Our grass in the pastures of the clay-lands, in the mowing season, which, from late feeding in the spring and coldness in the soil, is always late,[6] presents a curious appearance; and I should apprehend, that a truss of our hay from these districts, brought into the London market, or exhibited as a new article of provender at a Smithfield cattle-show, would occasion conversation and comment. The crop consists almost entirely of the common field scabious (scabiosa succisa), loggerheads (centauria nigra), and the great ox-eye daisy (chrysanthemum lucanthemum.) There is a scattering of bent (agrostis vulgaris), and here and there a specimen of the better grasses; but the predominant portion, the staple of the crop, is scabious—it is emphatically a promiscuous herbage; yet on this rubbish do the cattle thrive, and from their milk is produced a cheese greatly esteemed for toasting—melting, fat, and good flavored, and, perhaps, inferior to none used for this purpose. The best grasses, indeed, with the exception of the dogstail (cynosurus cristatus), do not delight in our soil: the meadow poa (p. pratensis), and the rough stalked poa (p. trivialis), when found, are dwarfish; and having once occasion for a few specimens of the foxtail (alopecurus pratensis), I found it a scarce and a local plant: but I am convinced, from much observation, that certain species of plants, and grasses in particular, are indigenous to some soils, and that they will vegetate and ultimately predominate over others that may be introduced. In my own very small practice, a field of exceedingly indifferent herbage was broken up, underwent many plowings, was exposed to the roastings of successive suns, and alternations of the year under various crops; amongst others that of potatoes; the requisite hackings, hoeings, and diggings of which alone were sufficient to eradicate any original fibrous, rooted herbage. This field was laid down with clean ray grass (lolium perenne), white trefoil, and hop clover, and did tolerably well for one year: and then the original soft-grass, (holcus lanatus) appeared, overpowered the crop, and repossessed the field; and yet the seed of this holcus could not have lain inert in the soil all this time, as it is a grass that rarely or never perfects its seed, but propagates by its root. The only grass that is purposely sown—trefoils are not grasses—is, I believe, the ray, or rye, no others being obtainable from the seedsman: this we consider as perennial; yet, let us lay down two pieces of land with seeds, from the same sack, the one a low, moist, deep soil, the other a dry upland, and in three or four years we shall find the natural herbage of the country spring up, dispute and acquire in part possession of the soil, in despite of the ray grass sown: in the deep soil, the predominant crop will probably consist of poæ, cockfoot, meadow-fescue, holcus, phleum, foxtail, &c.; in the dry soil it will be