by ejaculation— ,

“ How much then must it interest the cultivator of
such a soil, to discover a grass that might thrive as well
** as this, and at the same time afford nutritious food for
his cattle !” .

Mr. Don would rather cant and complain, than trouble
himself to try with patience, whether the luxuriance that
he admits he observed, might not supply his great DESI-
DERATUM, nutritious food for his cattle.

Mr. Don concludes with an amusing apostrophe : ‘‘ Im-
““ provident Nature! could you not, to enrich the agricul-
“ turist, have endowed some other grass capable of afford-
*‘ ing nutritious food for our cattle, with that enviable
“‘ luxuriance so proyokingly displayed by this useless
“* grass ?”

Thus it appears, that NATURE, not content with sup-
plying Mr. Don’s great desideratum, a grass that will
afford nutritious food for our cattle, but also that this
same NaTuRE, having obtruded it in various ways on these
wise book-makers, and repeatedly on Mr. Don himself, is
charged with zmprovidence by this agricultural oracle, and
this through a publication calculated to convey instruction

wn nw
n an

“
a“

“
“

.

“n

142

to their uninformed countrymen, THE TRANSACTIONS OF
THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY.

Nor is this the only instance I shall produce of the mis-
chievous use made of this well-intended publication, by
ignorant book-makers, puffing their approaching publica-
tions through this respectable channel.

I shall limit myself to one quotation more, and that from
a book of great circulation, Mr. ARTHUR YOUNG’s
‘Annals of Agriculture.

Mr. Situ boasts there of a victory he had obtained
over a troublesome enemy, which he calls Rep RoBIn.
He says “his field had run to RED ROoBIN to such a
** mischievous degree, that to walk over it was like tread-
** ing on a cushion,” (the description given of fiorin grass
by both friend and enemy); and Mr. Youne himself is so
good as to inform us, that Red Robin is the agrostis
stolonifera.

Mr. SMITH sliuac de “This Red Robin by neglect had
‘* over-run his grounds to a very great degree ;” adding,
* that any sort of stock would starve rather than touch
‘“‘ its herbage.” We have thus Mr. Youne’s authority
for the identity of Red Robin with the agrostis stolonifera,
and for the aversion of all cattle to the latter.

The seedsman, as well as the modern agricultural
writers, have declared war against fiorin; the BoARD OF
AGRICULTURE gave some stolones, received from me, to
Mr. SALISBURY, to make experiments on: he pronounced
them to be couch grass, and was indignant at being sup-
posed capable of cultivating so vile a weed—he who had
been regularly educated under the celebrated Mr. Cur-
TIS; and some respectable strangers have lately written to
me, requesting me to tell them how they are to get into.

fiorin stock, as the London seedsmen refuse to supply
: 2

143

them, assuring them, it is now ascertained, that the eulogia
pronounced on this grass are not merited, the whole story
being a mere humbug.

I have not yet got over all the difficulties I have to sur-
mount, nor detailed all the opposition I have to encounter
in my endeayours to benefit the world, by making them
acquainted with this valuable grass; its favourite soil is
attacked, and pronounced to be incapable of producing
any crop worth the attention of man.

Peat Moss I have often stated to be a most favourable
soil for fiorin: yet the book-making gentry pursue: peat
soil with the same inveterate hostility they wage against
fiorin itself.

What seems most extraordinary is, that these condem-
nations of peaty soi/, come almost exclusively from NoRTH
Britain. Now I believe, that the unimproved and un-
productive surface in SCOTLAND, bears a greater pro-
portion to its whole area, than in any other parts of the
United Kingdom ; and of this neglected and condemned
surface, I have no doubt, that if we exclude stony tracts,
and inaccessible elevations, nine-tenths of the remaining
surface is peaty soil, and this is the object of these gentle-
men’s reprobation.

Our surprise will be increased when we look to the
theatre upon which these anathemas against peaty soil are
pronounced, and the vehicle through which they are con-
veyed to the world ;—no other than the HIGHLAND So-
CIETY and its transactions.

This body, for which I have the highest respect, insti-
tuted for the purpose of promoting the improvement of
their country, is made the tool of mercenary speculations,
and innocently seduced to give their sanction to the false
and wicked position, that nine-tenths of the unproductive
parts of their country is incapable of further improvement.

144

In the 3d vol. Trans. Highland Society, page 18, it is
said,—‘‘ In the Northern parts of Britain, a considerable
‘« part of the earth’s surface is occupied by the vegetable
‘“‘ matter known by the name of peat, which, being in its
‘“‘ natural state unproductive of esculent vegetables, sets
‘“* narrower bounds to national industry.”

Ts not this a positive assertion, that peaty soil is beyond
the pale of improvement, and that the exertions of indus-
try would be thrown away upon it?

Page 28, it is said,—‘‘ its incapacity of producing ve-
** getables capable of being cultivated in its natural state.”

Page 39.—“ The natural incapacity of peat to produce
‘“* esculent vegetables results from”

Here the Author, not content with asserting the unpro-
ductiveness of peat soil as a matter of fact, proceeds to
give wise reasons, @ priorz, why it ought to be barren and

unproductive.

Page 40.—*< As peat does not yield to corruption, grow-
‘* ing plants can derive no food from its spoils.”

Page 82.—‘“I have thus attempted to examine the
‘*‘ nature of that unseemly substance, by which a large
‘ portion of the earth’s surface in these regions is laid
“ waste,—investigating the causes of its natural sterility.

{ must observe here, that all this abuse of peaty soil is
directed against its natural state, its natural incapacity, its
natural sterility ; and that notwithstanding this tirade, the
efforts which I have lately been exerting myself to call out,
have been much limited to peaty sozl in its natural state,
and to the widely-extended area gravely pronounced by
such high authority, to be beyond the bounds of national
industry. —

‘There are many other wise writers who wage war against
this unfortunate peat soil; but I shal! quote only one more,
who says, “The sterility of moss is a quality of much

145

“ more importance than any.of those that have been men-
“tioned; to endeavour to account for it, shall be my object
“in the following Essay.” \ Again, “ The conviction of
“ the absolute sterility of moss is so-deeply rooted in the
‘‘ minds of nine-tenths of mankind, that every attempt to
“ convert it into a soil is regarded as foolish, and given
“ up as a forlorn hope.” He proceeds,

“The very name of that substance, in all cviaheina i
“ and all ages, signifies sterility.”

CHEMISTRY affords this gentleman powerful aid in his

war with peaty soil; for he elaborately shews, that every
deleterious principle, every noxious element, are all assem-
bled in this unhappy substance—peat.
__ I shall quote but one passage more :—‘‘ The man who
“« discovers the latent causes of this sterility of all moss
*“* mm general, and of each species in particular, will deserve
“« well of his country, perhaps of all Europe.”

I am curious to know what claims this gentleman will
pronounce me to have on my own country and upon all
Europe, when I shall make it appear, not only that this
sterility has xo existence, but that I can raise on peat soil,
in its natural state, and in the very area condemned by the
HIGHLAND Society, as beyond the bounds of national
industry, crops of hay, more valuable than any now raised
in the county of MIDDLESEX, with the aid of London
dung.

To -shew that I can actnally do so, has been long a
favourite object with me; and all I ask is a fair opportu-
nity to make the trial in the face of the world; and I hope
the vicinity of the field of action to our metropolis (the
peaty mountains just above it) may tempt the proprietors
of the soil, perhaps our VICEROY himself, to make expe-
riments, the result of which, if favourable, would be of
such incalculable national importance.

146

My ignorance of the soil through the AUSTRIAN do-
minions, preclndes me from knowing if my IMPERIAL
PUPILS be interested in the improvement of peaty soil;
but their brother the EMPEROR’s territories abound with
mountains, and these afford the finest field for raising fiorin
in the greatest abundance, whether by cultivation, or the
more recent mode to which I am coming, of rousing the
efforts of spontaneous nature, to clothe these alpine sur-
faces with either luxuriant meadow, or grateful pasture ;
and their Highnesses may liye to see the JULIAN ALPs,
and the CARPATHIAN Mountains, affording as abundant
sustenance to their cattle, winter and summer, as is yielded
by their richest low countries.

What satisfaction must it afford to the ARCH-DUKE
JOHN to revisit the JULIAN ALPS, so favourite a country
with his Highness, and to call forth the exertions of the
spirited and loyal TYROLESE, to the improvement of their
country, which he had in more unhappy times so effectually
roused for its defence! what pleasure must he feel in
adding to the comforts of a people so affectionately attached
to his ImMpERIAL Hovusz, and in witnessing the gradual
amelioration of a country so lately a scene of desolation,
but now rising under his own eye, and by his own instruc-
tions, into higher prosperity than they enjoyed before the
calamitous war in which they acquired so much glory!

Inow proceed to the most important application of fiorin
grass that has yet occurred,—a mode of raising luxuriant
crops, so paradoxical, that it was years after I had made
the discovery before I ventured to communicate it te the
world; for when I saw the efforts of agriculturists to
cultivate the stolones, 1 saw them generally fail, and espe-
cially in. ENGLAND; how could I expect to be believed,
when I should say that this grass would grow spontaneously
on grounds where it was neither sown nor planted, and,

147

by the force of Nature alone, produce crops equal to the
best I myself could raise, with all my experience of the
habits of this grass, and the culture adapted to it? And
to make the paradox the more revolting, that this could
be done on our worst more effectually than on our better
grounds, and best of all on the area pronounced by the
wise writers I have quoted, to be incapable of improvement
by the efforts of national industry ?

The position that I could save my fiorin hay with ease
through the brumal months, had sufficiently stramed my
credit, to discourage me from hazarding a new paradox:
yet, as in this case I had been able to prove from sound
philosophical principles, that: the antiseptic quality of fiorin
hay, by which it was protected from spoiling like other hay
when exposed to severe weather, was a necessary conse-
quence of the singular properties with which Nature had
endowed fiorin grass.

In like manner I shall be able to shew, in the case of this
new paradox, that the facility of raising spontaneous crops
of fiorin at great elevations, is also anecessary consequence
of the habits and properties of this agrostis, of which we
are able to avail ourselves when thoroughly acquainted
with the steady and regular process of Nature, in clothing
our surfaces with a grassy sole.

The circumstances that led to the discovery of these
two paradoxes, and to the establishment of their truth,
were the same in both cases. Solitary facts obtruded
themselves, attracted notice, and excited curiosity ; expe-
riments followed, and soon shewed, that what might haye
been taken for solitary instances, were in the regular course
of things, and the steady process of Nature.

The next step was to develope the principles upon which
each of these strange paradoxes depended ; and I suc-
ceeded in both, being able to prove that the effects, which

148

at first had excited so much surprise, were the results of
natural causes, ‘and necessarily followed from the charac-
teristic and unalterable properties with which Nature, at
its original formation, had endowed the vegetable. in
question.

The value of every discovery, at least in agriculture, is
to be measured by the benefit which man is to derive
from it; that of fiorin itself, by the great addition it makes
to our stock of winter provender for our cattle, by the su-
perior luxuriance of its crops, and the greater facility of
raising and keeping them up.

The actual value of the discovery of our power of saving
fiorin hay through the winter months, may not in itself be
very great; yet it enables us to abstain from mowing this
grass, until the stolones attain their perfection, that is in
October, as we are nowsecure in saving its hay, whatever
severity of weather may occur in the very late season in
which we are to make it up.

This strange practice too may teach gentlemen npt to
make so flippant a use of the term impossible, as they often
do, unless they mean to apply it in Fl1ELDING’S sense of
the word, “ as signifying not only what is very probable,
but frequently what has actually happened.”

The value of the discovery that fiorin grass can be
cultivated at great elevations, on peaty soil, at light
expense, and luxuriant crops of hay raised there, must at
first view appear immense, to those who are acquainted with
the vast extent of this area in our islands, and who know
how miserably the cattle of the inhabitants are stinted in
winter provender. How greatly must this value be en-
hanced to those who have given credit to the grave
positions quoted above, that this whole areais unimprovable
even by the efforts of national industry?

149

Can we rise higher in this climax, and give to our dis-
covery a still greater value? Yrs ;-—for I shall shew, that
in such soil, and at such altitudes, even cultivation can be
dispensed with, and the weak grassy sole clothing the peaty
surface, be converted by the spontaneous effort of Nature,
under very slight encouragement, into permanent and
most luxuriant fiorin meadow; a change effected every
where in these dreary regions with the- greatest facility ;
while in the lower country, and in the richest soils, we
cannot effect this conversion, except where we accidentally
meet with favourable circumstances, and even then not
without considerable labour and watchful attention.

To procure countenance and co-operation, in establish-
ing the truth of these two paradoxes—to wit—TuHaT
fiorin can be cultivated to great. advantage in our bleak
elevations, hitherto deemed unimprovable; and also THAT
the natural, grassy sole of the place, in the same situa-
tions, without sowing seed, planting roots and stolones, or
breaking the surface, can be. in the first year changed
into a luxuriant crop of meadow,—are subjects of the last
importance; and I hope I shall be excused for going into
their subject at such length.

In confirming these two positions, I shall adopt the
same style of demonstration | have used in other cases.

I first establish the FAcT, and then develope the PRIN-
C1PLES from which it results.

I produce testimonies, and point out the places where
these measures have already succeeded; and I hope to be
permitted to repeat the experiments ona favourite theatre,
admirably adapted to the purpose, and easily accessible to
the amateurs of our own capital.

I then shew from the natural history of fiorin grass, that
these results were to be expected; and I state the ob-
servations I have made on the habits of this vegetable in

N

150

its wild state, and which will equally obtrude themselves
on every person who chooses to examine the field I have
selected, and hope to see consigned to my operations.

These, as they originally excited me to make experi-
ments, will, I hope, encourage others to follow my ex-
ample ; and I am sanguine enough to expect, that in my
own country I shall soon hear, the northern face of the
WICKLOW mountains has been encountered, and that my
Imperial pupil is trying to call out the ern efforts
of Nature on the Julian Alps.

The first instance that occurred to me, of fiorin grass
clothing the surface spontaneously, and yielding a rich
crop of hay, without any interference of mine, was in the
year 1808.

[ had directed that so soon as the new cut turf should
be removed from the surface whence they had been taken,
that the ground should be laid down with fiorin grass, and
also that a contiguous portion of green surface, under
which the peat was too shallow for cutting, should be dug,
and laid down with the rest.

On my return home late in September, 1 found this
latter patch (five or six perches) had not been touched: on
inquiring why my orders had not been obeyed, some
excuse was made, and I was told there were plenty of
natural fiorin roots in the place.

[ had not time to lay down this piece regularly; so de-
termined to ascertain by experiment, what this natural sole
would turn to.

Timmediately weeded out coarse weeds, and irrigated the
patch regularly: under this process it gave me a magni-
ficent crop of pure fiorin in 1809, and another in 1810.
The aquatic weeds now were becoming strong, and in
1811 abated the luxuriance of the crop; I therefore
abandoned irrigation, drained the patch, and top-dressed

151

it: under this process it immediately resumed its luxuri-
ance, and continues to this day, to give me as fine crops
of fiorin as my most highly-cultivated grounds produce.
In 1809, my late dear friend and pupil, the Right Ho-
nourable Isaac Corry, saw this patch mowed, and gave
an account of its magnificent crop in a letter to the late
Speaker, Mr. Apsort, which he published.

Four years afterwards the Bishop of Derry saw this
patch mowed, and weighed a perch of the green sward,
which equalled the best crop I had ever cut.

The power of fiorin grass to take entire possession of
the surface under favourable circumstances, was con-
firmed to me by other observations ; and I learned what
circumstances would produce this strange effect: still, how-
ever; I had not courage to press so extraordinary a paradox
on the world, as that a grass hitherto little noticed could
be made to produce spontaneous crops, far superior to
those which our best grasses were used to give, under the
most skilful cultivation.

At length, in autumn 1814, I received a joint account
from my friends GEN. Sir JAMES STEWART, Coltness,
Sir A. M‘Kenziz, and Cot. LockHart, of a magni-
ficent crop of spontaneous fiorin, that had been found in
the demesne of the last gentleman, member for SELKIRK-
SHIRE; and these respectable amateurs were so good as
to transmit to me, a certificate of the weight of the crop,
with the measure of the area from which it had been cut,
taken by a regular surveyor; the amount by the area, pretty
much the same with that weighed by the BisHop oF
DERRY on my own meadow.

Finding my paradox confirmed by such respectable tes-
timony, I no longer hesitated to bring it before the world,
and to authenticate it in the best manner I could.

- I selected one of the worst spots inmy demesne,—poor ~

152

meadow, with a cold retentive bottom, of sandy clay ; this
patch, which never had been broken up, nor manured,
annually yielding a wretched crop of coarse spritty hay.

I called on my neighbours, the EARLS oF CALEDON
and GOSFORD, requesting them to come and inspect a
wretched piece of ground, on which I promised to raise, in
the course of the year, a crop of hay of superior quality,
and double the amount of any grown in Ireland that year.

My noble friends were so good as to obey my call, and
inspect the ground in February 1815, in its natural state :
they were much amused at my promise of raising a great
crop of hay, from so miserable a soil; and still more when
I assured them, I should neither break the surface, sow
seed, or plant roots, or perform any other operation, than
draining, weeding, and top-dressing with moor and ashes
burnt contiguous.

In October of the same year, I gave my noble friends.
notice I had performed my promise, and was ready for
inspection: they came in November, attended by friends,
on whom J observed them impressing the wretched state
in which they had seen this piece (forty-eight perches) nine
months before, but now covered with an immense crop,
some in lapcock, but the greater part uncut—different
portions of which were mowed before them. The two
Earls authorized me to say, that the crop seemed éreble
the amount of those they were used to see cut.

The crop produced in this patch in 1816, was still
better; and in 1817, when mowed a month earlier, was
very fine; since it was cut, an unusually*dry October
enabled me to save it without a shower. When it had stood
a fortnight in trampcock, it was weighed in November, in
a drier state than I ever saw my hay weighed before ; and,
by affidavit of the weighers, came to five tons, six hundred,
three quarters, at eight stone the hundred, to the English

153
=
acre; it was mowed October 2; had it, as usual, stood
another month, it would have weighed a ton more.

I shall quote but one instance more, among many that
have occurred, of fiorin occupying the surface in great
luxuriance spontancously. |

My friend and fiorin pupil, A. Younc, Esa. was cul-
tivating this grass with much spirit and success, on the
PENTLAND HILLs, when I wrote to him to try what
spontaneous Nature would do, without breaking the surface
as he had hitherto done.

Mr. YounG replied, that so soon as he had received
my letter, he took to the scene of his cultivation, Mr.
Bairv, of Suorrs, the most successful grower of fiorm
in SCOTLAND; that they observed, contiguous to the cul-
tivated part, a small portion which had not been broken
up, and that upon this, he had a better crop than where he
had laid down the fiorin carefully. My friend now lamented
that he had broken up any of his grassy surface.

Having established the Fact of the facility of throwing
grassy surfaces into great fiorm crops, I as usual proceed
to the principles upon which this new style of proceeding
depends. |

I have for a long time paid great attention to the com-
ponent parts of the grassy sole clothing our soils of various
descriptions, and at all elevations; and have observed that
. Nature invariably mixes a very great variety of grasses,
and nearly the same in all soils, however different from
each other; that of these, those which are best adapted to
the particular soil, come forward in vigour, assume the pre-
dominance, and seem to be in actual possession of the
surface, while the grasses to which the soil is ungenial,
continue in a sort of dormant state, preserving, but not
shewing their existence.

154
:

It is of great importance to establish the truth of this
position, so as to secure conyiction; for the success of the
measures I am proceeding to, depends upon the con-
fidence placed in its truth.

I am not now, as often before, discussing questions re-
lative to the gramina in general, or proceeding to shew
how the above position, or maxim, may be so applied, as
to derive various benefits,to agriculturists from its appli-
cation. I am at present limited to one grass, the agrostis
stolonifera, and have only to show how we are to call this
particular grass into action, and how we are to contrive to
make it come forward of itself, and to take possession of
our surface, in valuable luxuriance, in a field where great
crops are little expected.

The effectual inclosure and amelioration of a few
perches of the most elevated grassy sole, contiguous to
the military road, in its ascent to the Wicklow. mountains,
will soon shew what Nature of herself can do in my own
country; while a similar experiment in the JULIAN ALPS
will determine whether the,agrostis stolonifera be the pre-
dominant possessor of these more southern elevations, and
whether it luxuriates with the same vigour in these re-
gions, it displays in our own more inhospitable wilds.

As the agrostis stolonifera is the only grass I haye dis-
covered, of which such important use can be made as I
have promised, I shall proceed to examine as much of its
natural history as is necessary, and to state the properties
it has derived from Nature, by which it. is enabled to
furnish such a profusion of winter food to our domestic
cattle, in the very regions where it is most wanted.

Our other stoloniferous grasses of great Juxuriance, and
abounding with saccharum, the aira aquatica and fes-
tuca fluitans, are decided aguatics; while the agrostis
stolonifera is amphibious, with powers of sustaining the

155

extremes of wet and drought, to an extent that will scarcely
be credited ; but I speak from experience.

Making a dam for the purposes of irrigation, I flooded a
ditch, with fiorin growing at the bottom. This was covered
twenty-two inches deep, and for four years the roots
regularly sent up stolones to the surface of the water, in
good health; and probably would have continued to do so,
had not the floods ofa rainy winter filled up the ditch.

Nearly at the same time I¢ried the other extreme, and
planted a fiorin sod on the top of my garden wall, ten feet
high ; here, without being watered or approached for four
years, it continued vigorous, dropping every year a bunch
of stolones, twelye or fourteen inches long;—nor did this
root die a natural death; it was destroyed in putting an
additional building against the wall.

-Though this grass preserves its existence, and even its
health, undersuch opposite extremes, itluxuriates into value
only under more favourable circumstances, for the soil in
which it grows must be tolerably deep, and well drained, so
as effectually to prevent any water stagnating about its
roots.

Another curious property of this agrostis is, that it thrives
and luxuriates equally at the top of the mountain and
bottom of the valley, indifferent to any changes in elevation.
’ Leven proved on the spot, to my friend SERJEANT Foy,
and some members of the Farming Society, that fiorin
“was more vigorous towards the summit, obviously because
the rivals that crowded it lower down, left the alpine field
to this hardier grass, unable to sustain the severities of the
climate. , |

I have said enough to shew that to cultivate fiorin grass

at great elevations, is no very desperate attempt; for we
may surely expect, that a vegetable fostered by man,

protected from its enemies and rivals, and stimulated by

156

manure, will thrive and luxuriate in the very same situations
where it comes forward spontaneously, and grows vigo-
rously, without any of these helps.

But this is not all; for although it may be often neces-
sary to cultivate fiorin with care and labour in alpine
regions, I have promised that it shall grow there without
culture, and produce Spontaneous crops of equal value to
those upon which we expend our labour and pains in any
country, high or low. r

To establish these extraordinary positions, I must recur
to general principles, and shew that what I promised ‘is
not incompatible with the regular proceeding of Nature,
though iy Measures may be very different from the usual
proceedings of man.

Let us examine the population of the vegetable kingdom,
as originally disposed by Nature, and we shall find on every
part of our surface an heterogeneous mass of plants,
crowding upon each other, and contending for the pos-
session. Among these, man soon perceived, or was taught,
(whether by instinet or otherwise, is foreign to our present
object) that some were well adapted for his sustenance;
nor could it be long before he discovered, that from these
favourite vegetables, he could extract but little food, so
long as they remained in their natural state, pressed upon
by rivals, impeding their growth, and diminishing their
produce.

The idea of giving to these favourites the exclusive
Possession of some area, must soon have occurred: hence.
distinct cultivation, that is, agriculture; which I have
Somewhere defined, a war between Man and Nature,
contending for the possession of certain portions of our
surface. .

That cultivation is an actual war is obvious; for man
commences by extermination: he ploughs the ground, for

157

the purpose of destroying every vegetable that Nature had
put in possession, and then sows his own seed, or plants
his favourite ; repeating the same operation for every dis-
tinct crop he looks for, to the exclusion of ali others.

I believe I am the first that sought to obtain an exclu-
sive crop of a favourite vegetable by less violent means,
that used conciliation, and compounded with Nature, not
obtruding any favourite of my own, but selecting, and ‘fos-
tering one of those she had already put into possession.

The general rule for calling one of these into more luxu-
riant vegetation, giving it the predominance, and, if we
can, the exclusive possession, is simple: select from among
your natural green soles, a portion whose soil is congenial
to the vegetable you wish to bring forward,—enliyen it
with the manure that agrees best with your favourite ; and
relieve it by weeding, from the rivals that crowd upon and
encumber it.

The particular rule for giving exclusive possession of
our grassy surface to the agrostis stolonifera, is derived
from the character and habits of this grass.

The soil in which it delights most, is loose, dry, and of
some depth, whether peaty or loamy ;—any manure suits
it, and it agrees particularly well with ashes and lime, pure,
and still better if mixed up in compost.

IT say the soil should be dry; this is indispensably ne-
cessary: but I prefer a soil made dry by many surface
drains, to one naturally so; for a soil kept wet, by a ré-
tentive bottom refusing a passage downwards to the de-
luges of rain, is clothed mostly with the grasses that affect
such soil,.and some fiorin among them. Change the na-
ture of the soil, from wet to dry, from poor to rich, and
the paltry ungrateful aquatic occupants pine and vanish ;
while the fiorin, now in its favourite soil, comes forward in
luxuriance, and takes possession.

158

{ admit that in the great mixture of vegetables occupy-
ing every green sole, there are some, which, with the fiorin,
like a dry and rich soil: these, so long as the soil was sour
and ungenial, remained in a dormant state; but now that
we have made it rich and dry, they, with the fiorin, rush
into luxuriance, and would crowd; but here we come in aid
of the fiorm, and weed out these rivals.

In this operation we are much assisted by the habits
which fiorm has derived from nature ;—first it luxuriates |
at a very late period, whence its rivals of early paroxysm —
of growth come forward in vigour long before it, and
point themselves out for extirpation.

Secondly,—the paroxysm of fierin luxuriance, though
very late in commencing, continues much longer in yigour
than that of any other vegetable I know; so long, that its
stolones form a thick mat on the surface, under which no
other vegetable can exist:—thus, while coarser rivals are
pointed out for man to extirpate, the fiorin itself suffo-
cates, and exterminates the more diminutive ones, and >
remains in exclusive possession of the field.

Still, however, that possession must be watchfully
‘ guarded, and the destruction of intruders never inter-
mitted. Weeding of meadows is a new task, disagreeable,
and often omitted, and the consequence always fatal; yet
it is not very weighty, as I contract for the weeding of all
my fiormm meadows at five shillings the English acre an-
nually. |

It should seem that the measure of raising spontaneous
crops of fiorin, was equally practicable from all grassy
soles of three or four years standing, where Nature had
time to form her own mixtures; but in practice the case
will be found very different in different descriptions of
ground.

The sole impediment to our success, arises frem the ob-

159

trusion of rivals, crowding upon and interfering with the
growth of our fiorin.

Our natural grassy soles may be considered as of three
descriptions ;—that covering rich low grounds, poor,
sour low grounds, and green mountain; each assumed to
be sufficiently deep. |

In rich low grounds, our attempts to give fiorin the
exclusive possession would be vain, the rush of obtruding
rivals being quite irresistible.

In cold, sour, low lands, we have a better chance of
succeeding, because the change we must operate on the
soil, will be injurious to. the rivals in possession, and we
may be able to weed out new intruders.

It was upon such soil I succeeded so well in the instance
I have mentioned, where the EARLS oF CALEDON and
GosFoRD were so good as to witness my proceedings.

Of ali low grounds, flat, moist, green, peat moss, is best
adapted to the production of spontaneous fiorim meadows ;
for, in addition to the change we must make from wet to
dry, peaty soil is congenial to fiorin, and unfavourable to
its rivals, and it affords an inexhaustible source of manure,
more agreeable to this grass than any other, PEAT ASHES.

MounrTaAINs are the true field for raising valuable crops
of spontaneous meadow: our agrostis is already in predo-
minant possession of all verdant high elevations in our own
mountains ; and few efforts will be required to give it the
exclusive possession, as very few of its rivals are enabled
by nature to sustain alpine severities; while fiorin is proved
to luxuriate equally on the top of the mountain, and bottom
of the valley. The declivities too of the surface, make
drainage an easy task, and in all the mountains of our
islands, peaty soil is predominant.

The metropolis of Ireland is contiguous to an immense
area of mountain, admirably adapted to improvement by

160

fiorin. Twice, at the request of the Irish FARMING So-
CIETY, I have visited and examined this dreary territory,
and reported on its aptitude for fiorin cultivation; engaging
, to supply the city of Dublin with all the hay requisite for
the numberless -horses it feeds, frem grounds hitherto
deemed unprofitable.

My speculations. were then limited to the actual culture
of fiorin; for I had not at that time discovered the facility
of raising immense crops of this valuable grass, without
the trouble and expense of cultivation, by substituting the
spontaneous eflorts of Nature to the labour of man, in
_ preparing our surface.

So soon as I was convinced of the feasibility of my new
measures, 1 tendered my services to the Society, offering
to superintend their execution myself: the Society was
pleased to accept my offer, and a day was fixed for my
waiting on them at their HOUSE, to arrange proceedings ;
unfortunately, in the interval, the excellent state of health
which I had been blessed with to a late period of life, was
interrupted, and I was no longer equal to the requisite
exertions.

But still my pen is ready; and should I have roused a
desire to improve the wilds of Nature, I am still able to
direct the exertions of spirited amateurs; and whether
they are about to be made on the ScorcH MouNTAINS,
where I am already employed,—on the peaty WICKLOW
MovwntTAIns, to which I have long looked with a wishful
eye,—or to the new theatre I should be happy to open
the JuLIAN ALPs,—I am still able to direct the operations
I can no longer superintend, and to communicate with the
amateurs of any country who shall call upon me, and make
me acquainted with their local circumstances, that I a
teach them how to avail themselves of them.

Though mountains be my immediate and favourite ob-

161

ject, LT am ready to encounter STERILITY im any form.
Certain that the accommodating fiorin, under proper manage -
ment, would clothe with verdure, and of course pasturage,
many fields now assumed to be consigned to perpetual
barrenness, and having got my foot in GERMANY, I should
like to make an experiment on the BRANDENBURG heaths,
at present so dreary and desolate.

Since I commenced this Memoir I am called upon to a
new and very promising field, the marshy (and I presume
alluvial) grounds bounding the great American rivers.

Mr. SwARTSWouTH of NEw YorK, encouraged, as he
tells me, by the successful experiments of JUDGE PETERS
and others on European fiorin grass, is most anxious to
haye my opinion on the probability of its succeeding on the
_ marshy banks of the NorTH RIVER, so as to enable him
to supply the city of New York with hay.

1 had formerly declined to encourage the gentlemen of
Boston to cultivate this grass; for finding I had been
unable to persuade my English pupils to keep the fiorin I
was teaching them te cultivate free from weeds, I feared
IT should also fail in New ENGLAND, where the rush of
summer vegetation was so much more powerful.

I have given more encouragement to Mr. SwArtTs-
WOUTH, and have transmitted to him full directions how
to call into action the spontaneous fiorin which I know
exists in the marshy grounds, and how to apply the mea-
sures I have already so minutely detailed in this Memoir
to the repression of its rivals, and to the transfer of the
exclusive possession of his marshes to the grass he wishes
for; strongly impressing on him the indispensable necessity
of his own constant interference in the extermination of
intruders, as well as in the careful discharge of all water
by most numerous surface drains leading to sluices with
outward opening valves. | é

162

What a field for improvement does our CuEsTerR Dre
afford? I have had fiorin stolones sent to me from its
muddy and sandy banks below high-water mark, for this
strange grass agrees equally with fresh and salt water.

I am proud to see my favourite passing, not from indi-
vidual to individual, but from nation to nation, from IRE-
LAND to AMERICA and DENMARK, from DENMARK to
GERMANY and HouLLanp, travelling like rhetoric of old:

Gallia causidicos docuit lacunda Britannos,
De conducenda loqutur jam Rhetore Thule.

APPENDIX.

Directions for laying down and cultivating Fiorin.

1 musT not forget, however important the disco-
very may be, of our power to raise luxuriant fiorin crops
by the spontaneous effort of Nature, (upon which I have
dwelt so long,) that the actual cultivation of this va-
luable grass is not only of great consequence, but the
object immediately in view that occasioned the flattering
call I have received, and to which I am bound to pay the
most profound attention.

I shall therefore lay down the very short rules, which
those who wish to cultivate fiorin should be governed by,
and shall suggest the alterations in our measures, which I
think may be necessary under a warmer sun, where summer
vegetation is probably more vigorous than in our own
moist and more languid climate.

In the first place, I wish the soil to be deep; for although
fiorin roots penetrate but a little way below the surface,
yet it is of very great importance, that the loose and well-
tilled soil should reach much lower.

The ground should be already dry, or made dry, by
many open surface drains; for if water, whether atmo-
spheric or other, be allowed to collect and stagnate about
the roots of the grass, it soon becomes acrid, and highly
injurious: this rule is indispensable ; yet occasional flood-
ings, or even long submersions, do not seem in the least to
injure this grass, if rapidly let off.

164

Fiorin must have the exclusive possession of the surface,
that is, all intruders, especially other grasses, must be
carefully weeded out, whenever they appear. I mayadd, the
surface must be frequently top-dressed ; and these reno-
vations will abundantly repay the trouble and expence they
occasion.

In laying down fiorin crops, we neither use seed nor
roots, when we can procure stolones, of which every cul-
tivator has a superabundance; and the mode of proceeding
is very simple.

We commence at one end of the prepared area, and
scatter stolones, at their full length, over a space extending
along the fence, and about three yards wide. I cannot
determine how thick they are to be spread; we know that
nearly every joint will strike a root, and we must take care
to secure roots enough.

We now from the raw ground behind us take up shovel-
fulls of the loose surface soil, and scatter it over the
stolones, so as nearly to cover them, and thus the business
is done for so far: we then take up another breadth of three
yards, spread strings over it, and cover them in the same
manner.

Where we have tender rich compost, ready prepared.
it is more desirable to drop loads, or barrowfulls of this,
through the field, and to cover the stolones from these,
rather than from the plain surface.

Itis thus I have clothed all my own meadows with fiorin,
and I know not any annual crop laid down so cheaply; for
the stolones cost us nothing, and it is not a crop for one
year only, as I have now my tenth and eleventh crop in full
luxuriance ; and the sole of grass never seemed to require
any style of renovation save top-dressing.

Weeding, indeed, must be repeated, as often as intruders
appear; and I do not find the labour lessens with the age

165

of the meadow—but my contractor seems to think he has
a good bargain, at five shillings per English acre.

Where the object of the cultivator is to get into stock,
and he has to procure liis roots or stolones from remote
places, he must use them more sparingly, and scatter the
stolones thinly, or plant the roots at a greater distance;
and to throw them into higher luxuriance, he must be
liberal of his dung, or compost, which he can probably
well afford, as, in the case I put, his area will be small.

I would also in this case adopt the style [ used in laying
down my first crop, as stated in page 95 for by stretching
them in drills, we economize the stolones: the early
weeding by the zron rake will be very effectual, and the well-
defined narrow drills will be easily weeded by hand; and
inthe instructions I sent to their Imperial Highnesses, with
the roots and stolones I transmitted to them, I recommended
the adoption of this mode, which I was further induced to
do, by ignorance of the intruders to be expected in a new
country under a warmer sun.

SEED, no doubt, presents itself as the most obvious mode
of laying down and propagating any grass; and Nature
has enabled this agrostis, as well as the rest of its tribe,
to throw up great crops of seed, most easily saved: but
the growth is slow, the plant producing neither seed nor
stolones the first year it is sown; and the young seedling is
so very diminutive, that it is soon smothered by the rush
of intruders; nor can it be relieved by weeding, as in the
first year it is undistinguishable from other grasses.

Still the great crop of seed fiorin bears, and the facility
of transmissal from its very diminutive size, make it de-
sirable to get into stock by seed, where the distance is
great; and in this case, | recommend the seed to be sown
in flower-pots, first strongly heating the earth in an oven,

tf)

166

effectually to destroy all seed or concealed roots of other
grasses.

The first mark by which the true species will be disco-
vered, is the projection of the stolones over the edge of
the pots; they will soon drop to the ground, which should
be spread over with a little loose earth, to enable them to
take root: they are not to be disturbed until the middle of
September, when they will be fit to put out, and the culti-
vator will soon find himself in such abundant stock, that he
will no longer think of seed.

That amateurs may not be imposed on by seed of the
agrostis vulgaris (so common in the south of England)
as is often the case, I am ready to transmit by post, a small
paper of seed of my own sowing, to any amateur, on the
sole condition of not being put to the expence of postage ;
and as f have been called upon from HOLLAND, as my
correspondents tell me, by the advice of Dr. BENNET, Pro-
fessor of Rural Giconomy in the University of LEYDEN,
I shall, by the first opportunity, leave a packet of fiorin
seed with my booksellers, WH1rMore and FENN, Charing-
Cross, for Dr. Bennet, to supply his Dutch friends with ;
and I shall also leave a stock with the above gentlemen,
should their English customers wish for a supply.

I have often been asked what is the best season for laying
down fiorin. Here, asin many other parts of his business,
the farmer has not always an option; he must do several
things when he can, though it be not the most desirable |
time: to determine that, we must speculate a little, ¢
priori, and consider what difficulties our favourite has to
encounter in its progress, that we may contrive to avoid
them ; none from seasons, for this hardy grass vegetates at
all seasons; the roots equally, and the stolones tolerably ;
at the worst, that is, in the middle of winter, the only dif-

167

ficulty to be dreaded is the rush of intruding weeds and
grasses.

The best possible season must therefore be that, when
this HosT of enemies is able to do the least mischief, which
I find is from the 8th of September to the 25th; for in
this interval the efforts of vegetation are strong, and both
fiorin and its rivals come forward vigorously ; but the latter
is soon destroyed by the winter frosts, to which the fiorin
is quite insensible, and remains torpid, or rather languid,
until it is with all other vegetables roused by the genial
spring, and in its vigorous progress finds no rivals to en-
counter but those which are just beginning to vegetate—
of course diminutive and weak.

Had we commenced earlier, the intruders would have
time to acquire strength enough to sustain the frost, and
the eontest between them and the fiorin would have been
carried on on equal terms.

This is all theory; but, however sound, my own practice
has generally been different, for the obvious convenience
of laying down fiorin after a potato crop has commonly
thrown me so late as November: but I prefer availing my-
self of the nice state potato culture leaves the ground in,
even at the expence of repairing in spring, the failures that
have occurred from languid winter vegetation.

If we lay down in spring, we have the enemy to en-
counter in full vigour, and in this case I advise laying
down in drills, that we may have the assistance of the rake
in exterminating the weeds: but I totally condemn the
proceedings of some, who, out of greediness, lay down
fiorin like other grasses, with a crop of spring corn; when
this is done, many small vegetables survive the corn, and
encounter the ficrin with mischievous vigour.

I once tried two ridges for experiment with barley, but —
never could master the weeds: I would long ago have

168

broken up these two ridges, and laid them down anew ;
but I reserve them these seven years, to give ocular de-
monstration of the folly of the practice by contrasting them
with the clean crops on each side, laid down in the usua
way.

Nor is any thing gained by this cunning practice; for
by careful management we can secure a fine crop of fiorin
hay in the ensuing autumn, though the stolones be laid
down even late in spring.

My most docile, and of course my most successful pupil,
Mr. Bairp of SHotrs, ScoTLAND, had a field prepared
for me on the 14th of May: I began myself to lay down the
stolones, to teach the novel practice; two intelligent
labourers having got their lesson, had the field finished by
June Ist, and in November Mr. Baird mowed the best
crop ever seen in that country.

POSTSCRIPT.

A FRIEND who has been so good as to peruse the pre-
ceding pages, tells me, that I must not be content with
showing, as I have already done, how I myself came to
discover the value of forin grass ;—but that it is incumbent
on me also to show, if I can, how it happened that this
_ same value came so Jong to escape the notice of man:—for
it is objected, and especially in ENGLAND, that had this
agrostis really possessed such value, and was capable of
producing such luxuriant crops as I have stated it to be, it
must long ago have obtruded itself on the agriculturists who
paid any attention to the natural productions of their re-
spective soils; the agrostis stolonifera bemg, as I have
asserted, found spontaneousin all soils and in all climates.—
My friend also assures me, that, to his own knowledge, this
objection has contributed more to encourage incredulity
on the subject of fiorin than any of the others so strenu-
ously urged. .

I have long ceased to notice the silly cavils against the
culture of fiorin, so often brought forward by hostile and
prejudiced ignorance ; but as I know my friend to be in-
fluenced by very different motives, I concur with him in
thinking, that my Imperial Pupil should be put on his guard,
and prepared with answers to arguments which, it appears,
have been so successfully urged.

The question I am called upon to answer is—How came
the great value of fiorin grass so long to escape the notice
of man? F

PR

170

I shall commence my reply with the two last centuries ;
a more enlightened period than. any preceding, and in
which more attention was paid to the study of nature and
her productions, than in former times.

It appears from the 21; 22; 23,24, pages of the preceding
memoir, that the botanical and agricultural writers of the se-
venteenth century had been sufficiently observant of the na-
tural productions of their country, that my favourite agrostis
had not escaped them, and even that they suspected it to
be of great value ;—how then came they not to pursue the
subject, and actually to make the discovery?

BECAUSE their object was to detail to the world what
they saw and knew; they were not looking for new dis-
coyeries : in short, they were not experimentalists, and it
is by a succession of patient experiments alone, that the
properties of new, or any vegetables, can be found out and
established.

Their successors had other objects in view; they were all
book-makers looking to profit from the sale of their com-
positions and compilations alone; perfectly indifferent to
the general advancement of agricultural science, which
they professed to improve and teach. Their motives are well
described by HoRACE

Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere ; post hoc
Securus, cadat, an recto stet Fabula talo.

It may be more difficult to answer the question I have
put, when we open a wider field and inquire, how the value
of fiorin came to escape the observation of those who for
se many centuries occupied, and availed themselves of the
produce of our grassy surface.

These are of two descriptions, HAyMAKERS and GRA-
ZIERS; who applied the produce of the gramina to the
sustenance of their domestic cattle in very different ways-
Let us try if either of these had any probability of disco-

171

yering the value of fiorin from any thing likely to occur to
them in their own practice.

I commence with the Haymakers ;—the Farmer has at
all times availed himself of the first rush of the earliest of
the culmiferous tribe of grasses—in fact, the most luxuriant
and valuable of the description. He mows when he thinks
the mass of the produce on the ground has attained its
highest perfection, and he saves the crop for store; he has
no indication from nature that the same ground is stocked

with another grass of later period, capable of yielding him
a much finer crop.

Should he have been by accident prevented from
mowing at the proper time, the state of his late crop
_ would have given him no information; a thick mass of
culmiferous grasses in a state of decay, with a few weakly
green stolones peeping through them; the efforts of this
agrostis repressed, and the growth of its stolones impeded
by the crowd already in possession—nothing to induce him
to suspect the real value of this grass.

A haymaker, at any period previous to the discovery of
fiorin, would have thought the man mad who advised him
to root out all the early grasses that had hitherto formed
his hay crop, as soon as they appeared; his cock’s-foot,
his rye grass, his fox-tail, and his meadow fescue ; assuring
him that nature of herself would give him at a later season
a more luxuriant crop from another grass now growing in
the same meadow, but which had as yet scarcely shown
itself.

Strange as such advice might appear, yet it teaches the
practice he must follow, if he expects a valuable fiorin
crop, as the result of his own deliberate culture, or of the
spontaneous effort of nature;—and it is plain, that to this
practice the most attentive observation of his own could
not have led him a single step.

172

As the haymakers were little likely to make the discovery
of the great value fiorim is capable of affording to them,
though so abundantly dispersed through their meadows ;—
the remaining personage interested in the value of grassy
produce (the Grazier ), is still less likely to make the dis-
covery, as in no instance does it ever obtrude itself upon
him ; for the bite of his cattle nips the nascent stolones, and
should they by accidental protection escape the teeth of
his cattle, the feet of the beasts would soon destroy them.

The grazier even has often before his eyes strong evi-
dence that his cattle will not eat fiorin stolones, as solitary
strings frequently remain in his pasture grounds untouched
by the cattle feeding about them.

1 shall state a fact:—Examining THE MARQUIS OF
HERTFORD’S meadows on the edge of LOUGHNEAGH, with
another object in view; I was joined by some of his lord-
ship’s tenants who knew I was directing the cultivation
of fiorin for the Marquis ;—one of these pointed out to me
several stolones on the meadow untouched by the cattle
grazing among them, and asked me if 1 was recommending
the cultivation of a grass which it appeared the cattle
would not eat?’ I begged he would let us finish our bu-
siness, and, as we walked about, that he and his friends
would pick up such stolones as they saw: a large bundle
was thus gathered, and by my directions tendered to the
first cattle we found, who devoured it greedily, showing a
strong desire for more.

The fact is, cattle are not furnished with organs adapted
to enable them to pick up solitary stolones; this would re-
quire something like the bill of a bird: but whenever these
stolones are gathered or severed, all sorts of cattle show
a marked predilection for them.

Since then the only persons interested m, and intimately
acquainted with, the grassy produce of our surface, te wit

173

the Haymaker and Grazer, were little likely to make the
discovery of the great value of this agrostis; whose merit,
and good qualities, as it appears, could in no instance
obtrude themselves on their notice ;—who is the personage,
from whom it might be expected such discovery would be
made?

The EXPERIMENTALIST alone, who, without waiting to
receive previous hints, speculates in some sort @ priort
on the productions of nature, and tries if he can discover
them to possess any new and valuable properties, which
had hitherto escaped the notice of man.

I myself was not aware that nature had any concealed
treasures among the gramina, my peculiar department: 1
indeed thought it possible she might; and if so, was certain
that the present possessors of the agricultural school,
the London seedsmen, and agricultural book-makers, would
never discover them.

Under this impression I began to make experiments,
and, to ascertain their respective properties, cultivated dis-
tinctly every grass I could find, for some years: the un-
foreseen result is the subject of the present memoir, drawn
up for the information of the eminent Personage who has
done me the honour to call for it.

W. RICHARDSON, D. D.

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