Now, as regards sowing useless or annual species, we should recollect that the better they come up the more mischief they create, as they take up the room that the more permanent forms should occupy, and so smother them out. How often have we seen our friends in ecstasies at the success of their new pasture, when the smiling face had been suddenly put upon the matter by the quick-growing Italian rye-grass having taken a possession, which, however, in a year or two it would most probably yield; and so it has happened, that while the seedsman has been advertising a certificate vaunting of success, the pasture is declining, and the proprietor, looking for the reason for such a result, either himself concludes, or is led so to do, that as the seeds came up well, these were not in fault: it must then be the nature of the soil! In giving such directions for grass mixtures as experience would seem to warrant, we confess to a great deal of diffidence; for as scarcely two cases are alike, the difficulty is as great as would be that of a medical man prescribing for his various patients without seeing them; indeed, to profess to do so in either case, as a general rule, savours somewhat of quackery. The following tables, then, it must be understood, are only meant to convey some very general notions as to sorts of grasses and other fodder plants, and their quantities, which we should employ under the specified conditions of soil; albeit, even the quantities should be variable, depending upon the quality of the seeds, the season, and the climate in which they are to be sown:— 1. _Proposed selection for rich loams in best grass-growing positions._ ------------------------------+---------------------------+---------- Botanical Name. | Trivial Name. | Quantity | | Per Acre. ------------------------------+---------------------------+---------- | | lb. oz. Lolium perenne | Perennial Rye | 10 0 Poa pratensis | Meadow Grass | 2 0 Dactylis glomerata | Cocksfoot | 5 0 Festuca pratensis | Meadow Fescue | 3 0 „ duriuscula | Hard „ | 3 0 Alopecurus pratensis | Foxtail | 2 0 Phleum pratense | Catstail | 2 0 Anthoxanthum odoratum | Sweet Vernal | 0 8 Trifolium pratense | Common Clover | 4 0 „ repens | Dutch „ | 2 0 2. _Proposed selection for a poor stiff soil on a clay subsoil._